Nothing outside this mattered.
I stepped closer in the space between his legs and wound my arms around his neck, wrapping him in a tight embrace. In the next breath, his arms banded around my back, anchored around my waist as his frame sank against mine.
I was hugging the past version of Archer, the one I couldn’t be there for. And I was hugging the man I knew now, who wastryingto be better, no matter how his upbringing was stacked against him.
He let out a deep exhale, burying his face into my hair. I did something similar against the side of his neck, breathing through the wave of panic that I’d done something stupid. That I’d done something irreversible.
No. It wasn’t stupid. I refused to believe that.
Showing compassion to someone who’d just allowed you to see their pain was never an action that would end in regret. Archer wasn’t someone on a pedestal, cold and untouchable, impossible to hurt. Hewas so very human, and as I knew from tonight, he bled just as easily as the rest of us, no matter how much money was in his bank account.
It’s easy to dismiss people’s pain when their lives seem less difficult than ours. But pain doesn’t discriminate, and there’s no concrete scale for whose wounds caused more damage. No barometer that labeled someone’s grief or loss or hardship as worse or easier or better.
It was still grief and loss and hardship. Archer had to grieve something he’d never had—parents who loved and supported him unconditionally.
Without Pops, I would’ve had to grieve that too.
“He’s wrong,” I said firmly, keeping a tight hold on the wide expanse of his shoulders, my fingers curling into the material of his shirt. “You did something he could never do.”
His fingers spread wide on my back, moving up and down, the heat of his palm seeping through the thin layer of cotton. The intention behind it, no doubt, was meant to be soothing. But I was not soothed.
“I like having you in my house,” he said, voice muffled because of how tightly he held me.
I smiled, turning my face toward his neck. The edge of my mouth brushed his skin, and his arms tightened, the thick bands of muscles stealing my breath.
“I like that room off the kitchen,” I told him. It was a much safer admission thanI like being in your arms.
“Why are you whispering?”
I laughed under my breath. “I don’t know. It feels like a secret I shouldn’t be saying out loud.”
“You can tell me.”
I set my chin on his shoulder, leaning my head against his, and stared at the room in question as I felt a bittersweet tug down the center line of my chest. “It’s a perfect place to read. Even in the summer, I’d want a fire in the fireplace. A big fuzzy blanket over my lap.”
“Yeah?” His voice was rough, and I shivered, burrowing deeper into his embrace. “What else would you want?”
I licked my lips, shifting on my feet enough that it brought my hips closer to his. His hands tightened over my ribs. “I’d put a Christmas tree in the corner during the holidays. That way, when you’re in the kitchen, you can see it. Family ornaments, maybe. The homemade ones that don’t match and aren’t perfect, but you keep them anyway because they’re the favorites.”
“I don’t have any of those,” he admitted in a gruff whisper.
Wisdom was shoved into the back of my mind because it was the last thing I needed as I pulled away just far enough to look into his perfectly handsome, perfectly rugged face. I cradled his jaw with my palm, heart expanding as his eyes closed and he leaned into the touch.
“I don’t know what to do with you, Archer Evans.”
He didn’t open his eyes right away. His response came after a few moments, and only after he’d pressed his palm over the top of my hand, silently begging to keep my touch just for a little bit longer.
When he did open his eyes, there was a twinkle of humor there. “I have a feeling you won’t like any of my suggestions.”
“Try me,” I whispered.
His chest rose and fell. “No, I need to let you decide what happens next, firefly.”
Power.
There was no doubting that in this moment, with this man, it was entirely mine.
The question was, what did I want to do with it?