Page 73 of Reckless
Ah, so she didn’t remember me from my last visit here. Granted, it’d been a while ago, but still. Maybe it was one of her off days. Archer had told me, on her worst days, she couldn’t even recognize him. To not know who your own son was when you looked at him…I couldn’t imagine how that felt, for her or him.
She didn’t come to hug me, but she did appraise me as she set her hands on her hips. Melinda stood in the background, checking the oven. A nice aroma lifted in the air; a batch must already be inside.
“You are beautiful, aren’t you?” she spoke.
“Mom,” Archer spoke from the stairwell, taking two steps at a time to hurry and take his place by my side.
She blinked. “What? I’m only speaking the truth. Look at her. No one here is blind. She is much prettier than that other girl you used to bring around. I’m so glad you two aren’t together anymore.” With a smile, she returned to her cookie dough, leaving me to glance at Archer.
Archer shrugged.
His mom didn’t know about the fact that Brittany was dead then. Right.
“And I’m sure she’s much nicer, too,” Bernie remarked, grabbing what looked to be a bowl full of chocolate chips. “That other girl had a mean streak to her I just didn’t like.”
Archer grabbed my hand, starting to pull me towards the stairs.
“I’ll bring you guys up some cookies when they’re done!” Bernie shouted after us.
We made it to his room, and he closed the door, sighing before turning to me with an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry about her,” he said, sheepish. Not a good look on him. There was nothing to be embarrassed about; I thought his mom was nice.
And, you know, it killed me inside to know she wasn’t like this every day and the doctors couldn’t figure out why.
“Don’t be,” I said. “Your mom is sweet.”
He smiled at me, though there were no dimples behind it. It wasn’t a real smile; it was a sad, depressing smile that I wished I could make better. If I could wave a magic wand and save his mom from whatever it was affecting her head, I would. I’d leave his father to rot, though.
I looked around the room. It appeared much the same as I remembered it being. The desk where we’d studied, where I’d thrown all caution to the wind and gave myself to him. The bed where we got to know each other in the most intimate way possible. Yep. Of course the bed was still there. I had no idea why I thought it might be otherwise.
“So,” I started, meeting his eyes. Blue, like his mom’s, only his were much warmer, more alive. His were a type of blue you could get lost in if you weren’t careful, and when it came to me and him, I was never as careful as I should be. “You invited me over. Any plans for what we’ll do while I’m here, or did you want to repeat the last time—”
I’d said the last half as a joke, but Archer’s cheeks turned pink. “No, I didn’t think we’d do that.”
“I was kidding,” I said, hoping to save him from making a fool out of himself.
“Oh.”
A TV hung on the wall opposite his bed, and I pointed to it. “You got Netflix or something on that thing? We could always Netflix and chill, minus the chill.” Man, I should really stop making comments like that, otherwise he’d start to get the wrong idea.
The wrong idea was already in my head, clearly.
I sent him on a hunt for more pillows, and he delivered. We made a little pillow fort on the ground, took the sheets off his bed and laid them on top of the carpet as extra padding. He let me choose what to watch on Netflix, and I went for a cartoon series about a kid wielding multiple elements.
What could I say? I was a sucker for cute animation and amazing stories. I’d already seen it a few times, but Archer didn’t need to know that. If he wanted to be with me—really be with me—he’d have to be with the dorky Jaz, too.
“I never knew you were into cartoons, Jaz,” Archer spoke, his arm around me as we reclined on our mound of pillows.
“I grew up on Disney,” I said. “Of course I’m into cartoons.” I turned my face away from the beginning intro to the series, grinning at him. “Are you telling me you’re too cool to watch a cartoon with me?” I wouldn’t even get into anime with him. That was probably too much for his rich brain to handle.
Everyone in this world had hobbies. They had things they liked or things they were passionate about. Some people liked to sit at home and watch documentaries, some liked to stay up all night playing multiplayer games online with their friends, and some liked to relieve the good old days of their childhood by watching Disney movies and cartoons. I didn’t know Archer well enough to know what his passions were, but I hoped that was something that would come with time.
I hoped that about all of my guys, really. Anytime we hung out, it was like the hungry beasts inside were let loose; we never simply hung out to relax with each other. We didn’t have time. We were always running about, trying to get to the truth of the matter. If things ever calmed down, I sincerely hoped my relationships with them would only grow.
“I am not nearly as cool as you think I am,” Archer declared, settling into the pillows behind us. He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me against his chest, simply holding me there and leaning his face against the top of my head. “I’ll watch static with you, Jaz.”
Well, if that wasn’t a declaration from the heart, I didn’t know what was. Static was just annoying, loud and incessant.
We weren’t too far into the first episode when I realized Archer was the kind of person who, if he didn’t know what he was watching, asked a thousand and one questions about it. As if, for some reason, the show itself wouldn’t answer his questions eventually. And it would, you just had to have a bit of patience.
