Page 6 of Archer (Dirty Misfits MC 3)
A paradise where Archer was damn near naked for me and asking to go for a swim.
But when I finally came back to reality, no one was with me. They were all packing up my things and hauling them out to Porter and Astrid’s car while I sat there like a bump on a fucking log. I hated feeling useless and weak. I’d felt that way all my life in one sense or another. It was why I had such a terrible eating disorder as a teenager. It was why I was so happy when my parents finally died in that hellhole nursing home I stuffed them into.
And it was why I hoped and prayed not to backslide into my own ways just to feel as if I had a grip on my own damn life.
Three
Archer
I practically drooled on myself as I whipped up the rest of our meal. The sesame chicken sat in the microwave, keeping warm as I made up our eggroll soup and crab rangoon dip. And as I heard Josie shuffling around upstairs trying to get settled, I gazed out my kitchen window over the backyard.
That slipped right into the beach.
I got a fucking great deal on this house, too. The previous owners had been an elderly couple who suffered great losses in their lives. Both of their children had passed away after being caught in the early morning riptides that formed in their backyard on occasion. And after burying both of them, they couldn’t stand to be in the house any longer.
So, they gave me a great deal and I took a relic of their pain off their hands.
Still, most of the guys—like Josie—were shocked that I purchased something like this. The rest of the guys lived in apartments, townhomes, or places far out in the middle of nowhere compared to the bustling bullshit of Santa Cruz. But me? Well, I’d always had an affinity toward the water.
It was why I had lived here my entire life.
“Archer!”
The second Josie yelled for me, I dropped what I was doing. My spoon sank to the bottom of the soup and I cracked the oven for the crab rangoon shit and soared through the house.
“Archer, help!”
I rounded the banister of the staircase. “I’m coming! Hold on!”
I took the steps three at a time and sprinted down the hallway. I heard Josie taking in deep breaths through her nose and struggling as she got them out of her mouth. I rushed into the bedroom she claimed for herself and saw her trying to get up out of a chair.
But she had her stomach gripped as if it hurt.
“What’s going on? What is it?” I asked.
I dropped to my knees in front of her and watched her face contort with pain.
“Josie, can you look at me?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “My stomach is just—whenever it growls, it—”
I slowly moved her hand away. “Let me check. I want to make sure the bruising isn’t getting any worse. Cole told me that might indicate internal bleeding if they get worse. Can you sit up for me?”
It took Josie a while to lean back and get herself comfortable. But when she did, I slowly lifted up her shirt. The bruising on her stomach didn’t seem to be any worse, but then again it looked just about as worse as it could get.
“I’m going to touch it softly, okay? Let me know how badly it hurts,” I said.
Josie nodded, but didn’t say anything. She simply kept drawing in hard breaths through her teeth and focused on the ceiling. So, I placed my hand softly against her bruised gut and pressed.
“How does that feel?” I asked.
Josie grunted. “Not—not terrible.”
I moved my hand and pressed off to the side. “What about that?”
She shook her head. “Not better, but not worse.”
“All right. One more side. How about—”
She hissed. “Shit!”
I slid her shirt down. “Okay. Unfortunately, what you’re experiencing is going to be a new normal for a little while.”
She sighed. “How do you know that? What’s over there that hurts so badly?”
I stood to my feet and walked around to the top of her head. “You have stitches on that side of your body. Do you remember getting them?”
She blinked. “Oh, yeah. The doctor had to put some there, too.”
I grinned. “They’re going to be tender because the stitches are through bruised skin. It’s not going to feel pretty for a few days.”
She rolled her eyes. “Marvelous.”
“But Cole did slip some numbing spray in my hand before I left. Want to see if that helps at all?”
Her eyes slowly opened. “You should’ve led with that.”
I chuckled as I smoothed my hand across her forehead, then backtracked into my room. Truth be told, Cole slipped a great deal of stuff into the small brown bag that held Josie’s pain pills. There was numbing spray for her tender stitches, big bottles of Tylenol and ibuprofen, waterproof slabs of Band-Aids she could put over her stitches if she wanted to take a bath, and plenty of gauze as well as alcohol pads for cleaning the stitches if they oozed with anything.
