“Archer?” I gasp.
“No, it’s the fucking boogeyman,” he snaps sarcastically. “Who the hell did you think it was?”
“Notyou, obviously! What are you doing up here, lurking in the dark like an axe murderer?”
“I wasn’t lurking, I was sleeping! Or I was, until a crazy person barreled into me like a bull in a china shop.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Relieved I’m not about to be chopped into itty-bitty pieces, I relax against him. My pulse drops back to normal speeds. My breathing slows. But as my panic fades, something else arises in its place: acute awareness — of Archer’s hard body beneath mine, of the scant inches separating our faces in the dark, of how good it feels to be in his arms.
I should pull away. Create some space between us. But I don’t. And Archer doesn’t push me off, either. For a long moment, we simply lay there in the darkness, legs intertwined, breaths mingling.
Perhaps it’s because we’re here, in our spot… perhaps it’s because we can’t see one another properly… perhaps it’s simply because it’s the middle of the night, and the rest of the world is asleep… but for whatever reason, in this moment, it’s as though we’ve pressed pause on our fight. Set our anger aside in a momentary truce.
A temporary ceasefire.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Well I didn’t mean to scare you,” he murmurs back.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”
His head shakes. “Nah. Too much on my mind.”
“The scouts?”
“Among other things.”
I recognize the strain in his voice. It’s more than just our fight. Pressure is mounting for him to make a decision regarding college baseball. Most athletes have long-since signed their letters of intent, locking in their offers as soon as they received them. But Archer is leveraging his senior season in his favor, letting the best universities in the country woo him until the final hour with incentives — both financial and educational.
Last I checked, he’d narrowed his many options down to Florida State, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and (my personal pick) Bryant University. As his sole New England choice — and, coincidentally, a mere thirty minute drive from my dorm at Brown — I’ve been not so subtly rooting for him to join the Bulldogs in Rhode Island since the day they made their first overtures.
“Have you narrowed your list down further?”
“Not yet.”
“Deadline is coming up,” I tell him needlessly.
“Mhm.”
Everyone expects him to announce his decision at the end of the season — preferably, after he’s led Exeter to a State Championship title. I can practically see it now: him holding a gold trophy aloft in front of a swarm of press, grinning as he shakes his new coach’s hand. With just two regular games left before playoffs, that gives him mere weeks to make the biggest commitment of his life.
“It’s a big decision. It’s normal to be nervous. But you’ll make the right one,” I assure him. “I know you will.”
His voice grows achingly soft. “Sometimes… it feels like I’ve been handed this amazing stroke of luck and at any minute, it’s all just going to evaporate from my grip.”
“It’s not luck, though. It’s training. It’s years of hard work.” I sigh. “How many times did I drive to the field and drag your ass home after a full day of practice? How many mornings did you go for a six-mile run, even in the rain and snow and sleet? How many nights did you make me watch YouTube clips with you, studying footage and learning technique?” My lips twist. “You aren’t lucky, Archer. You’re talented.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. My body rises and falls each time he takes a breath, a boat upon a sea of rolling swells. When he speaks again, his voice is low. Full of gravel.
“Right now, I feel pretty lucky.”
I suck in a sharp breath. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’s talking about something besides baseball. My heart, only moments ago in danger of combusting from terror, is now in danger of combusting from another emotion entirely.
Not a platonic one.