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Dragan nodded.
“Isn’t she the only girl that’s stuck around long enough to know what an ass you are?”
“Dick,” Dragan chuckled, tossing his balled-up napkin at his friend.
“Isn’t she also your best friend?”
Dragan couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tell him that she’d always been far more than that. Archer whistled, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. “Shit, man. That’s tricky territory. Do — do you know how she feels about you?”
“We… Promise not to laugh.”
“At a matter of the heart? Never.”
“As you know, my family from Poland is in town,” Dragan said. Archer just stared at him, leaning his chair back on its legs. “And, well, my family is really adamant I have a… partner. And apparently June wants to start writing romance, so she’s not always stuck with bookstore that’s failing —“
“Wait, The Little Prince is in trouble?” Archer sat the chair upright, concern lining his brow. “Shit, I had no idea. Can we do anything?”
Dragan shrugged. “June has a meeting with Ruby to go over what they can do to save it, but honestly I’m counting on this app to pull through. In any case, June and I agreed to be in a fake relationship for two weeks.”
Archer broke out into a smile. “Well, well. I take it it’s going as good as you dreamed?”
“Better.” Dragan’s cheeks burned. “ We… almost kissed the other day. But her grandma walked in —”
Archer’s laugh echoed through the house. He was doubled over, face red, gasping for air.
“I’m sorry, how old are you?” Archer composed himself, patting his stomach. “Damn, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Thanks, Dragan.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Archer coughed, clearing his throat before shutting his computer and leaning his arms on the table. “Okay, so she feels the same. Obviously, she thought it was a good idea to put her face close to yours. So… what’s the problem?”
“She’s my best friend, dipshit. I can’t mess with that. And if we’re going to be fake… whatever, I want to do it right without risking anything.”
“You mean when a girl like June Beaumont — beauty, brains, and kindness — shows interest in a neanderthal like you, you’re going to pass it up because, and I quote, she’s your best friend? Isn’t being best friends kind of that whole goal of finding someone to love and who loves you back?”
“You don’t get it,” Dragan sighed, picking at a scratch in the table. “She’s my best friend. This is kind of a test, but if it doesn’t work out and I lose her, I’ve lost the one person who means anything to me.”
“And if it does work out?”
Dragan shrugged. “I dunno. Arch, she’s… everything How can I measure up to that?”
“That’s not what she wants, Dragan. Clearly.” He laughed. “She wants you for you. And I think that’s the start of every great love story, isn’t it? Stop thinking so hard and just… love, man.”
“Right. Love my best friend and hope I don’t push her away.” Dragan shook his head. His friend was hyper-masculine on the outside — muscular, cropped hair, steely eyes — but all lovey-dovey teddy bear on the inside.
“Some things are worth the risk. I’d kill for that.” Archer opened up his laptop and put on his headphones. “Just think about it, okay?”
Dragan nodded and looked at his coding but couldn’t concentrate on the lines of text. Not when all he could think about was June’s soft skin beneath his hands, her breath on his lips. What it would feel like to slide his tongue between her velvet lips, travel the length of her holy body. To taste the sweet honey of her core, feel her squirm around him, call out his name.
He saw no way to love her without losing her, but maybe the taste of heaven was worth the eventual flames of hell.
14
Archer went back to the pitch deck on his laptop, but his mind was spinning around what Dragan had just confided. He really would give anything to have that kind of love with someone. He’d had more than his fair share of tail, and he’d enjoyed every second of it. He loved women, and being with a new one never got old. But going back to an empty house, just him and his dog? That did. Sure, there was a kind of warmth and love in the one— or two—night stands he had, but it never lasted, and it always carried an element of superficiality. It was gone the moment he left in the middle of the night, or in the morning when she threw on clothes after seeing he was going to continue about his day without making her breakfast.
Then there were the women he couldn’t fucking stand, the ones that got under his skin and wanted nothing to do with. This he split into two categories: women like Cara Griffin, ex-head cheerleader and clingy like a parasite, and women like Molly O’Hara, who set off the smoke alarms in her apartment multiple times a week and then yelled at the firefighters about how they didn’t know how to do their jobs. Archer had been called to Molly’s apartment on more than one occasion, and he’d found few things had changed since high school. She was loud, had a smart mouth, and loved to push his buttons. It didn’t matter she had beautiful brown doe-eyes or the most luscious curves Archer had ever laid eyes. It didn’t matter that she challenged him as much as she made him laugh, since the day they met in ninth grade. It didn’t matter that he thought of her every day since, and now fate had decided they would see each other every weekend, and sometimes during the week.
Molly O’Hara was the biggest pain in his ass, and he couldn’t get away.
