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MINKA
New York is fun and all. Wearing gowns and waltzing through a room withthe godfatheris the stuff adrenaline junkies crave. Fine food, a glass of wine. There were even first-class flights from Copeland and back, all thanks to Sophia Solomon, who insisted on booking my tickets.
Disappearing for a day and leaving Aubree behind to act as chief comes with its perks, and better yet, bringing Archer home with me again, instead of having to sit and wait for his arrival, makes me giddy again after days of feeling like half of me was missing.
Codependence sucks, and feeling incomplete—when, not all that long ago, I could have sworn I was self-sufficient and needed no one—is enough to make my palms sweat.
Because if I lose him, I lose my sanity, my heart, and everything that comes in between.
But like I said, bringing him home so he sits in the seat beside mine takes away all that anxiety and leaves me with a nice wash of contentment flowing through my veins.
Did I mention yet that codependence sucks?
Together, we walk through the doors of Tim’s bar and arrive to the early evening crowd of cops drowning a hard day’s work, and families risking a burger and fries and hoping they can escape their booths before the noisy nighttime mob arrives.
The jukebox plays in the corner, though not so loud that patrons can’t maintain a conversation. And behind the bar, Daisy pours drinks, juggles cash, and flirts with anyone who slides their credit card across the counter.
But she doesn’t flirt with Tim. She doesn’t even side-eye him as he works the other end of the bar.
As for Tim, he pauses in his bustling when our gazes meet.
He’s home.We’rehome. Felix is the best representation Archer’s entire family has in New York City—God help us all—and Aubree’s… happy.
Reasonably.
At least, according to her bubbly tone on the phone when I called and told her to come here for dinner.
Tim’s emerald eyes scour my face while Archer and I stop at the door for a moment. His gaze slides down to our hands, linked, and our fingers, intertwined and unbreakable. He studies my body—unharmed, when he might’ve expected different after my run-in with Estefan Cordoza—then he looks to Archer and performs the same inspection.
Maybe by returning to New York, he expected the world to burn and for none of us to leave unless in a casket. He doesn’t say the words, but the way he watches us speaks a thousand thoughts. The way he keeps checking to make sure we’re safe says so much.
He went home. He watched his father die. He had a run-in with Cordoza himself, and still, he lived.
It’s fair, I suppose, that he takes a minute to take stock.
“You okay?” Turning inward, Archer swings our joined arms around to loop his over my shoulder. Our fingers remain linked, and his lips go to my ear so warm breath saturates my skin in the best way. He presses a kiss to my earlobe and squeezes me close. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” I pull back and meet his eyes. “Of course. You want a burger before we leave?”
“Mm. Yes please.” His mouth peels back into a grin I remember from our early days of dating. Back before Felix and New York and Timothy Malone the Second were clouds hanging over our heads. A smile from before Archer was shot in the shoulder, and his injury meant he couldn’t pick me up and have his way with my body in the most delicious sense.
It’s the grin of a free man, and I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing it.
“You’re back!” Too loud, too attention-grabbing, Aubree’s voice brings me around until I catch sight of hair with fresh new streaks of pink and purple.
The addition of the purple clearly a therapy session my sweet colleague needed after I left the city without warning her.
“Oh my gosh, I missed you!” She practically shoves Archer aside and wraps me up in a hug that squeezes the air from my lungs. She jiggles us so I risk a nasty case of whiplash, then she pulls back, but holds my arms and looks me up and down. “I missed you, Minnie!”
I choke out a laugh and shake her off my arms. “You still don’t get to call me Minnie. Never ever.”
When Archer steps close again and wraps me up tight, I slip under his arm and shake my head. I can’t wipe the smile from my face, even if I felt the need to be that serious, awkward woman he claims I was when we first met.
Maybe I’m feeling freer now too. Less weighed down with stress about the New York branch of Malones. Felix is… well, not harmless. But he’s goofy and possesses an uncanny loyalty to his family. Micah’s a sweetheart, injured but safe. Tired, but healing. And Cato is still a baby, though he watches me the way Archer does.
He’s a teen, but he’s heterosexual, and apparently has a thing for brunettes with medical degrees.
He’s also officially been put on notice by Archer to not get any ideas. Which was possibly the strangest conversation I was witness to in New York; a feat, considering everything that went down.
