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“I’m drinking Coke and screwing with my sleep signals.” She nearly has to shout to make herself heard above the din of the bar. “But I’m feeling pretty good. You nearly done at work?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way to you now. Fletch has gone to get Moo, then he’s coming down, too. Aubree there?”
“Yeah.” She sips, andahhhhsher happiness. “She’s making goo-goo eyes at your brother, but when I tease her about it, she says she’s over him and he can screw anyone he wants.”
“She’s a liar,” I chuckle. Cars putter past me, and a bus rumbles along the street, moving end-of-day commuters away from one district and into another. “She’ll cut his balls off if he dares touch someone else now.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” she snickers. “She says she’s over him, but it’s all a lie. How long till you get here?”
My heart swells at her eagerness for my arrival. My smile notches up, because the cool, calm, yethomicidalMinka Mayet is a marshmallow for no one… except me. She’s pliable for no one… except me. Touchable by no one… except me.
Every strong person is allowed one weakness in this life. It’s what differentiates us from the robots. The humans from the unfeeling.
It’s both humbling and satisfying to know that I’m Minka’s Achilles.
But she’s mine, too, so it balances out. She’s where I draw every line in my life.
Whoever comes for her, comes for me. Whoever looks at her sideways, threatens me. And whoever thinks it’s cute to drive a wedge between Minka and I, is dead to me.
Unlike the body whose identity we still haven’t officially called, since he has so many, marriage isn’t a game to me, and wives aren’t disposable and easily replaced.
“Archer? How long?”
“Two minutes.” I drop my head in defense of the breeze pushing me back, and hurry my steps.The sooner I arrive, the sooner she gets to lean against me and relax.“I won’t be long, I promise.”
FLETCH
They say I’m the funny one. The happy-go-lucky guy with no troubles in the world that can’t easily roll off my back.
It’s easy being me. I’m blessed. I can bounce things off my armor and remain standing upright.
That’s what they say, anyway. It’s what they think.
But the second Archer turns one way, and I, the other, the weight of my world settles on my shoulders and weighs me down so I walk with a slump. My lungs struggle to take in enough oxygen. My brain slows, unable to process the world slipping by around me. My jaw aches from the way I’m constantly gritting it, and my stomach hurts from the always-present anxiety rolling through me every moment I’m not actively working a case.
While Roger-slash-Aaron-slash-Kyle flitters through my mind and keeps me engaged, that nauseating feeling tends to move to the back of my mind, so the sting of a cheating wife and destroyed marriage is dulled, at least momentarily. But when our current dead body is sitting on ice, and it’s just me and my thoughts, I think of Jada fucking Watson. The ballerina who, once upon a time, I would have moved heaven and earth for. The woman whose life mattered to me more than my own.
She gave me a baby, and swore a lifetime of fidelity and happiness. She promised me that nuclear life—the kind our vic has given three separate women: the home, the family, the yard, the SUV…
The things he’s created with multiple wives, I was satisfied building toward with just one.
Jada fucking Watson.
Fuck, but I was putting in all the work and blindly hoping for the best, while she… was fucking another cop. Allowing herself to fall in love with a man who was not her husband, and when she was caught, she chose to escape via substance abuse, instead of owning her mistakes and working to repair the damage she caused.
We’re divorced now. I’ve attempted to move on with my life, and I’m raising Mia full-time. I even moved Jada into a rehab clinic in the hopes that she could get her shit straight and, where she failed as a wife, perhaps succeed as a mother.
But even after her stint in recovery, she’ll go missing for days at a time, and then pop up again, glassy-eyed and in a nasty mood, and I have to face the fact that she’s simply not strong enough to be what Mia needs.
She’s not unselfish enough to give up something that feels goodtoday, in this moment, in exchange for something I know will feel a million times better in the long term.
Mia will only be a child for a little while. Blind to imperfection, and loyal to a person who doesn’t deserve it. It’s the magic of childhood: to view your parents as heroes, no matter their shortcomings.
Jada has a chance to capitalize on that magic and erase the damage she’s caused in her little girl’s world… and if done correctly, she’ll have a best friend for life. A little girl who will eventually grow into a smart, beautiful, intuitive, and educated woman.
She won’t remain oblivious to the realities of her junkie mother for long; not with a cop for a dad, and doctors for aunts. Not with the life she lives and the environment she’s raised in. And I won’t, I can’t, Irefuse tocover for Jada forever. Because to do so would be to gaslight my own daughter about her experiences, and send her into the world unequipped and unaware of her own strength.
Short-term gain for long-term devastation.
