We Don't Talk Anymore

by Julie Johnson

  “What’s going on in that head of yours, Archer Reyes?” I whisper, reaching up to brush the lock of hair off his forehead. I’d like to take a crowbar and pry his thoughts into the open. Brute force may be the only way to get some honest answers out of him.

  When I pull back my hand, his arm whips up from his side, quick as a wink. His eyes never open, even as his fingers encircle my wrist in a tight manacle. I barely have time to suck in a surprised breath when he yanks me forward with a sudden burst of force. I fall onto his chest, my head landing in the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck.

  “Hey!”

  He ignores my sharp exclamation, wrapping his arms around my back. Pulling me tight against him. Aligning my curves against the firm planes of his chest.

  I stop breathing.

  For years, I’ve wanted this — to be so close to him, it’s impossible to tell where his body ends and mine begins. His hands on my back, his scent invading my senses. Our mouths a scant inch apart.

  As I stare at his face, a million emotions flash through me. Confusion, anger, joy, pain. I’m half-convinced I’m still upstairs in my bed; that this is all a dream…

  Or maybe a nightmare.

  “You should go,” he says softly. So softly, it lands like a punch to the stomach. “You should leave me.”

  Even as he says it, he tightens his hold, his body acting in direct contradiction to his words.

  “Archer,” I whisper, voice trembling. “What are you doing—”

  “Jo,” he breathes back, his mouth in my hair. “My Jo.”

  I go still.

  How long have I waited to hear those words?

  How dare he say them now, when I can’t be sure he means them?

  Planting my hands firmly against his chest, I shove out of his hold and spring to my feet. Tears fill my eyes in the space between one heartbeat and the next. I’m breathing hard, my pulse a sharp staccato.

  “No, Archer.”

  He sits up, startled by my abrupt departure. His eyes are slivers, half-hooded with the effects of alcohol, staring blearily at me across the space I’ve created between us.

  “Jo—”

  “No,” I grit out, my entire frame quaking with rage. “I am not your Jo. I’m not some plaything you can keep in your back pocket for emergencies, then toss aside whenever you get bored of me again. I’m a person. I have feelings. There was a time you used to care about hurting them.”

  He drops his head into his hands. He’s silent for a very long time. So long, I think maybe he’s passed out again. When he finally speaks, his voice is full of anguish.

  “I still care.”

  He does?

  He looks up at me, and my heart splinters at the look of pain on his face. “I care so much, it’s killing me.”

  I’m afraid to breathe — afraid, if I move one single muscle, this moment will shatter into dust and be swept away on the wind.

  “Then why?” A tear leaks out my right eye. Archer watches it slide down my cheekbone and fall to the terrace with a tiny splash. “Why are you being like this? Why have you been lying to me?” I take a step closer, my tears picking up speed. “There’s nothing you could tell me the would make me turn away from you, Archer. Nothing. So just let me in. Let me be part of whatever is going on.”

  Shaking his head rapidly, he staggers to his feet. “No. No, I can’t be here.” He lurches sideways, stumbling off balance. “I can’t talk to you about this. It’s not safe.”

  “Stop!” I cry, chasing him across the terrace. Grabbing him by the arm. Tugging him around to face me. “I’m not going to let you push me away again! I know you’re in some kind of trouble. I know you only told Jaxon you don’t care about me to keep me out of whatever he’s dragged you into. But if you’d just explain what’s happening, I’m sure I could help ”

  Archer’s expression darkens into the same cold mask I’ve grown accustomed to, lately. “I don’t want your help. Don’t you understand that? How many more times do I have to say it?”

  I fight the urge to smack him. “You are the most stubborn human alive!”

  “And you’re the most annoying!”

  “I hate you!” I scream into his face.

  “Good!” he roars back. “I hate me too.”

  Losing my battle with self-control, my hands fly out, shoving his shoulders roughly. “God damn you, Archer! You asshole!”

  He doesn’t even try to deflect my hit. He absorbs it like water into a sponge, rocking back with a slight wheeze.

  For a silent beat, we glare at each other — our rising tempers colliding like two broadswords. His voice is a soft timbre, grating against my frazzled nerve-endings.

  “You feel better, now?”

  “Yes, actually.” My nostrils flare on a sharp exhale. “I do.”

  “Then do it again,” he eggs me on. “Go on. I deserve it.”

  Without stopping to consider how twisted this whole thing is, I shove him again, lashing out with all the wounded pride pent-up for weeks inside my heart.

  “Jerk!”

  He nods in agreement, accepting the blow.

  “Coward!”

  I shove him once more — harder.

  Too hard.

  He stumbles back into the wall of the house, cracking his head with a painful thud.

  Shit.

  I fly forward, concern sparking through me at the thought that I’ve actually wounded him. But he doesn’t look injured. He merely leans against the stone, moonlight slanting across the chiseled angles of his face. He’s breathing like he’s just run a marathon, his mouth slightly parted. And he’s looking at me as though… as though…

  I freeze.

  His gaze is half-lidded, tracking my every infinitesimal movement. Reading me almost by memory, a book whose pages he’s turned a thousand times. His face is stripped clean of the indifference he’s been wearing like a shield, empty of all his earlier anger. And I’d swear on my life, the emotion simmering in his eyes isn’t hate.

  It’s something far scarier.

  Something that electrifies the very air we’re breathing in uneven gasps.

  I take a faltering step toward him, bringing us within arm’s reach of one another. A dangerous proximity for two people balanced as we are on the edge of a razor-blade. Which way it’s about to cut, I can’t say.

  Friend.

  Enemy.

  Or… perhaps something else entirely.

  “So you hate me, huh?” he whispers in a hollow voice.

  I take another step.

  The final step.

  “I really do,” I breathe.

  “That’s a relief.”

  My lips part to respond, but I don’t manage to get a single word out. In one great stride, Archer closes the gap between us, hauls me up against his chest, and crushes his mouth against mine in a heart-stopping kiss.

  A kiss eighteen years in the making.

  The brush of his lips sets off a seismic shift within my heart. Shakes the solid earth beneath my feet. Renders everything I’ve ever believed about love completely null and void.

  There is nothing friendly about the way his mouth moves over mine. Nothing platonic. Nothing remotely safe.

  He devours me.

  Drags me under the surface.

  Drowns me in passion.

  I never want to come up for air.

  His hands shove impatiently into my hair, twisting in the thick strands. He yanks my head back so he can deepen the kiss, his tongue spearing into my mouth with a moan that turns my bones to water. All I can do is hold on for dear life, clinging to his shoulders, letting him lay seige.

  Since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of the day Archer Reyes would finally kiss me. I’ve spent countless hours wondering what it would be like. If he’d be tender or frenzied, hesitant or forceful.

  Somehow, he is both everything and nothing like I imagined. A perfect medley of anticipation and expectation. He kisses me like I belong to him. His lips claim mine with both
unflinching authority and acute familiarity.

  I respond in kind, just as desperate to stake my claim.

  He is mine as plainly as I’m his.

  I make damn sure he knows it. Make sure he will never forget the way my hands feel as they slide over his shoulders; the way my breasts brush up against his chest; the way my tongue strokes his in harmony.

  Our touches are filled with so much passion, we shake with it. Tears spill down my cheeks, falling onto our lips. He kisses them into oblivion.

  We lose ourselves. There, in the shadows of Cormorant House with the moon shining down and the waves breaking along the shore, we disappear for a small infinity into one another, sacrificing all sense of self for a stolen moment of combined bliss. Putting aside our uncertain futures for one, shattering instant of unadulterated happiness.

  We are not Josephine and Archer.

  Not best friends.

  Not sworn enemies.

  We are merely two souls, spiraling deeper and deeper, like smoke from separate wicks on a single candle. We burn both for and in spite of each other, inextricably bonded by a foundation far deeper than attraction, far stronger than friendship, far bigger than fear.

  This kiss…

  It changes everything.

  It’s me, who breaks away first.

  I pull back, creating enough space between our faces to gasp for air. Archer’s breaths are just as uneven as mine. He’s looking at me with an expression I’ve never seen before.

  Desire.

  His eyes blaze so brightly with it, they could scorch the flesh from my bones. But when he sees the pain written across my features… when he recognizes what’s about to happen… his face becomes a mirror of my agony.

  He knows me too well.

  He’s memorized my lines before I’ve ever spoken them.

  “Jo...” His voice cracks. His hands are still in my hair — his fingertips pressing against the back of my head, as though he can’t quite bring himself to let go.

  I don’t want him to.

  But I need him to.

  “We can’t do this, Archer,” I whisper, tears slipping down my face in an endless stream. “Not this way.”

  He sucks in a jagged breath.

  I reach up and take hold of his wrists, tugging them gently from my nape. I hold on for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary before I release him.

  His hands fall limply to his sides.

  “I’ve wanted this for so long — longer than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life.” I make myself take a step back, even though every atom in my body is screaming at me to stay pressed against his warmth. “But it finally happens and… it’s all wrong. It’s all messed up. We’re all messed up.”

  A muscle leaps in his cheek as his jaw locks. He doesn’t speak. Not a single word.

  I force myself to go on. “The Archer I want — the one I’ve spent years dreaming about — is a version of you I’m not sure exists anymore. Because that guy? He was a good guy. He never lied to me. He didn’t keep secrets. He didn’t push me away.” I suck in a breath, trying to keep my voice level. “He protected me. He made me laugh. He held me when I was sad. He was my best friend.”

  His eyes close and I know he’s holding his emotions on a tight leash.

  “That’s the Archer Reyes I want to kiss,” I murmur softly. “That’s the Archer Reyes who owns my heart. That’s the Archer Reyes I’m desperately in love with.”

  A tear slides out beneath his lashes, onto his cheek. He shakes his head, unable to respond.

  “If you’re still that guy? Then I’m in. I’m all in.” I reach forward and wipe the droplet off his cheek. He shudders under the featherlight brush of my fingertips. “But if you aren’t… if you can’t be, anymore… then I’m walking away. I have to. Because having half of you would be worse than none at all. ”

  His eyes open. They’re almost amber in the starlight. The haze of pain in their depths tells me, even before he speaks, that he’s about to break my heart.

  “I can’t give you the answer you’re looking for.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I can’t be the guy you’re looking for.”

  I step back, gasping for breath like I’ve just been sucker-punched. There’s an anvil on my chest, compressing my ribs, flattening my heart to useless pulp.

  “I’m sorry,” he tells me, his voice devoid of feeling. “I wish I could explain—”

  “Don’t.” The word tastes like blood in my mouth. “Don’t say any more. I’m begging you. Just… don’t.”

  I turn and walk into the house, leaving him alone in the dark — along with my mangled, traitorous heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ARCHER

  I never should’ve kissed her.

  There’s a reason people say that ignorance is bliss. For years, I’ve wondered what it would be like to yank her into my arms. To finally, finally, take something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. But as torturous as the not-knowing was…

  Knowing is infinitely worse.

  Because now that I’ve felt the billowy soft skim of her mouth on mine… now that I’ve experienced the way her curves fit perfectly against my chest… there’s no going back.

  I can’t unsee.

  I can’t unfeel.

  The memory of her is embedded in my DNA, scored into my skin like a hot brand. Kissing Josephine Valentine was like coming up for air in a moment I hadn’t even realized how badly I was drowning. And the second she pulled away from me…

  My head slipped back beneath the surface.

  And I began to sink once more.

  Without the distraction of baseball to focus on, my mind is on fire with thoughts of her. She is everywhere I turn — in the sun-dappled light on the waters of the cove, in the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks at night, in the sweet summer breeze that rustles through the trees. Her voice is a ceaseless melody, haunting me.

  Having half of you would be worse than none at all.

  She was right to walk away from me. I don’t deserve her. Not now. Not like this. I had no business crossing that line in the first place. Now that I have, there’s no taking it back.

  I’d blame the alcohol for my actions, but that would be a lie. Sure, being wasted lowered my inhibitions. But those intentions were there all along, clawing toward the surface like a wild thing. It was only a matter of time before they broke free.

  I’ve always been an active person — running six miles nearly every morning, lifting weights in my spare time, spending every free minute outdoors. In the aftermath of the kiss, I find I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning. In the rare instances I actually leave the house, I glower at anyone who even glances my direction.

  My parents watch me with worried eyes, trading glances in the kitchen when they think I’m not looking.

  Mijo, let me fix you something to eat, my mother suggests gently. You’re looking pale.

  Come for a ride with me, son, my father proposes. Some fresh air will do you good.

  But I have no appetite — not for food, not for activity. Not for anything except sitting in my bedroom, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the girl I love is doing at this exact moment in time. Wondering if she’s as consumed by thoughts of our kiss as I am.

  After three full days of avoiding all human interaction, the door to my bedroom flies open. I look up from my phone to find my father standing there, glaring at me.

  “Get up,” he says flatly.

  “Pa—”

  “Get. Up.”

  I look back down at my phone. “I’m really not in the mood for a lecture.”

  “And I’m not in the mood to watch my son impersonate a sloth.”

  “I was going for slug, actually.”

  “Well, mission accomplished.” Pa crosses into the room, grabs the phone out of my hand, and tosses it into the wastebasket.

  “What the hell!”

  “Three days, I’ve watched you mope around here like a lovesick school
girl. Enough is enough.”

  “I haven’t been moping,” I grumble.

  “You have. I know, because I’ve been where you are. Believe it or not, I’ve done my fair share of moping, in my day.”

  My brows lift. “But you and Ma have been together… forever.”

  “Your forever and mine are not the same.” My father sighs. “There was a time when we were young and life was hard and nothing seemed certain — least of all our future as a couple. Whatever you and Josephine are going through right now…”

  I stiffen. “Who said anything about Jo?”

  “Give me a little credit.”

  I scoff. “You certainly picked a stellar time to start paying attention to my relationships.”

  “I’ve always paid attention. I just don’t shove my opinions down your throat unless I really need to. I trust that, when it comes to your love life, you know your own heart best. Most of the time, at least.” He punches me lightly in the stomach. “Seems to me, what you could use right now is a bit of perspective.”

  “I don’t need perspective. I need to be alone.”

  “In my experience, a man only craves solitary confinement when the person he’d like to spend his time with isn’t an option.” He shoots me a look. “Don’t give up on her just yet, son. The road to enduring happiness is never smooth.”

  “What, are you working for Hallmark now? If it’s meant to be, it will be.” I roll my eyes. “You sound like a cheesy greeting card.”

  He smacks me upside the head.

  “Ow!”

  “True or false: the best things in your life — your spot on the varsity team, your college offers, your pitching skills — were simply handed to you, no strings attached.”

  “False,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my skull.

  “Exactly. You had to earn all those things. You had to work for them.” He pauses. “Why do you think love would be any different?”

  “I… Well…” I trail off.

  “Son. Love, like all the best things in life, is not a free handout. It takes effort. Time. Patience. Commitment.” He holds my stare, his eyes steady. “If you really want to be with someone… you have to earn them.”