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“Yes.” She loops her arm through mine and tugs me to the left when a second bike messenger zooms through the walking masses. “I don’t want to give up on me, just to be with him.”
“And just so we’re clear… he’s not asking you to change. You know that, right?”
“Yes! But I would anyway. I become this weird, sniveling, pick-me girl whenever he and I are in the same room. Because my heart stupidly went and fell in love, and I just so happened to fall in love with that guy.” She brings us to a sharp stop, my feet skidding on the concrete and my eyes wheeling around until I find Timothy himself, standing at the open bar door. His eyes, green just like Archer’s, burn us where we stand.
We still have an easy thirty feet between where he is and where we are. But his stare is like a physical thing. His commanding presence, not something to be ignored.
“It’s like he could smell you and your lavender coming from a mile away.” I choke out a laugh when she shoots side-eye daggers my way. “What? You’re you, Aubs! You tell him to fuck himself often. He said he wants to date you, you told him no. He demands you go to his apartment and sit there like a good, obedient girl, you told him to get screwed. That’s spine!” I start us forward again. “That’s assertiveness. And boundaries. And a target,” I snigger as Tim’s eyes narrow. “Right there on your chin. He wants you, you want him. And you each have the exact right amount of backbone to make sure you bend, but neither of you will break.” I steal my arm from hers and speed up, just so I can get ahead of her, then I spin and walk backwards, forcing her to meet my eyes and breaking the connection Tim has over her. “I support whatever decision you make, Aubs. I will help you with whatever you decide. But I think your road ends up here. With the man who’ll destroy a city to keep you safe.” I swing around just feet from the oldest Malone and pat his chest as I pass. “Piss her off,” I murmur. “Trigger her temper. That’s how you’ll win this one.” Then louder. “Archer here yet?”
“Yeah.” His eyes are all for Aubree. His entire being, focused completely and solely on the rainbow Care Bear in his life. “He got here about two minutes ago. Your dinner is already started.”
“Awesome.” I push through the bar door and move from one kind of oppressive heat into another. The cooling is on, and the room is dark. But the bodies of first responders after a long day at work fill out the space, so warmth still pounds in the air. Cops, mostly, drinking and talking cases. EMTs, taking up the booths.
Thirty, maybe forty years ago, this was where mob bosses came to talk business and organize crime. Now, it’s where police talk shop and drink away hard work.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
But as I search the crowd and steer myself toward the back wall, I find Archer’s expectant eyes, his strong, six-feet-and-a-few-inches, lazing on a stool, his elbow on the bar as he watches me. He holds a soda in one hand, resting the bottom of the glass on his thick, jeaned thigh, while another, second soda waits for me; the carbonated liquid bubbling and popping while condensation runs along the side and tempts me closer.
“Thank god,” I mutter, cutting a path through the crowd and relaxing with each step I take. My body craves Archer Malone the way alcoholics want their next drink. My heart beats easier when he’s near, the way a junkie’s anxiety dissipates when they’ve sourced their next hit.
I get what Aubs is saying, really. That fear of giving yourself up for someone else. She thinks I’m too strong for such nonsense. Too set in my ways to not be exactly who I’ve always been. But she’s wrong. Because I’ve changed, too. For Archer. My soul has transformed, and my physiological responses are not the same now compared to who I was prior to meeting him.
I used to crave solitude. Now, I crave him.
I used to abhor the thought of making friends. And now… well, I have an entire circle of them, and I happily consider them family.
It’s okay to change for the one you love, I think.
Assuming the changes are for the betterment of your own life.
“Minnnnka.” The instant I’m close enough, Archer reaches out with his free arm and hooks it around my hip, dragging me closer until our chests clash and I taste Coke on my tongue. He smells of him. Of home. A woodsy scent. With a little gunpowder and nicotine thrown in for fun. He tugs me in until there’s no space between where I start and he ends. But he easily places his soda on the bar, relieves me of the briefcase I cart around every day, then grabs my chin between his finger and thumb and drags me in until our lips clash. “I missed the shit out of you.” He bites my bottom lip and grins because I shiver. “You’re starving.”
“You can read my thoughts now, Detective?” I roll my eyes but lean into him. He’s my refuge. My home. My safe place. And hell, a year ago, I’d have laughed at anyone who said this was my future.
“No,” he rumbles, dropping another kiss to my lips. “But it’s dinnertime. You didn’t call me to say you were leaving the office, and you came straight here.” He sets my briefcase on the floor and drags me around until my ass plops onto his lap and my back is nestled against his chest. “Tells me you came looking for food.”
“I did.” I accept my drink when he picks it up and places it in my hand, and since he’s put me here, I get to snuggle in, while also people-watch and observe the door—the one Aubree and Tim have yet to walk through. “Aubs mentioned a burger. I knew you’d end up here eventually. Find William’s killer yet?”
Archer chuckles, his chest bouncing so my body moves with it. “Adrianna Alves is behind bars for the night, Chief. We had no other ch?—”
“You arrested her?” Recharged, I shove up from his lap and swing around to plop my ass on the single, unused stool beside his. I set my elbows on the bar and burn my husband with a glare. “You arrested that poor woman? For what?”
“Minka.” Touching time over, he exhales a defeated sigh and turns back to rest his arm on the bar, too. We’re not snuggling, and yet, he reaches across and strokes my wrist with the tip of his finger. “She had the trifecta: means, motive, opportunity.”
“You don’t even have the final M.E. report yet!”
“I know,” he drawls, pursing his lips and looking me up and down. “Got lazy today, or forget about me?”
“I was being thorough.” Scowling, I pick up my Coke and take a sip. I’ve reached the point in my day where I need caffeine to remain upright, but if I have too much, I won’t sleep well when I go to bed. It’s a dangerous combination that always leaves me irritable tomorrow. “Your victim has cirrhosis of the liver, Detective. And blood diagnostics have come back determining an average of twelve standard beers a day. Average.”
“Which is good information to have,” he taps my hand and grins, “but we’re not investigating William for being a shitty husband and father. He’s our vic, and he didn’t stab himself to death. Which means we need to investigate those around him.”
“His alcoholism helps you fill out the picture of this man’s life,” I grit out. “It shows he abused his body, in addition to abusing his family. He was a heavy smoker, and his white blood cell count was off the charts, indicating a fast sprint toward cancer before his thirtieth birthday. His broken knuckles resulted from hitting something this week.”
“Did he hit a person?” He questions smugly. “Is that how he broke them?”
“Well,” bested, I scowl, “no. Likely a wall. Possibly concrete?—”
