Page 12 of Sunrise Arrows

CHAPTER4

Archer

“How’d you do, angel face?”I ask my niece Ellie as she comes barreling out of the school doors.

In her hands are mine and Ryder’s boot boxes. With the help of us and our mom, she turned them into a massive diorama to accompany her book report. A book report that, much to Hunter’s dismay, was about Tinsley. However, like the doting uncles we both are, he spent every evening either helping her read, write her report, or paint, glue, and stage the little Tinsley doll inside the boot box arena with the rest of us.

Ellie idolizes her. She has posters of Tinsley on her wall, owns several dolls, has suckered all of us into buying not only the digital albums of her records but the actual CDs and vinyls as well as a record player so she could listen to them, knows the words to every single song, and has dressed up as her for the past three Halloweens. She even wormed her way into getting Ryder to buy her tickets to see Tinsley perform in Nashville last October.

“I got an A!” she yells, backpack swinging around as she runs up to me.

“An A?” I gasp, taking the project from her and lifting her up. “Well that calls for a treat, doesn’t it?”

She gives me a big nod.

“Uh-huh, you promised. Said if I got an A, you would take me for a frappé.”

“Well, if I promised.”

“You did.”

“Then what are you waiting for? We can’t get frappés if we keep standin’ here.”

Arms up in the air, she laughs, “You’re carrying me, silly goose. I can’t go nowhere.”

I smack a loud kiss on her cheek and gently correct, “Anywhere—I can’t goanywhere.” I stand her back on the ground and click the heels of my boots together. With an exaggerated bow, I offer my hand. “Miss Eleanor Hayes, would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to your chariot and from there take you on a date for frappés?”

She skips up to me and slaps her small hand into mine, spinning herself around before giggling out, “Okay,” and dragging me away to the parking lot. “But only if you let me listen to Tinsley Jacobs,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Deal,” I easily concede.

“Yay!”

Ellie and her project are buckled up in the backseat of my truck, my phone in her hands as she scrolls through her Tinsley Jacobs playlist. I’m not even fully out of the parking spot when the first strands of “Destined To Fall” begin to play.

“You know, Uncle Archer, this could be about you,” Ellie happily informs. “You have a strawberry tattoo just like the boy in the song.”

“Mmhmm,” I hum, twisting my watch over the double strawberry tattoo on the inside of my wrist.

Probably the only impulsive thing I’ve done in my life was get that tattoo.

It was a few weeks after our first date. Tinsley and I were walking the farmers’ market, shopping before going out for an afternoon on the lake. That girl had an addiction to everything strawberry and was eating an entire pint while holding my hand. I was in the middle of asking her if she wanted something from one of the stalls when she pulled out a double strawberry. The woman in the tent startled her by shouting, “Don’t!” just as she was about to bite into it.

“Double strawberries are meant to be shared. They say you’re destined to fall in love with the person with whom you share it.”

Tinsley looked up at me with those whiskey eyes of hers, and I already knew. There was no need to fall because I was already there, swimming in the heart of it all.

I scooped my arm along her hip and pulled her in close, bent down to close the foot gap between us, and stared into those eyes as I bit into the strawberry with her.

That evening, she sat beside me intermittently asking if I was sure and playing with lyrics in her journal and humming various melodies while I had a double strawberry tattooed over my pulse. When we left, I pulled her down the alleyway and, in the shadows, lifted her against the brick. With my forehead easily rested against hers, I promised that I had never been more sure of anything than the way I was about everything to do with her.

I’ve never been able to bring myself to have the tattoo removed or covered because that promise still rings true. I simply put on my watch when it’s too hot for long sleeves and call it good enough.

* * *

In town,I circle the square and maneuver the truck into one of the metered spots along the curb. I help Ellie out of the back and lift her up to feed enough quarters into the meter to last while we order and sip on our drinks before meeting Hunter at the grocery store. When I put her back down, I take her hand in mine and we cross the street.

She’s full of animation as she talks about her project and presenting it to the class, the recount of it all having had to wait while she listened to the songs on her playlist.

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