Page 152 of Terms Of Un-Endearment
“Almost a year now.” He glances at a server with beautiful black, curly hair who sets something in front of us that looks like donut holes covered in powdered sugar. “Mitzi, this is Piper.”
“Hi,” I say. “I love your hair.”
“Thank you! I heard what you did to Archie’s.” She sends him a sly grin.
“You’re on her side, too?” He glares at her, but there’s no real anger in it.
I chuckle as Mitzi walks away. I like this place.
“You must spend a lot of time here. They all seem to know you really well.” I use my fork to cut one of the donut things in half and lemon curd spills out. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting anything inside.” I pop it in my mouth for another surprise. “I was expecting a donut texture, but it’s closer to a pancake.”
“Yeah. You like it?” Archie’s grin makes me glad I’ve covered my mouth with my hand, so he can’t see my own smile fighting to come out.
If he knows he’s made me smile, he’ll think he has an advantage.
“Ebelskiver is a Britta addition, but this coffee shop has been around for as long as I’ve been in South Bay. It used to be called Annie’s, after the lady who ran it. I practically lived here then. Dex, Rhys, Frankie and I all did.” Archie sips his coffee, then runs his tongue between his lips, snagging my gaze along the way.
He has full lips—the kind of full that makes it impossible not to notice when he smiles, or worse, when he smirks. Unfairly symmetrical and just this side of too kissable, they’re the kind of lips that threaten to make you forget you’re supposed to hate him.
“Annie looked out for us when we first moved here,” he continues, and I drag my eyes away from his mouth back to my ebelskiver. “We filmed at the beach right here and the high school up the street. She made Australian treats just for us. She could tell by looking at us how homesick we were, me especially. When we weren’t filming, I was here bugging her.”
I set down my fork and look at him. Archie being homesick when he first moved here is news to me. That’s not how it looked from my perspective.
Archie and his friends moved to LA when they were sixteen, mostly to surf professionally, but also because Malcolm had put up the money for “Surf City High.” Dex only lasted a couple of episodes before focusing totally on surfing. The show lasted about four seasons, but it launched Rhys’s music career and Frankie’s acting career. I’m not sure what it did for Archie.
While Archie and Frankie lived in the beach house, Mom, Malcolm, and I lived in Beverly Hills so that I could go to school and stay out of the way of the demands of filming. Those few miles may as well have been an entire continent. I watched Frankie and Archie on TV every week—sometimes I even dreamed about being on it with them—but I only saw them in person every few months.
I knew Archie and Frankie weren’t happy about Malcolm marrying Mom, but I assumed the main reason they stayed away was because they were going to parties, signing autographs, and hanging out with other famous people. I’ve never once thought of Archie as being lonely during those years.
But it makes sense.
His mom was on the other side of the world. And his dad might as well have been.
And I hate that this information makes me want to tell him how I felt when I moved to New York. Far away from Mom and my friends, working as many hours as possible when I wasn’t in school to keep from going into even more debt than my tuition loans had already put me.
I can’t tell him that I understand how it feels to be lonely, too. Finding common ground with Archie is uncharted territory. I’m not prepared for that journey. It’s too dangerous for half a dozen reasons, not the least of which is that I don’t know how to undowhat I’ve done. We’ve been on this enemies road for too long to turn around now and start over.
But it hurts not to tell Archie I understand him. Part of me aches for that kind of connection with him. The other part, however, doesn’t believe we could ever have that sort of relationship.
Archie reaches across the table and forks a piece of ebelskiver.
“I didn’t know we were sharing,” I say, reflexively. Old habits die hard.
But a week ago, I would have seen him stealing a bite as a sign of his entitlement. Now, though, I’m wondering if I’ve had him all wrong.
“We share everything now, remember?” He stuffs the pancake into the mouth I’ve been struggling all morning not to stare at.
“For now.” I take a big bite.
The smile that sent my pulse racing before reappears. He reaches for another bite, and I block his fork with mine.
His eyebrow arches.
My breath hitches.
I’m slipping into even more dangerous territory than I was before. This isn’t having something in common. This is flirting.
I sit straighter and push the plate to Archie. “You can have the rest.”
