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Mandy asking my plans for the rest of the night posed a problem because while part of me wanted to go back to Rapture and finish what I’d started the night before,another part of me didn’t want to risk it. And there was a third part, smaller, that screamed at me to call Archer.
To what end, I wasn’t sure.
Would I let him get me off again? Would we fuck? Would he try to apologize? Would Ilethim? More than all of that, the real question wascouldI do those things?
The answer was yes, whether I liked it or not.
I didn’t know if I could live with myself after any of it, but I’d already done it once…
His card had his phone number and his email listed neatly beneath his name, and before I could talk myself out of it, I texted him the name of the hotel and my room number, then I turned off my phone. I left it on the table outside, finished my beer, and went in and ordered myself room service.
The meal came and I ate it.
Still no sign of Archer.
I didn’t want to check my phone because whatever was going to happen between us wasn’t a negotiation and it wasn’t up for debate. He could show up, or not. We could fuck, or not. It wasn’t any sweat off my back either way, but as the clock inched on, I found myself growing tense and angry at his absence. A childish reaction, because I didn’t know anything about him. He could have had plans, he could have had another girlfriend for all I knew. It wouldn’t have been the first time he got tangled up with me while his heart belonged to someone else.
I should have asked, I realized.
I didn’t want to be the other man again. I didn’t want to be the cause for someone else’s heart getting broken the way Mandy’s had. The way mine had.
And then there was a knock at the door.
“Fucking idiot,” I cursed myself under my breath.
I was still in my clothes from earlier in the day. Tight jeans with a hole in the knee and a black Mayday Parade shirt. I was dressed like a teenager with high hopes and bare feet, a call back to the best and worst night of my life.
Another knock.
It was him.
I knew it was him.
Even through the closed door, I could feel him, hovering, waiting…anticipating.
I flipped the deadbolt latch on the door then pulled it open, breath catching in my throat after seeing him in the light for the first time. I hadn’t realized how dark Rapture had been until the smooth curves of Archer’s nose and cheeks came into focus. Dark scruff lined his jaw like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his hair sat perfectly gelled and styled on the top of his head. Like he was half put together and half torn apart. He had on the same boots from the night before, with black jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt that looked as soft as the duvet on my bed.
“You texted,” he said, like his greeting was an explanation for his presence.
“Stupid of me.” I stepped aside and pulled the door wider.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked.
“No.”
I let go of the door and headed back toward the patio. If the door closed and locked him out, then so be it. I didn’t know if it was luck or not that he caught it, but as I settled into one of the chairs on the balcony, I could feel the heat of him at my back.
“Do you have anything to drink?”
“There’s beer in the mini fridge,” I told him. “You can get me one too.”
I finished off the one I’d been drinking while I talked to Mandy, and quietly accepted the fresh one when Archer sank into the second chair to my left.
“How have you been?”
He asked the question like we were old friends, like it had just been a few weeks since we’d seen each other, not ten years. He asked the question like we were anyone besides who we were.
“Since when, Archer? Since you took my virginity and ghosted me and your girlfriend? Or since last night when you shoved your hand down my pants in an alley behind a BDSM club?”
