Page 7 of Feels Like Falling
I’ve never used goat milk soap but I am happy to support family—and that’s what she is, bein’ with Archer. Family.
“It is but she wants to get some goats, not just source the milk,” he says pointedly at me.
Expectantly.
“Hell no. You find someone else to house those mean fuckers.” My head shakes with a vehemence only those four-legged little demons can bring out in me.
“Oh, come on. You have plenty of room. And she’s going to do most of the work and then pay one of the guys you have to help.”
“No,” I say again even as Archer stares at me. “Brother, I donotwant goats. Getting bitten in the ass at eleven was enough for me.”
He snickers and his eyes sparkle at my discomfort. Huffing, I take the last bite of my wrap and ball up the garbage. Sobering, Archer rubs the back of his head with his palm, and I wait like I always do until he’s gathered himself enough to speak because seriously, what could be worse than goats?
“I told her about us—about Sundown Realty.”
Internally, my heart rate slows to a more acceptable rhythm and I shrug, unfazed because I kind of figured. “I trust you.”
Archer opens his mouth and closes it before nodding. “Right. Of course. Well, anyway, she asked if we were looking for someone to run the office front—handle the emails and scheduling for housekeeping and maintenance, streamline the calendar for the rentals or something.”
“You want to hire your girlfriend to manage our secret multimillion-dollar business?” I deadpan as he shifts nervously in his chair. We’ve grown the business over the last several years from a handful of properties to well over a hundred in Blackstone Falls, Clementine Creek, and a couple in the neighboring towns. We’d picked up a good variety of cottages, vacation homes, apartments, and cabins for both the college crowd and tourists alike.
With any luck, we’d be expanding all the way into Nashville within the year, and having Bea on the front line would definitely help us do that.
Slapping my hand against the table makes him jump, and I chuckle. “Dude, that’s your girl. You gotta be like, ‘hell yeah, I want to hire my girl—she’s the best damn woman for the job and she’s going to fucking kill it.’ Seriously, man, have I taught you nothing?”
“I mean?—”
“Grandad always said when you find the girl that makes the sun rise and set, you make her your whole world. You’re her shoulder to cry on and her number one fan. And if you’re pitching her for a job that risks our anonymity when all our dealings have been entirely online or third party, then I need you to give me a little more thanor something.”
Grabbing a sugar packet from the container, Archer flicks it at my head with a grin. “You’re an idiot anddamn straightshe’s the best one for the job. She’s really smart and she’s good with the marketing piece too. You should see her social media—runs circles around us.”
I snort and take a sip of my coffee. “Well, that last part isn’t hard. I like sendin’ memes, not makin’ them.”
“Exactly. She started talkin’ about algorithms and aesthetics and…” He trails off and I don’t have to be a genius to figure out how he got her to stop talking about all those things.
“I’m happy for you.” His eyebrows raise over the lip of his coffee cup, and when he swallows, the sound is audible.
“Thanks.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he looks down at the butcher-block table and grins before looking up at me. “It’s crazy, right?”
“Being happy? Naw, man, you just hadn’t met the right one.”
“Speaking of the right one…”
I shrug. “I gotta wait and see how it goes. She broke up with her boyfriend not long ago, and I just want to make sure she’s ready before I start something.”
“That’s…very adult of you,” he says as he tries—and fails—to hide a smile with his coffee cup.
“Honestly, I hate this new side of me.”
“No, you don’t,” he says with a laugh and he’s right. I don’t. But things with Ellison Mills have always been the kind of complicated you see in the movies. She had a well-to-do upbringing, and my mama used to swat at me for tracking mud into the house.
“I just want her to be all in, and she can’t be all in with me if she still has feelings for some douchebag in Savannah.”
“How do you know she still has feelings?”
“I don’t, but I can’t take that chance.” My fist rubs at the ache in the center of my chest. “I lost her for a long time, you know? She wasn’t totallygonebut she wasn’tthereeither.” Archer stares at me like he’s tryin’ to figure out a puzzle. He’s never had something like Ellison and I had back then, really not until he got together with Bea.
But Ellison and I have always been something special. She’d been the center of my world for so long it was hard to reconcile the time when she wasn’t. I’d hated every second of the distance between us and every wall erected. We weren’tus,and that’s something that left an irreparable hole in my heart.
