1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  “You aren’t,” I say, flat. “You’re supposed to let me and Hazel work our shit out the way we always have, and back off in the meantime.”

  Eli glares but he doesn’t say anything as I rub a hand through my hair. Sigh a little.

  “Come on, Eli. Don’t analyze this shit. You know she runs hot and cold with me. So let’s just enjoy it until she decides it’s not working for her anymore, and pulls back. Ok?” I offer him a small smile, and because it’s Eli he falls for it. Nods along and stands, shoving his big fucking feet into shoes and petting Smith who wandered back downstairs without his mistress.

  That’s an annoying kick in the gut. Even Hazel’s damn dog likes Eli more than me.

  Then Hazel is jogging down the stairs, golden hair a trailing mess behind her, and I forget to care.

  Eli doesn’t get to fuck her on the counter.

  Gabe doesn’t get to keep her fucking secrets.

  I’m the only one who she looks at like that. Considering and cautious and nervously hopeful.

  And I’ll fucking take that. Just like all those damn years ago, when I was coaxing out her trust. I’ll take it now, until she finally realizes that it’s safe.

  That I’m safe.

  Chapter 7

  I expect things to be awkward. Maybe because I ran last time, before they could get awkward, I expect some kind of—pressure?—from Archer.

  I forget that this is Archer and he’s made a fucking art form of waiting for me.

  So there’s a flicker in his eyes, a lazy heat that is intoxicating before it’s banked and shut down, and he’s offering me a quick grin and that brusque once over that is how Archer shows care—checking me to make I’m meeting his standards of okay.

  He did that shit when we were in school, for me and Eli and he does it now.

  Spilling into Mama’s is like falling through time, the boys pushing and shoving and me a half-step ahead, rolling my eyes and flushing a little as the truckers eye us like we’re overgrown children intruding on their peace and quiet.

  Not a completely inaccurate depiction of the morning’s happenings, but it’s also Mama’s, which means it’s ours and while I might have hidden behind my brother and Archer in school, today I meet those grumpy stares with a cold look that sends interest my way and turns the less curious away.

  Eli huffs a laugh as Archer grabs a couple menus—not that any of us need it—and slide us toward an empty booth. We’re barely sitting, me scrunched against one side of the booth with Archer’s big body boxing me in, Eli across from us, when Hailey Lewis hurries up.

  Eli’s big eyes get bigger, almost frantic, and Archer snickers at my side. “Hi! Oh my gosh, I didn’t expect you today. Um, do you want your usual? I can tell Nora you’re here, but coffee, first, right?”

  “Hey, Hailey?” I say, sugar sweet, and her wide brown eyes cut to me.

  Pretty sure she hadn’t even seen me or Archer, she’s so damn focused on Eli. She always has been—poor thing has been obsessed with Eli since she first laid eyes on him in high school.

  “Hazel!” she almost squeaks, her eyes wide and a little bit unsettled. Like she doesn’t want to see me at my brother’s side. “I—um. When did you get back to Green County?”

  I stare at her, long enough that she flushes and squirms in place, before I let a small smile curl at the edges of my lips. “Tell Nora we’re here, would you?”

  She flushes and nods once, hurrying away with her head down like a scolded puppy.

  “That wasn’t nice,” Archer says through a smile. I lean against him briefly and shrug, letting him feel the motion roll through me. “Neither is her chasing poor Eli for the past damn decade.”

  Archer laughs, and I drink down the sound. I want to lick it from his mouth again.

  Want to drag that arm on the table around me until I’m pushed up against his side, nestled against him like it’s where I belong. It is where I belong.

  “Well, well. Look what finally decided to roll into their diner,” Nora says, her voice a familiar drawl. Her gray eyes are hard as they rake over us, but warm, too.

  That’s Mama Nora. Hard and warm and home. Archer flashes her a quick grin and Eli slides out of his side to pull her into a hug. She huffs out a breath, and pats his back affectionately as he lets her go, and she grins at us.

  “What are y’all doin’ here? I heard the mayor and Chief of Police were sitting down with the force, today?”

  Archer shrugs. “They are. We’ll be heading there after breakfast. But Hazel doesn’t keep shit in her house.”

  I flush and dig an elbow into his side. “You’re a bastard,” I snap. Nora arches an eyebrow at me. “Hazel Beth,”

  “I’m eating, Mama,” I protest before she can get started, because if there’s anything that bothers my adoptive mother, it’s her kids neglecting themselves. “Archer is just being an ass.”

  She smiles, and nods. “Alright then. You three behave and I’ll get us some food. Eli,” she waits til he focuses on her and frowns, “Be nice to Hailey. I need her to wait tables and she can’t do that if she’s crying in the back.” Eli makes a face, but he nods.

  Nora nods, once, a fiercely satisfied smile on her face. And I meet Archer’s eye, quietly questioning. And he nods and squeezes my shoulders.

  Archer and I have always worked together, to keep Eli happy and safe. To keep Nora from worrying too much. It’s why we kept each other’s secrets, when Archer was drinking and fucking everything that moved in high school, and when he caught me cutting.

  We were never the ones who mattered—Eli and Nora did. An unspoken agreement between us, to keep them happy and unaware of the worst of our dysfunction.

  I wonder if that will always work.

  If our secrets will shatter under the weight of our new—whatever the fuck it is, him getting me off, and me sleeping in his arms.

  I shove that thought down and focus on my family as Nora returns with coffee and a big plate of bacon, Hailey trailing her with the rest of our food.

  When the boys leave me, with a quick hug from Eli and a smirk from Archer, I wander to the local library.

  Because the truth is, Archer and Eli slamming into my little house and even before that, Gabe at the coffee shop, shook me up. Reminded me that I’m not an island, I’m not a girl bound by deadline in a city where no one knows me or worries about me.

  I’m home, and people care about me here. People that I care about, even if I’m not ready for all of their questions and concern.

  I’ve been hiding for six months, and even longer than that, for four years, since I left Green County and refused to even consider the idea of coming home.

  And I’m tired. I’m tired of being alone and having only my dog and my echoing thoughts to keep me company. I’m tired of all the fucking regrets that keep me locked up in my head and away from the people I love.

  The people who love me.

  Archer.

  Shit there is still so much fucking baggage there. Even more, after the sexcapades last night.

  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him though.

  Eli came to visit me, twice a year, like clockwork. Nora called once a week, a steady tie to home. Even in the city, lost in my own crazy chase to be something bigger than Green County could offer, they kept me tied to home. Kept me from forgetting that I had something there, waiting for me. People who loved me no matter how big a story I broke or how far back in the paper my byline was.

  But it wasn’t the same. Archer and I were different. He was my secret keeper, the one who saw past my shit and stuck around anyway.

  And until I was curled up on the back porch with him laughing and teasing, I hadn’t realized how much I missed him.

  I still miss him. I miss home. Because I've been back for six months but I've kept myself apart. Hiding from everything that happened in Boston and from everything I left in the first place.

  I'm tired of hiding.

  So I show up at the library and if Robby seems
surprised to see me in his dusty, ridiculously organized little house of knowledge, he doesn't comment. He just offers me an arched eyebrow and a grunt of acknowledgement as I settle myself at the long, uncomfortable research table and get to work.

  Every city has a story that they tell the rest of the world. Ours is perfection and the Airplane Orphans, the Honey Bee Fest and family values. The Piedmont resort and an excellent school district. The base and low crime rates.

  But every city has a secret too. Ours? Are just as dark as our story is pretty.

  I hesitate. Page through my notes.

  The problem was it was too big.

  Green County looked so perfect and pretty but you scrape away the surface and there was so much shit.

  I can't even wrap my head around all of it. This is why it's been six months and I'm still sitting on my fucking hands.

  “I heard,” a cheerful, crowing voice says, jerking me out of my thoughts until I look up at him. Gabriel sits across from me and I give Robby a disgruntled look. Gabe snaps his fingers and I sigh. “I heard the Airplane Orphans were wandering the city. And I said, well that just can't be true. If that were true, my best friend wouldn't still be avoiding me.”

  Hurt flickers in his honey gold eyes for a heartbeat and then he adds, too casual, “I would not be getting phone calls from Michael and John asking when we’re getting together with you because I know damn well you loathe those two knuckle heads.”

  I flinch. Because it’s true. Shoving them off on Gabe had been dirty.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Gabe is silent, watching me as I squirm, and he finally says, softly, “I am, too.” My gaze flips up to him, anxious and demanding and he shrugs. Smiles. “You made it pretty clear what we are, and what we aren’t, Hazy. I just need to accept it.”

  There’s a sad smile playing across his lips and he looks. So sad. So fucking lonely.

  “Brutal Honest?” I say, softly, and Gabriel goes still.

  It’s a game. One that we started playing with Eli and Archer when we were kids, and stupid and broken. When I was still raw from the loss of my father and the three of us were awkward and trying to find our way with each other. It was like truth or dare, but without the dare.

  It was stripping away all the layers of bullshit until there’s nothing left but honesty that can hurt, but that can also bind you up. Push you together.

  It can fix all the wrong things, if you let it.

  Eli and I used to play it, sitting in the dark corners of Nora’s living room while she fought with Archer, learning too much too quickly.

  It’s easy to confess all the ugly things, in the dark, when someone else is confessing their own.

  Sometime, over the years, Gabe and Archer got in on it. They started playing the game with us. It became less a game and more of a confession.

  Things said under Brutal Honest were sacred.

  They weren’t things that could be used to hurt, later. They were, sometimes, a subtle cry for help.

  Gabriel watches me, his eyes narrowed in concern as I fidget. Because I have no idea where to start. I’ve been hiding from Gabriel for four years. Keeping secrets from him. Where do I start being honest?

  “I slept with Archer.”

  Gabe inhales, so sharply I think he’s going to choke, and his eyes go almost comically wide.

  “What the actual fuck, Hazel!” he hisses, leaning across the table. Behind him, Robby’s eyebrows go up, a little bit disapproving and I force a smile as I grit out, “Calm down, dumbass.

  And I’ll explain it to you.”

  Gabe’s eyes narrow, and he leans back. Grabs my files and starts stacking them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, almost amused.

  “We’re leaving,” he says, shuffling the papers together. “Are we?”

  He goes still, his leaning into my space again and says, clearly, “You just told me you slept with Brandon fucking Archer. You don’t get to drop that kind of shit on me and then carry on with research like it’s a normal day. You’re going to lunch with me, we’re having a really nice bottle of wine and you’re going to tell me what the hell changed in four years that you finally let that happen.”

  I consider protesting. There are more important things to focus on than my lack of love life, or a night of really bad decisions.

  But.

  I miss home.

  And Gabriel is part of that.

  So I nod and grab my stuff, tucking it into my bag. Then Gabriel hooks an arm around my shoulder and pulls me out of the library.

  We end up at the Salty’s, a local pub that has the best fucking pie in town. Which is why we end up here. Gabriel eats desserts when he’s stressed, and I know he’s doing his best to keep that shit wrapped up where I can’t see, and I know that we’re different.

  We aren’t the same people anymore.

  That Gabriel is sitting almost still and silent across from me, barely fidgeting as he watches the waitress drop a couple menus on the table with two cups of water before she retreats and his golden eyes swing to me, searching.

  That tells me more than anything that we’ve changed.

  “Want to tell me all the dirty details, Hazy?” No.

  “Do you remember the night before I left? The party?”

  Gabriel’s eyes go wide, almost impossibly wide, and he comes down hard on the front legs of his chair. All of the amusement is gone, and he’s furious—angry energy has filled his face, replaced the smile that was beginning to form.

  “Are you fucking serious, Hazel? It’s been that long?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  No.

  It’s been longer than that. I’ve never told Gabriel that I love Archer. That I’ve always loved him.

  Maybe because I spent so fucking long ignoring it myself. It was easier to ignore than to accept the truth—that I wanted something I couldn’t have. Some truths are too brutal, even for me.

  “Tell me,” Gabriel snaps, and I sigh. Because I owe him this.

  Nora doesn’t take many opportunities to spoil us. To celebrate the children she always says she was blessed to have. Anyone else would have said getting three broken, grief-riddled kids in their early teens was a nightmare. But Nora. She reveled in it. Didn’t expect more than we could give.

  She never pushed me to celebrate my birthday, especially after Archer told her how much I hated it.

  But every once in a while, she wanted to celebrate.

  Me graduating college, that was one of those moments.

  Green County loved these things. When she threw open Mama’s and we drank and laughed and danced. When Eli spun me like a top and Archer flirted and watched us with that steady green gaze and the County could tuck us in the neat little box they shoved us in.

  “You’re thinking too much,” Gabriel says, coming up next to me. His arm slips around my waist, his head dropping to my shoulder and I smile as I lean mine against him.

  “You always think I’m thinking too hard.”

  “You usually are,” he says, an accurate, if annoying, assessment.

  I don’t argue with that. “How is—”

  The question breaks off half-formed. I can see his brother now, watching Remi, his eyes bright.

  He seems sad, almost broken, and with Colt missing, it hurts to see.

  I want them to be happy together because I’m so tired of no one being happy.

  Eli is single. Again.

  Archer is flirting with Laura, another girl who will be the latest in a long line of girls who don’t last, and who leave a little damaged. But not as damaged as Archer. And I don’t give a fuck if they are damaged. I care about him.

  And there’s me.

  So many secrets.

  So many things that I haven’t told him, or Gabe. Or Eli.

  When did I start keeping secrets? When did that become easier for me than telling them the truth?

  “Hey, Hazy,” Gabe says, his voice sticky sweet. “You’re drifting, baby girl
.”

  I blink, and twist, looking at him.

  “I love you, Gabe,” I whisper, hugging him tight, and he makes a startled noise. Then I pull away from him, and Archer is there, before Gabe can ask me anything. Can press for details and make me spill the secrets that are choking me.

  “Dance with me, Hazel,” he says, and I nod, because I’ve never been able to tell him no.

  I certainly won’t tell him no tonight.

  So he pulls me close as the music dips into something slow, and the city watches as we dance. Eli is dancing with Nora, and she’s laughing and it settles some of the fear twisting in my gut.

  “Do you ever wish it didn’t have to change?” I ask, and Archer frowns. “This. Us. I’m the last one, and I’m done. I’m out of school. Things—they’ll change now. They won’t be able to stay the same.”

  Archer’s eyebrows hitch up, surprise coloring his expression for a moment. “Do you think it’ll change that much? I mean, you’ll move out to your farmhouse, but. We’re still here.

  We’ll still be family.”

  I nod, leaning into his shoulder. Ignoring the unspoken truth that’s rattled around my head for almost five years.

  We haven’t been family in years. Since he left us for the Marines.

  And I understood. I did. Better than Eli or Nora, I got why he had to leave, if only for a little while.

  Doesn’t mean I liked it.

  “Do you think we did okay?” I ask, looking at where Eli and Mama Nora are dancing. Sometimes, I think we did.

  Sometimes I think Eli is too broken. That whatever good we did with Nora will be undone when we leave.

  “We did,” Archer says, and I crane my head back, because I never hear pride and happiness in his voice, but I do now.

  Here’s the secret. Archer and I were always working together. To protect Eli and Nora. She thought she was taking care of us. And she was, in a way.

  But we’ve always been taking care of each other, and in this, Archer and I were a team.

  We could be damaged—fuck we were. But it was okay.

  Because they weren’t.