Page 62 of The Backdraft
Attempting to reel myself in, I started a mental list of what I knew to be true.
Archer wasn’t anything like the man I’d originally thought he was.
The baby growing in my uterus was his.
He wanted me (at least physically).
I wanted him (in his entirety) for real—not just as part of this scheme we’d entered.
The truth of that realization had me sucking in a stunned breath. I wanted Archer Mack as more than a friend, a fake boyfriend, or baby daddy. I wanted him to hold me like thisevery night, not in his bed, but in ours. It was a realization that was equal parts exciting and terrifying because I knew his past—what his father had done to him, and the effects those actions still had on his daily life. The last thing I wanted to do was make him feel trapped, because if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that if you cornered a wild animal, it’d attack.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when I glanced over my shoulder, it was to find Archer asleep, his breathing deep and steady.
TWENTY SIX
ARCHER
The next two weeks had both dragged and flown by simultaneously. After the firehouse party, a handful of the men came down with the flu and called out, forcing the rest of us to cover what we could. It wasn’t like not having firefighters was an option, and there weren’t that many of us, which meant that I’d spent the majority of the last fourteen days at the station. If I wasn’t there, I was at my house sleeping, and for once, I was too exhausted for my nightmares to reach me.
But it also meant that I hadn’t seen much of Darcy, and that was the part that made the past two weeks feel like two months. She stopped by the firehouse a couple of times, dropping off coffee and bringing lunch, but we weren’t alone, not in the way I’d wanted to be.
The night after the party was all I could think about. I hadn’t brought her back to my house with the intention of sleeping with her, but seeing her curled up on my couch, barefoot and still wearing that dress that hugged her like a second skin, and my thoughts had taken a turn for less than gentlemanly. When she started searching for her keys, I realized that I didn’t want her to leave, and not only because I’d wanted her physically. I would’ve happily sat through six more of her heartfelt movies if it meant I could be near her. Her being in my house should’ve felt weird, or at the very least, like I had a guest over, but the only weird thing about it was how normal it felt. Like instead of it being the first time she stepped foot into my house, it was the hundredth, and that was a tidbit of information that I’d flipped around in my head the entire time we were apart.
“You good?” Harrison asked, bringing me back to the present. I dragged my stare from where Darcy and Sophie stood talking at the table behind us, to my friend.
“Yeah, I’m good. Why?” I asked.
He glanced down at my hand. “Well, you’ve been holding that axe and staring at Darcy for a while now, and I just wanted to make sure you were going to throw it at the actual target.”
It had been Harrison’s idea to go axe throwing for our double date, the one we got roped into because, according to Harrison, Sophie was dying to meet Darcy. Judging by the fact that neither girl had taken a turn throwing in the hour we’d been here—too busy chatting—I’d say that was probably true. But knowing my best friend, there was more to it, and I had a feeling I was about to find out what that was.
Facing the target, I lifted the axe up over my head, then launched it at the target on the wall, the blade sinking into the wood with a dull thud. I went to retrieve it, then passed it over to Harrison. “Yes, I’m good. I’m just . . .”
“Happy?” he supplied, a knowing grin on his face.
“Yeah. I am.”
Harrison threw the axe, but it hit the wall handle first and clattered to the floor. “Damn it,” he cursed, doing his seventh walk of shame to pick it up off the floor.
I laughed. “Why’d you want to do this if you suck at it?”
“Because I can’t get better at it if I don’t practice now can I?” he grumbled, thrusting the handle back into my hands.
