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Willow
After spending the entire day together, sorting out what we could at the shop, Archer and I lock up the shambles of my shop with a list of things for my brother to handle. I hated that part, but Archer convinced me that there was no reason I shouldn’t accept the help, especially since it would keep Cole too busy to freak out on me. At this moment, I’m beyond tired, and every muscle in my body aches. My feet drag, and all I can think about is hitting Archer’s million thread count Egyptian cotton pillows. That might not be a thing, but it’s still the fanciest bed I’ve slept in, in a very long time. I still can’t believe I’m sleeping with a total stranger. It’s weird how much he seems like someone I’ve always known. The comfort level I’ve been feeling is fucking crazy. It’s easy to be myself with him, to laugh and joke, and even share things like my dreams for the shop. Things I haven’t shared with anyone else. Why this rich boy wanted to spend his day helping me sort out a dingy old tattoo parlor is beyond me, but I appreciate it more than I can ever tell him.
I loved that he got down and dirty, and did the back-breaking work himself instead of hiring someone else to do it. If his apartment is anything to go by, the man is loaded. From the Italian marble floors to the designer suits in his closet, I know his lifestyle and taste are expensive, which only reminds me of the life I’ve spent my adult years running from.
Still, being with him is nothing like I thought it would be. His apartment feels inviting, where my childhood home felt cold. Being with him is like being with a best friend, while my past was anything but and they left me feeling nothing but lonely. He is the opposite of what I expected when we first met.
Today, I tried ridiculously hard and failed to ignore how sexy his ass looked, constantly bending over in his form-fitting designer jeans. The pretty boy is hot, but put him to work where he gets that tight t-shirt dirty, and my panties are drenched.
Driving back home earlier in the day made me nervous at first, but with Archer at my side, I felt safe. I haven’t talked about the crash yet, but I’ve been thinking about it almost non-stop. Boarding up the windows, and doing the little we could, wasn’t enough to distract me. My mind whirled back to Vicky and the accident that shaped my future. A future where I survived, and she didn’t.
“Where’d you go?” Archer smiles softly at me, and I melt at his kindness. His gentleness, after a hard day of cleaning out my dream shop, completely breaks me, and tears rise and pour out of me with zero control.
He quickly pulls into the underground parking lot and comes to a stop. I’m surprised when he suddenly yanks my seatbelt off and pulls me into his arms, embracing me in a hug that’s so strong and reassuring, I almost calm down, but the bad memories of my past are creeping in and taking me to a dark place I never wanted to return too. My tears slow but don’t stop, and Archer continues to hold me. He doesn’t say anything stupid like It’s ok or I know how you must feel, like so many others would word vomit with no real thought.
I inhale his reassuring scent, noticing he smells more like sweat than his expensive cologne, and I love it. As more time passes, I start feeling too exposed, too vulnerable, and as much as I want to stay in this moment forever, I slowly peel myself away. As we separate, his face stays close to mine, and I see too much in his eyes. They’re a storm of dark brown, burning with compassion and desire, and I gulp audibly at the piercing gaze which is directed at me.
“Thank you,” I whisper against his lips, which are only inches from mine. The spoken words seem to snap him out of a daze because he pulls back and drops his arms from around me. I’m still sitting on his lap, pressed to his front, as the steering wheel bites at my back.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” He asks; his unsure tone surprises me.
“Yeah. I’m so damn tired of thinking about old ghosts and car crashes. I just want to curl into your bed and never leave.”
If I thought Archer Alexander was attractive before, the smile that breaks across his face turns me into an obsessed schoolgirl in a sloppy puddle of lust at his feet. Before I make the mistake of kissing him, I move off him and slip back into my seat.
“That can be arranged,” he says and shifts his car into drive, and we make our way to his parking spot before heading into the comfort of his apartment.
Among all the luxury and expensive furniture is an old beat-up baseball glove and ball he keeps on the coffee table as well as books on the bookshelf. I know he actually reads because he’s told me about a few of them and how he loves getting lost in different worlds of sci-fi and mystery novels his dad gifted him over the years. He’s confided in me, and I wonder, not for the first time, why everything is so easy with him when I’ve only known him for a couple of days.
Crawling into bed around one in the morning after hours on my feet should make me fall right to sleep, but when Archer crawls in next to me, I’m suddenly alert and aware of how intimate sharing a bed is, and I question how in the hell this happened.
“So, do you want to talk about it or just pretend it didn’t happen for a while and talk about lame movies you secretly love?”
His question is both endearing and appreciated, and I can’t help the light laugh that comes out. Taking a deep breath, I decide it would feel good to tell someone about Vicky. Why not a stranger?
“It’s about a lot more than just the crash at the shop.” I swallow hard and move past the anxiety bubbling in the pit of my belly.
“Growing up, I didn’t fit the mold my parents wanted for me. More the awkward duck than a beautiful swan.” His brows turn down, but before he interrupts me, I push to get it all out. I spill details about my childhood friendship, how our parents hated all our choices, from music to our clothes. Vicky and I were always different. Eccentric is what they would say when they put it nicely.
“Our parents weren’t the only ones. Our classmates were just as bad, and more often than not, we were bullied.” I don’t tell him about my parents’ money or New York. I stick to the stuff that matters. The stuff that’s been haunting me all day rushes out like a waterfall that’s been dammed up for the past seven years. “We easily became best friends. Stood united against both our parents and asshole peers. We even planned to go to college together.” I look away, taking a deep breath.
“You can tell me what happened. You can trust me, Willow…or you don’t have to talk about it tonight if it’s too much,” he whispers in the dark of his room, but I lick my lips and nod, determined to let it all out if only this one time.
“We were driving around killing time, so we didn’t have to go home. It wasn’t late, but she drove down by the pier where there were little to no streetlights.” Here’s the part I don’t want to remember. I’ve never told another soul, but here, in the moment, it feels good to get it off my chest, so I go on.
“We were fighting over a guy we both met at a party. He was going to the same college we chose and took both our numbers at different times of the night without us knowing it. It sounds so stupid now, but for two seventeen-year-old girls with no experience with guys, it was a big deal. She was screaming at me and calling me the same names the kids in school did since I was little, and I got so mad, I pulled her hair.” Suddenly, the angry look on her face comes back, and I remember every detail. A small tear slides across the bridge of my nose. “I can still remember the smudges of eyeliner under her eyes, the loud sounds of My Chemical Romance playing in the car, and the sound of screeching tires as she jerked the wheel, sending us flying down the bumpy wooden pier and into the water. I was pulled out, but she hit her head so hard, she was unconscious, and by the time they pulled her out, she was dead.” His warm hand runs up my arm, sending a flock of goosebumps across my skin.
“What happened to your shop reminded you of what happened to her, to Vicky? That can’t be easy to live with, but for the record, neither accident was your fault. You know that, right?” At his gentle words, I open my eyes. I didn’t realize I had them closed tight in my musing.
The dark bedroom had felt like a warm blanket of security, but hearing him say my fears out loud is painful, and tears sting my eyes again. I don’t have to answer. He understands, and instead of asking more questions, I find myself back in his strong embrace. The tears stop, and after a while, I feel myself drifting off to sleep, still wrapped in the arms of a man who has no obligation to comfort me. The same man who is making a scary dent in my armor, and I find that terrifying.
When morning comes, it is the hot flesh against my cheek that wakes my body before my mind catches up. Opening my eyes timidly, I catch a glimpse of rock-hard abs under my hand and realize I’ve slept on top of Archer, and his arm is curled around my waist, with his left hand possessively down my pants. Suddenly he takes a deep breath that raises my whole body along with his chest. When I look up at his scruffy chin, his eyes flutter open. The hand that was slowly squeezing my ass cheek freezes as he seems to wake up. I know the exact moment he fully realizes our position, and the shocked look on his face is priceless.
“Good morning, baby face,” I say with a laugh and push myself up and off his tempting body before I ruin whatever this is we’re doing.
“Morning,” he grumbles as I make my way to the bathroom. I splash my face with cold water, hoping it will clear my mind of all the uncomfortable things swirling around inside that I don’t want to deal with today. I don’t bother putting on a bra from the bag of clothes I brought over from my place. Still not sure how I ended up living with Archer, I laugh to myself and make my way out, looking for the man that kept me warm on one of the shittiest nights of my life.
He’s not in bed when I come out, so I head for the kitchen with hopes of coffee in my near future and maybe one of those yummy fruit smoothies. As I walk down the hallway, I hear voices and stop dead in my tracks as a woman sits at his island drinking coffee with him as he clearly makes her breakfast. She’s laughing, and soon, her eyes catch mine, and the conversation stops. This gets Archer’s attention, and he puts down the frying pan and comes around to greet me with a kiss on the cheek. This surprises me almost as much as the strange woman currently staring at us.
