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His place was a mess and he knew Brielle wasn’t coming tomorrow to fix it, but he didn’t really care.
He took his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table next to a clean sheet of drafting paper, which he pulled out from underneath his desk. He picked up a pencil, but nothing appeared on the paper in front of him. His gaze kept flicking to the phone, as if Brielle would even think of him in all of this. He hadn’t even asked her to let him know what happened, and frankly, he doubted he would be on her mind at all, despite the fact that he couldn’t get her off his.
She’d been worried, true, but she’d really looked disinterested when she left. So much for getting her help redecorating.
He put pencil to paper. He tried to move it. He really did. His muscles ached everywhere and he was pretty sure he had some new bruises thanks to the slight fall and everything else that had happened back in his room, but for once, he barely even cared.
He picked up his phone and brought up his messages. There were no texts between him and the last number that had called him. There was barely much of a call history. But he didn’t want to hear any voices right now. Didn’t have the courage to voice his wish out loud.
Dad, he texted,will you help me get my license and a van so I can drive myself?
He put the phone down, certain it would be silent. His dad had probably moved on to the zillion other things he did to entertain himself on a Sunday, satisfied he’d done as much as he could to quiet his wailing wife for the day. He wasn’t even sure his dad knewhowto text. His mother certainly didn’t.
It was another minute before his phone buzzed.
Finally, the text said.Of course.
The message blinked an extra minute before new text appeared.
Is there somewhere you want me to take you in your mother’s van before then?
Archer almost couldn’t believe it. Surely someone had taken his father’s phone and was responding on behalf of him as part of the big cosmic joke against him.
If you’re free right now…he typed, not even hoping.
* * *
His dad didn’t even askwhyhe wanted to go to the airport. Maybe he could assume by the fact that he had no luggage that he at least wasn’t going to take off on a trip without letting everyone know. Then again, he probably knew he couldn’t really go on a trip alone, not without someone to help him pack and unpack his wheelchair whenever he got to a place that wasn’t accessible or even when boarding the plane. (Although he supposed the flight attendants might have helped with that. Perhaps it was possible after all.)
Which made him think again about the car he’d need. His parents had gotten this van with a lift so his mother wouldn’t have to lift Archer’s chair herself. But he’d need a lift to get the chair up into the driver’s seat as well as hand-based controls. (Although he supposed he could load his chair in the back with a lift and climb into a bucket seat if there were stairs that lowered.) Not for the first time, he realized how fortunate he was to have parents who could afford these things.
And that, despite it all, he was sort of on okay terms with the one writing the checks.
It was forty minutes into the drive before his dad even said anything more than the few words they’d shared when they were getting in the car to explain where they were going.
“Is this going to be one of those mad dashes through the airport you see in movies to stop a girl from getting on a plane?”
Archer’s jaw dropped and he stared at his dad. He seemed so serious, but there was something—a little twinkle in his eye—that made him question whether or not his dad found this whole venture an annoyance after all.
“I’ve seen you with a clear path in front of you,” continued his dad. “I know how fast you can blaze down an aisle. You’re going to get stopped at security unless you buy a ticket, though. Hollywood always seems to forget that.”
“Not to mention it takes them an additional ten to twenty minutes to scan my chair to make sure I’m not smuggling anything,” added Archer, grinning. “No… Well… A girl I know is trying to stop her sister from flying, and I thought… I don’t even know what I thought. I just wanted to be there.”
The more he thought about it, the stupider he felt. Just because they’d had sex didn’t mean he was her boyfriend. He knew it was a bad idea to be her boyfriend, considering her plans to leave the area (probably). He’d known her… less than a week. This was all wrong, but for some reason it felt so right.
And if it screwed things up between him and Brielle—as much as that hurt him to think about—fine. They needed to end at some point anyway.
“So what you’re saying is we’re sort of on a fool’s errand.” His dad’s voice got clipped, and Archer winced. He knew it was a Sunday, but his dad always had a dozen things to do.
The landscape zipped by outside the window and Archer shrugged.
His dad cleared his throat. “I was joking, son. I said I’d drive you wherever you wanted to go.”
Archer knew that the longer he let the silence sit between them, the more awkward it would be, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Was Mother… Is she terribly upset?”
“I’m sorry I even had her call you today,” spat his dad. “You need to stop worrying so much about your mother’s moods. The only one who can fix those is her, and she’s had decades of practice in letting her anxiety get the best of her.” His dad tore his eyes off the road for a second to reach a hand over to Archer to pat his shoulder. “It’s not for you to fix, okay?”
“I know that… But I…”
