Page 72 of Sunrise Arrows

“Promise me, Archer. Promise you’ll be home at the ranch waiting for me when I get back,” I plead between kisses, blindly reaching between us to rip open the button and zipper of his jeans.

We’re a mess of eager, desperate emotion and need as he lifts his ass for me to slip his jeans and boxer briefs down enough to free his dick while simultaneously popping the button of my shorts free and yanking them off with my panties.

“Baby, I waited for you to return for ten years with no guarantee it would ever happen; ten weeks knowin’ I’ll hear your sweet voice and see your pretty face every single one of those seventy days is nothin’.”

I position his dick at my pussy and sink down with a quiet sob, my forehead coming to rest against his while I sit, feeling him inside me, tears falling from my eyes to where we’re joined.

“Promise me I won’t lose you, Archer,” I quietly beg. “I only just got you back. I can’t… I can’t…”

“Shhh,” he soothes, cupping the side of my face. “You couldn’t lose me if you tried, Tinsley. You’re all I’ll ever see and want. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whimper, wrapping my arms around him as I slowly start to rise and fall on him, terrified to bring us to the edge knowing when it ends, he’ll be gone.

CHAPTER24

Archer

It’s beenthree weeks since I left L.A. Two since Tinsley flew to Europe for her tour via a surprise eighteen hour layover in Berry Falls.

There’s eight weeks left. That’s 56 days; 1,344 hours; 80,640 minutes; 4,838,400 seconds.

Time has never moved so slowly, but I’ve never been more productive.

I spent four days driving across the country to come home. Four days of thinking, regretting, and planning.

Ten weeks is a hell of a lot easier than ten years. But after having her every morning and every night and stealing her minutes throughout the day for six weeks, I know I don’t want this to be our norm if it doesn’t have to be.

Coping with my anxiety was never an issue in the past. I knew my limits and I lived my life within those lines. However, those lines aren’t big enough anymore. So step one of my plan: get into therapy. I’ve been going three days a week since I got home, and while my resilience has yet to be tested, I’m more optimistic now than I was when I left L.A. My anxiety won't ever go away, but I’m learning to manage it when I can’t control my environment, which will make me better for Tinsley.

Step two is a bit more intricate and requires reinforcements from the outside with clandestine transatlantic phone calls and video chats and so many plans. There is absolutely no room for reckless spontaneity after L.A.

Step three will be the easiest though: loving my girl and supporting her until my last breath.

In the meantime, routine keeps me busy and helps to break up the longer hours in between.

I wake up in the morning at 4:30 like normal and call Tinsley. We have breakfast over video chat—me on the deck of our home here and her either on the balcony of the hotel in whichever city she’s currently in or in bed if she’s not performing that night—and go about the first hour of our morning routines with our phones glued to our hands.

After that, I help Ryder out at the track, where Dolley Maddison still acts in a manner most unbecoming of a First Lady. Then, at midmorning, I either go to my office and work on things for the ranch or the favor Tinsley asked of me last week or I go into town to see Michelle for a session. But without fail, at lunchtime I’m in my office with the door locked so I'm not interrupted, talking to my girl as she gets ready to perform in front of another sold out venue.

Sometime during the course of Tinsley’s show, Briar calls me and holds the phone up for me to watch her sing “Reckless” and “Unravel Me.”

After that, it’s more work until her concert is over and then I spend my afternoon talking with her as she comes down from the high of being on stage and gets ready for bed. And once she’s asleep, I’m on the phone with Briar, Mikey, and John, making plans.

From the time I get off with them until I go to bed myself is the worst part of each day. The hours seem to double in length, taking far longer to progress than the whole rest of the day. But even the longest nights with Tinsley are better than the shortest days without her.

Glancing at my watch, which is currently set to Central European Summer Time, I see it’s almost 6:30 in Munich. She doesn’t perform tonight, so I took the afternoon off to have what she calls our long distance date night.

The concierge will deliver flowers to her suite from me, and room service will bring her dinner. We’ll eat and talk about our day, then get into our separate beds where one of us will read to the other. Four days ago when she was in Milan, she read Skylar’s book to me. Well, about a third of it. We got distracted and never finished. Tonight, she has asked that I read herThe Great Gatsby,again. But she’s requested that I do it without looking at the book so I know we won’t get far. For whatever reason, watching my mind do the odd things it does has always made her insatiable. Not that I’ll ever complain. If flexing my perfect recall gets her off, then I’ll read and repeat anything and everything she asks of me.

Right at 6:30 P.M., I’m pressing the video icon beside the contact name, Shortcake, on my phone. The call takes a second to connect, but once it does, it doesn’t even fully ring one time before her beautiful face fills the screen.

“Hey, Superman,” she greets. She’s swimming in one of my t-shirts she stole while in Berry Falls, her chocolate brown hair piled on top of her head, face a little tired but her smile radiant as she sighs.

“Hey, Shortcake. How are you?”

A massive yawn is my answer. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she says, yawning again halfway through. “Let me make a cup of coffee. There’s some in the little kitchen—I’ll perk right up.”

“No, baby, stay in bed.” She scowls for a moment then starts to stretch across the King size mattress to the nightstand on the left side of the bed. “Don’t even think about it,” I warn, knowing she’s reaching for the hotel phone.

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