by Elise Faber
She’d finished a big corporate job the week before and then had been roped into a government assignment she couldn’t talk to me about. All I knew was that it had meant she hardly left her office for close to three days.
Then she’d had a breakthrough and things had calmed down a bit and—
My thoughts trailed to a halt when I caught a glimpse of the expression on her face, the stiffness in her body.
“What is it?” I asked.
Her lips parted, pressed flat. Parted again.
I mentally backtracked through what I’d said.
Working a lot. Not minding helping her. The woman . . . I loved.
Oh, fucking hell. I hadn’t meant to say it like that. I’d had a whole plan to introduce it slowly, to get her used to the idea of how well we work together, how good we were as a couple. And then I’d planned to tell her.
Maybe while she was handcuffed to my headboard, so she couldn’t escape.
I certainly hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Especially when it turned her into Statue Niki.
“I . . . um . . .” I wasn’t going to take it back. I couldn’t, not when it was the truth. “Are you okay?”
Still, she played a statue.
“Niki.”
She inhaled, but her eyes were still far away, her face pale, and she was trembling.
“Baby?” I asked.
Continuing to breathe, but still not out of the fog, her every muscle taut and rigid.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, smoothing my hand over her hair.
She didn’t unstick, exactly, but a sound emerged from her throat, at least. “I—”
Fuck. I’d broken her. Surprised her and reset her brain, and now I needed to find a way to melt the ice in her veins to make the panic she was certainly feeling subside, so I could go back to winning her over in increments. I rested my hand on her shoulder, slid it in, and stroked my thumb up and down her throat. She was still tense, but she hadn’t bustled me out the front door, hadn’t run upstairs and locked herself into her office. So, that was something. But how to snap her out of this, to get her to push through the fog? What could I possibly say to—
“Bolognese?” I blurted.
She blinked, head jerking, eyes widening. “What?” she whispered.
Apparently, now I was finally speaking her love language. “Bolognese,” I said again.
Her mouth opened, a breath sliding out. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I . . .” I sighed. “Are you okay?”
She blinked, shoulders rising and falling on a breath, confusion being replaced by uncertainty. “Did you mean it?”
I inhaled sharply.
“Because if you didn’t—”
The doorbell rang.
“Niki—”
She spun toward the front hall, hurrying away from me as though it were her job and she was going to get the best employee evaluation ever, twisting the handle and opening it before I had the chance to say anything further.
Kace and Brooke, Iris and Brent, Hayden and Anabelle all poured into the house, their arms full of bags and bottles.
It was the first time they’d all taken the night off, leaving the bar in the hands of Bobby’s other employees, and for Kace, taking a much-needed Friday off.
“Sorry we’re late,” Iris said, passing Niki a bakery box before giving her a one-armed hug, “I had to pry Brooke off her computer.”
“I was in the middle of a scene!” Brooke complained, hugging Niki as soon as Iris released her.
“As much as I love your books, Archer promised to cook for us.” She pointed at her belly, curved gently with new life inside. “There’s a baby in here who needs some of the food that Niki keeps tormenting us about.”
Niki, for one, appeared shell-shocked.
Whether that was from the sudden noise and conversation or my slip of the tongue—or both—I couldn’t be sure. Either way, she was still a statue, although a living, breathing one.
So maybe some animatronic robot or—
Maybe this wasn’t important because Niki was clearly terrified and overwhelmed, and I needed to do something to put my best friend and the woman I loved at ease.
And deal with the crowd of people in the hall.
Hayden, Niki’s righthand man, glanced from his boss to me to the crowd and said, “Hey, I had a quick question about—”
“No shop-talk!” Iris protested.
But Hayden was skilled at maneuvering, and so was I. Sometimes, anyway. When it didn’t come to declarations of love, that was.
Or botched ones.
Or any variety, I supposed.
Regardless, work would give Niki a cushion, a moment to come out of her shock, and then I could corral our friends, put them to work cutting noodles. Then I’d take my woman aside, would tell her in no uncertain terms that I most certainly loved her, and I didn’t give a fuck if that notion scared her, because I wasn’t like her parents or her former fiancé. I wasn’t just going to leave. I loved every part of her, and I was staying around.
Okay?
Okay then.
Hayden met my eyes and lifted his chin in the direction of the kitchen. I nodded gratefully, shepherded the rest of the flock away, thanking the universe that Hayden was able to read his boss.
Ten minutes later, I’d gotten the girls to roll up their sleeves, Iris supervising as Anabelle and Brooke rolled out the pasta dough I’d premade and then cut the fettuccini noodles, Kace reheating the sauce on the stovetop. Bread was covered, courtesy of Iris and her bakery, along with wine and salad, the two which both, surprisingly, were from the bar.
Not the wine, I supposed.
That made sense.
But the salad.
It was fresh and delicious and the second bestseller behind the sampler basket of fried goodness. Local produce made that easy, along with a large subset of their customers who liked to “pretend” to be healthy by ordering a salad to go along with all that bar food.
“Pretend” because that’s what a few of their regulars—Abby, Bec, Sera, CeCe, and Rachel—called it when they came in for their weekly dinner date. Sometimes with husbands. Sometimes with kids. Always with lots of laughter and affection.
Their regulars were the best.
That aside, I had the food part of the evening covered. Everyone’s belly would get filled, wine would be drunk, and good times would be had, even by Niki. I’d make that happen. I’d give my left nut to make that happen.
But as time passed, my eyes drifting to the doorway, neither Hayden nor Niki making an appearance, I started to get tetchy.
She was probably in panic mode, and the distraction at work had just been temporary and—
Breathe.
It would be okay.
I’d talk to her and all would be okay.
I set the table, opened and poured the wine . . . and kept checking for Niki.
After fifteen minutes, I heard footsteps and relaxed when Hayden walked into the kitchen. But that tension returned almost immediately because Niki didn’t follow.
Hayden came and got two glasses of wine from me. “She’s okay. Just in the bathroom.”
I nodded but didn’t feel reassured as he moved off to bring the wine to Anabelle. In fact, I was so on edge, every cell in my body telling me that I needed to find Niki and speak to her immediately, that I’d actually taken a step back when Iris called out for my help.
“I’m a baker not a pasta maker, Archer,” she said. “What do we do now?”
My gaze was on the opening, hoping that Niki would . . . just . . . come . . . in.
“Just put them in the water,” I said.
“Um . . .”
Something about Iris’s tone had me turning back . . . and immediately wincing at the mess that had become of my pasta dough.
My brows lifted.
Iris plunked her hands on her hips. “I said I was a baker, not a pasta maker.”
That, I could se
e.
“I am neither a baker nor a pasta maker,” Anabelle said, a chunk of dough in her hair.
“Me, too,” Brooke said, her entire front covered in flour. “I can write a book about making pasta, but I can’t roll it out for shit.”
That, also, I could see.
Sighing, I tore my gaze from the opening, put down the bottle, and headed over to rescue dinner from the hands of the trio. I’d give Niki a few more minutes before busting down the door to the bathroom.
“Okay,” I said, “non-bakers and pasta makers, this is how you roll out dough.”
Chapter Twenty
Niki
After Archer’s woman I love slipup (Was it a slipup? Was it real? Did I want it to be real? Was I fucking terrified to want that?) I seriously considered running out the front door.
But there were two problems with that.
One, it was my house.
Where would I run to? I supposed I could buy another house, in a city far away from any and all men named Archer who said insane things like I love, but I wouldn’t be able to sneak my computer equipment out without him seeing, and I needed my equipment so I could work and pay for the new house, and I couldn’t just go out and buy a new computer because I’d built my current setup. So no, I was too attached to my beauty of a system to just replace it with something store-bought.
Two, my other problem with just running, was . . . well, I didn’t want to run.
I liked being with Archer.
It was easy and beautiful, and I couldn’t picture going back to my life how it had been before.
How could I give him up?
And yet, how could I keep him? Wouldn’t love bring complications and more emotions and more ways for me to let him down?
I couldn’t love him. I couldn’t.
It was just better to be boyfriend and girlfriend, extreme like on both sides, nothing complicated like love. Then we’d stay lovers, stay friends, stay together, and I wouldn’t have to give him up.
Yes, I was ignoring the fact that most boyfriends and girlfriends moved toward love and that many moved toward—swallowing hard—marriage.
Yes, I was also ignoring the fact that I was a coward.
Because when he’d said woman I love, my heart had squeezed hard, joy had bubbled through my veins like sparkling water, and longing had gripped every single part of me.
I wanted that.
But how?
When I just had the huge boulder sitting on my chest, telling me that I couldn’t do this, revisiting all the doubts I’d clung to for so long.
So cowardice and longing and feeling like the woman I’d been several months before.
Fucking hell.
Which was why I’d run upstairs under the guise of going to the bathroom after talking about nothing important with regards to work with Hayden. He was too observant by half, and I knew he’d been trying to give me a second to breathe and refocus by thinking about the one thing that always centered me—work.
But how could I?
Because it suddenly wasn’t the most important thing in my life.
Which was why I was in my office, trying not to hyperventilate while my friends, while the family I’d begun forming, were gathered downstairs, their laughter and conversation flowing up through the floor.
Sighing, but no closer to courage, I forced myself to leave my sanctuary and move into the bedroom.
Baby steps.
I’d just tell Archer to cool it on the whole love thing, that we just needed to keep dating and that was it, none of the pesky L-word to muck things up. We’d just keep things exactly like they were, and they’d stay great, and it would be perfect.
And I wouldn’t ruin it.
I wouldn’t—
Gaze drifting to the bed, to the bare wall above it, I nearly tripped over my own two feet. Perhaps, formerly bare was more appropriate.
No, there wasn’t anything perhaps about it.
It was occupied.
With a huge, colorful painting of . . .
Us.
It was abstract, the shapes and lines blurred together into something that wouldn’t be immediately recognizable, but it also was instantly identifiable because I was part of it. Because it was Archer with me.
I could picture the moment—him smiling down at me, his arms wrapped tight, his face so close that I could feel the heat of his breath, the individual bristles of his beard, see the tiny scar just above his right eyebrow.
Us.
My feet carried me to the bed, on top of it, my fingers tracing over the strokes of paint, and I knew.
This was fear talking.
This was fear trying to pull me back down, to shrink my life into that tiny, miserable bubble.
But I’d slipped an arm and a leg out of it and it was good.
No. It was fantastic.
Because the feelings that Archer, that our relationship invoked weren’t small and contained, they weren’t something I could just mess up and ruin. They were deep and important and not something that shoved me down, tied me up.
And as I stood there, staring at the painting, I realized they weren’t something to be feared.
He loved me.
Me.
Not some version of myself I tried and failed to be for my parents.
Not the me, who’d tried to lash out and keep people at a distance.
Just the me who was . . . myself.
The workaholic, messy and unorganized, tiny ravioli eating me.
Heart pounding, one second my fingers were running along the rough canvas and the next, they were trailing through the air as I ran out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.
My heart pounded. My chest heaved.
But not from the exertion.
Rather, it was from the realization. From the sudden focus of seven people on me. From the one person who mattered the most.
Archer.
Who was straining the pot of pasta, steam filling the space between him and the pot, the air filled with the scent of Bolognese, with the sound of teasing and joy, and I burst out from that small box.
Firmly and forever.
“I love you,” I blurted.
The room fell silent.
Clang.
I jumped when the pot slipped out of Archer’s hands, but I barely had time to register the noise before he was in front of me, flour on his cheek, his eyes wide, his voice hoarse when he asked, “What did you say?”
“I love you,” I repeated, not needing courage. Not now. Not after seeing that painting, after understanding.
He loved me.
I watched his neck work, saw his eyes grow damp, his words a bare whisper as he said, “You do?”
I nodded, cupped his jaw, the bristles of his beard a rough caress on my palms. “I do,” I whispered back. “How could I not? You see all the things that others find as flaws, and you accept them as something wonderful. You love the pain in the ass, the slob, the woman who sometimes doesn’t have the courage to voice the feelings in her heart.” I slid my hand down to his chest, feeling his heart pounding against his ribs. “So, how could I not love the wonderful man who cooks for me, who cares about me, who tried to make my life easier? Who makes me Bolognese, even though it’s a pain in the ass.” His lips curved. “Who loves me, just as I am. Not changes requested or insults slung. Just acceptance and patience and”—I chuckled—“sometimes stubborn persistence.”
He stroked his knuckles along the back of my throat. “You forgot about vodka.”
I covered his hand with mine. “I didn’t,” I whispered. “I didn’t forget anything about you, and I never will.”
He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I feel so damned lucky you sat in that stool.”
“And that the ladies at the other end of the bar ordered too many drinks?”
Archer shook his head. “No.”
“No?” I asked.
His eyes twinkled. “No, they didn’t order too many drinks. I needed a wa
y to talk to you, and I was desperate to get you to unleash the full force of your glare on me.”
I burst out laughing. “You’re sick.”
“No,” he said, grasping the side of my neck and hauling me close. “I’m absolutely, totally, completely, endlessly—”
“That’s a lot of -lys.”
A finger over my lips. “Shh,” he said, “I’m trying to be romantic.”
More laughter, but this time it was mixed with the type of incandescent joy that only this man wrought.
“Where was I?” He tapped his lips this time. “Intensely, irrevocably . . . foreverly—”
“That’s not a word.”
“Shh,” he said.
“Archer,” I warned. “So help me, God, but do I need to threaten your murder via kitchen tools again?”
“You love me,” he countered.
“I’m already regretting it.”
“I’m not,” he said, tugging me close and resting his forehead to mine. “It’s the greatest gift you could have ever given me.”
I rose on tiptoe. He bent.
And our mouths, like every other part of us—our bodies, our hearts, our souls—lined up perfectly.
“Um,” Brooke began. “I don’t mean to break up the romantic moment,” she said, concern creeping into her voice and at the same time, the smell hit my nose. “But Kace burned the sauce.”
“It wasn’t on purpose!” he exclaimed, wincing as he glanced down into the pot.
“I don’t trust any of you when it comes to burning things,” Iris said.
Anabelle glanced from the pot, her wince rivaling Kace’s. “Got caught up in the romance, did you?”
“Shut it,” he grumbled. “This isn’t my fault. I should have never been trusted with something as important as Bolognese duty.”
Archer’s chest vibrated with laughter.
Hayden held up his phone. “I’m ordering dinner from the bar,” he said. “Who wants what?”
Orders were called across the room. The ruined sauce—and pasta, since Archer had managed to miss the colander altogether—went into the trash. More wine was poured (and tacked onto the order from the bar).