Page 41 of The Backdraft
By the time Monopoly finally ended—Garrett winning yet again—I was too exhausted to do much more than change my clothes, brush my teeth, and fall into bed, my plans of talking to Archer firmly squandered. The last thing I remember was Archer coming into the room and shutting the lights off before getting into bed, but even that might’ve been a dream.
The next day was somehow worse. I’d almost had him alone for a couple of minutes over coffee, but then Cory came in and started asking him about the tattoos on his arms. It turned into a whole show and tell, which was actually kind of cute to watch, but then my mother rounded the corner and ordered us all into cars to go get a Christmas tree. Cory and Garrett took his truck so we could throw the tree in the back, and the rest of us piled into my mom’s car since it could fit the five of us.
When we got to the farm, we split up, meandering around the rows of trees and calling to the others when we thought we found a good one. My mother would rush over, walk around it a couple of times and determine if it was “the one” or not. Historically, the first five were never it. Once we found one that was Shelby approved, Garrett cut it down, and hauled it back to the truck.
Back home was a flurry of decorating, and a cacophony of Christmas music. I think the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was probably quieter in concert compared to how loudly my dad played their songs. My mom strung the lights on the tree because she was very particular about the spacing, and then therest of us hung the ornaments one at a time so that my mom could share whatever memory was associated with each one. The guys were put on garland duty, hanging it over every doorway, and around the banisters to the staircase, while the girls placed the rest of the tabletop decorations in their annual spots.
By the time dinner rolled around, we were all starving, and we ate leftovers in near silence. I felt Archer’s eyes on me a couple of times, and when I met his gaze, it seemed like maybe he was wanting to talk to me too. Or maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. Regardless, it wasn’t until after the post-dinner coffee my family always had, and after we’d said goodnight, blaming a long day of driving tomorrow for our early turn-in, that I finally got him well and truly alone.
“Hi,” I said once we’d both gotten ready for bed, and were under the covers.
A relieved smile spread across his face. “Hi.”
“So, the past two days have been . . . a lot, huh?”
He propped himself up on an elbow, and looked down at me. “Your family is definitely into festivities, especially your mom.” He chuckled softly, and I didn’t think I’d ever get over that sound. “But it was actually kind of nice.”
Relief filled me over the fact that he wasn’t hating it all. “Holidays are her thing; she loves them. I’m glad it hasn’t been too much for you.”
“Not at all.” He paused, eyes roaming my face. “Has it been too much for you?”
How did I explain to someone with his past that yes, it was kind of a lot for me sometimes? That for as much as I loved my family—and I did genuinely love each of them—it sometimes felt suffocating?
I chewed at my bottom lip and shrugged. “At times. Not telling them about the baby feels weird.” I didn’t say that it was alsobecause I wanted to talk to him more than I wanted to eat Thanksgiving with my family.
He glanced down at my stomach, then back at me. “Are you ready to tell them?”
How had we ended up talking about me, now, of all times, when all I wanted was to talk about him? “I think I’m getting there. Knowing who the dad actually is will help I think. I don’t like lying to them.”
“You mean more than telling them I’m your boyfriend?”
I glared at him, but there was no bite to it. And why did him calling our relationship a lie sting? “It’s a play on words. You’re a boy who is also my friend, so it’s not technically a lie.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “We’re friends now?”
“I don’t have many, but yeah.” I smiled tentatively. “I mean, I’d like to be.”
Nodding thoughtfully, he shot me a soft smile before lying back down. “I’ll do the paternity test first thing when we get home.”
“Thank you.”
A calm quiet settled between us, and it would’ve been so easy to relax into it and let sleep take me, but I’d finally gotten Archer alone, and I was not pushing this conversation off any longer.
“Hey, Arch?”
“Yeah?” His response was light, and I hated the feeling that I was about to start picking at wounds that had barely scabbed over.
“That thing you said the other night,” I started before backpedaling. “Listen, I don’t expect anything from you if you are my baby’s father—I don’t need money, or help, or anything like that. But if you are the dad, and you want to be in our lives, you can. What I’m saying is, I don’t think you should let your dad decide anything for you. And for what it’s worth, you’re nothing like him, and I don’t think you ever could be.”
He was unnaturally still for a while, and I was worried my word-vomiting sent him spiraling, but then he finally answered. “You don’t know that for certain.”
“I think the fact that you’re scared of becoming like him is evidence enough that you never will.” Glancing at him one more time, his eyes never leaving the same spot on my ceiling, I turned the light off. I still had questions, but for now, that was what I had really wanted to say. The rest I would have to trust him to tell me on his own when he felt like talking about it.
In the minutes that followed, the darkness made the silence in the room louder in the way that relaxed you entirely, and my eyes grew heavy until I was unable to keep them open any longer. Sleep had her claws sunk in me, and was about to pull me under with her, so I couldn’t be quite sure, but I thought I heard Archer whisper from his side of the bed.
“Thank you, Darcy.”
NINETEEN
