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“Okay.” I swallow hard. He left? Where the fuck did he go? Why?
“To Oregon.” My brows pinch together, but I still don’t give him the satisfaction of asking why.
“Good for him.” He huffs out a laugh and I grip the glass tighter.
“You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” he says. My lips barely twitch, but I force them back to neutrality before turning back to him. I lean against the counter, my eyes narrowed as I stare at him.
“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice level. He shrugs as he slides onto a barstool, his forearms still resting against the bar.
“Can I get a whiskey?” He tilts his chin to the bottles behind me and I let out a hard breath before turning and grabbing the first bottle of whiskey I see and pouring some into the glass I’d been cleaning. Sliding it across the wood to him, he downs it in one gulp, his face not even twitching from the amount of alcohol he’d just drunk. “Spence is back in town.” I nod a few times and set the bottle back on the shelf.
“Yeah, I know. I saw him when I got here.” I toss the rag onto the counter and fold my arms over my chest, studying him. “Why are you here, Arch?” He shrugs again.
“Just wanted to check in with you.”
“Why?” He shrugs again and it pisses me off. “Whatever. I’m fine. You can leave me alone now.”
“Yeah, you seem fine,” he deadpans. “Life with Kiwi not everything you thought it would be?”
“Fuck off,” I snap. “My life is just fucking fine without that asshole in it.” He grins like he won and it takes all I have not to slam my fist into the center of his face. “Did you just come here to bother me?” His face falls, and so does my stomach.
“What all do you know?” he asks. “About what’s going on?”
“Enough to know I want nothing to do with it.” I lift my brows in a challenge, waiting for him to argue with me. But he doesn’t. He just nods again.
“Good,” he says, his head still bobbing. “Good. Stay away from this shit.”
“Yeah, obviously. I have a kid to think about.” His eyes narrow slightly.
“And if you didn’t?” I blink at him. What the fuck does that even mean?
I try to calm my whirling thoughts, but they just get more jumbled. If I didn’t have to worry about Ian, would I care? Would I have still reacted the way I had? Would I have tried to help instead?
My first instinct was to protect my son—it’ll always be my first instinct. But the second one…the second feeling that bubbled up my chest was pride. Pride to know that Kiwi was one of the good guys. I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
But it was there, and it’s been there since he told me.
And a part of me feels like if I only had myself to worry about, I would’ve asked him to bring me in on it. I would’ve helped. I would’ve…
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s a stupid question. I have Ian, and no amount of thinking about what if’s will change that.” He assesses me in a way that makes me squirm.
Everyone looks over Archer, only seeing his good looks. They don’t see that cunning mind of his, or the way he’s scary observant. He’s always watching, always aware of everything. No one notices what he’s capable of, but I never miss it. I’ve always seen it.
And I hate to admit that I see a lot of Kiwi in him, too. Kiwi is just as observant and cunning and brilliant. They’re so alike in so many ways, but also so fucking different. So, so different.
Archer isn’t a settle down kind of man. But Kiwi? I don’t know if he is, but I think he could be. I think the possibility is there.
I can see him being a father, and fuck me for even thinking he’d be a good one, but I know he would be. I think he’d be the perfect husband too…when he isn’t being a fucking psychopath.
But I know I’d always come second to the club. I know I’d never be his first priority—Ian would never be his first priority. It would always be the club. Always.
And I can’t live that life.
I’d seen my mother and stepmother live it, and I always promised myself that I’d never be them. I’d never make the same mistakes they had. I’d never get involved with a biker.
But maybe a part of me always wanted to. Why else would I always come back to working at The Crossroads? It wasn’t because these guys were like family. I was just another bartender to most of them. I wasn’t in the club, not like I had been when my dad was in it.
Maybe I always knew the only man who could ever put up with me would be a biker, someone dominant and comfortable enough with himself that he could see through my bullshit. A man like that would love me no matter how hard I was to deal with. A man like that…
