Page 71 of Sunrise Arrows

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, babe.”

Once she’s gone, I stand in the doorway of Archer’s office and softly knock on the frame. He’s laying on the saddle brown leather loveseat, one knee bent against the cushion and his other leg on the floor, being too tall to stretch out. His eyes are closed—broken glasses that are feebly held together with tape, tossed on his desk—and he’s holding an ice pack to his knuckles that are once again busted because of me. He doesn’t look up or speak, but he drops the ice pack to the ground and opens his arms for me.

I shut the door behind me, turning the lock, and hurry to him. Getting on the loveseat with him, I settle between his spread thighs and sigh when his arms come around me and his head dips down so he can kiss the top of mine. He reaches up and pulls out an earbud I hadn’t noticed and offers it to me, the music he’s listening to resuming the moment I put it in.

In my ear, my own voice softly sings “Unravel Me.” Along my back, Archer lifts my shirt and trails his fingers over the vertebra of my spine in time with the music, slow and soft, steadily increasing until it fades away entirely.

We continue to lie there as “Destined to Fall” plays followed by “As You Are,” “Reckless,” “Cry Later,” and every other single that makes up his name on my body, the office growing lighter with the sunrise until we’re bathed in morning light.

The condensed playlist of my catalog ends and Archer’s hand has made its way into my hair, the other inside my back pocket, holding me to him. Heavy silence continues to surround us as we soak one another in.

I don’t need to hear it to know what’s coming. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, an all too familiar ache that makes my soul cry as it settles in. It’s the same shredding pain I felt the night I left.

“I’m sorry, Tinsley.” Archer’s voice is soft when he speaks, but it’s like a suppressed shot to my chest, the outcome no less devastating for the lack of volume. “I promised I’d keep you safe and I failed.”

I try to tell him that it’s not his fault, but my words fall on deaf ears.

“Baby, they caused you to pass out…Icaused you to pass out because I let them get too close to you. Everything that happened is because of me.

“You were so seized with fear that you fainted on the street becauseIlost control. You were in danger because of choicesImade and swayed you into. You’ve made concessions to your reputation, your career, and your safety becauseIcan’t handle the fishbowl you live in here.

“You don’t even believe I’ll take you to Paris becauseIhave a fear of flying. It’s me, Tinsley, all of it is me. I’m the common denominator.

“I’m not… I’m not cut out for this. I want to be but I can’t. I can’t get used to this.” He sits up, moving me to sit on a cushion of the couch as he stands and starts to pace the room. “It’s too much, all the time.

“The paparazzi in our faces whenever we leave your house; assholes like Jullian tearin’ apart your beautiful, perfect body and Katie Sylvain buttin’ in on our life; people treatin’ you like an object and not a person with feelings that deserve to be respected; the cameras everywhere in the house; the security; I mean Jesus, Tinsley!” he shouts, gripping the roots of his hair as he stops to face me. “We can’t even have sex without me wondering if someone is going to walk in on us or hear. Mikey and John literally sleep across the hall from your bedroom. It’s too much.”

“Are you saying I’m not worth it?”

“What? Baby, no,” he emphatically answers, coming to kneel between my thighs. “You’re worth everythin’. It’s why I’m here and I’m trying. Because I want to be with you, want to be worthy of you, to be enough for you.”

I open up my arms and Archer wraps his around me, tugging me to the edge of the couch as he holds me and I cling to him.

“Archer, you don’t have to try to be enough for me. You’re already my home.”

“And you’re mine, baby, and nothing will ever,everchange that or stop me from lovin’ you, but looking at it objectively, my being in L.A. is a hindrance to you, a liability even—just look at what I did last night. Either way, my being here isn’t what’s best for you. Stayin’ would be selfish.”

“Then be selfish, please.”

His large hands come up and hold my face. I turn in his palm to kiss the heel of his hand, mine coming to circle his wrist and keep him to me. “Please.”

He brushes a tear from my cheek, lips coming to my forehead. “I can’t, Shortcake. I love you too much. You were always meant to shine under those lights, and I was always meant to watch from the shadows.”

“What if I move to Tennessee? Permanently. The label has offices and contacts in Nashville. It could work... I’ll make it work.”

“We can talk about that after this leg of your tour is done but for now, Tinsley, baby, you need to be here. You said it yourself.”

“I need to be with you!” I cry, gripping his t-shirt and dropping my head to his chest. “I need you.”

Archer picks me up and retakes his spot on the couch with me in his lap. He sweeps my hair back from my face, catching my tears as they fall, and kissing their paths dry.

My hands creep up his shirt, and when my palms on his warm skin aren’t enough to keep me anchored, I lean back and tug my t-shirt off. He bends an arm back over his shoulder and pulls his own off and then unhooks my bra, guiding the straps down my arms to be tossed on the floor.

Skin to skin, I tuck my face into the crook of his neck and murmur, “You promised you wouldn’t let me go.”

His fingers are threaded through my hair and he uses that tangled hold to coax me out, his other hand coming down to my throat. “I’m not,” he vows, sealing it with a kiss that steals my breath. He lets go of my hair, his hand finding its way not into the back pocket of my shorts but down the waistband itself, taking a handful of my ass and beginning to slowly rock me over him. “You’re as much my home as I’m yours. I’m just steppin’ back so you can shine.”

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