“Not yet, kid. Not yet.”
“Archer, hello?”
The question hardly registered because I was staring at my phone, wondering what would happen if I just called her, texted her, anything.
Analise called my name again.
I turned my phone over so she’d know I was fully paying attention. “Sorry. What?”
“Could you give me a job?” she asked with a hopeful smile. “As much as I love lounging on your couch after school, I need something to do. And I just don’t know if I want to go to college or not.”
“Doing what?”
“I could be your assistant? Or ...Oh!I could manage your social media. You never do anything. The last post you made was eighteen months ago, and it was a picture ofdirt.”
“It was breaking ground on my house, Analise. I was excited.”
“No one else was,” she muttered. “Did you ever read the comment section?”
“No.”
Analise gestured like I’d just proven her point.
I laid my head back on the couch. “Fine. Social media manager. How much will that cost me a month?”
“I don’t know. What did your first job pay?”
“Eleven million a year,” I answered dryly.
Her shoulders deflated. “Oh. Well ... maybe a bit less than that, plus room and board?” she asked hopefully.
“Seventy-five grand. Half of it goes into a savings account, and you have to take some online classes to figure out what you want to do.”
Her eyes lit up. “A month?”
“A year, you punk. Give me a break.”
“I’m kidding.” She leaned forward and hugged me tightly around the neck. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said gruffly.
Why did every small act of kindness make me want to have a fucking breakdown?
Three days since I’d driven away from the shelter and I was ready to crawl out of my skin. I’d never felt so uncomfortable in my own body before, like I’d pulled my clothes on backward. Or I was wearing my shoes on the opposite feet.
Something didn’t fit right.
“Archer,” Analise said haltingly.
“Yeah?”
“You can talk to me, you know.” She twisted her fingers around the fuzzy blanket in her lap. “I don’t have much relationship experience—”
“You don’t have any,” I pointed out.
“I don’t have any. But I read a lot of books,” she said with an imperious tilt of her chin. “And I watch a lot of romance movies. I know how this works.”
“Do you?”