Page 35 of Broken Halos
“Your beautiful eyes will give you away.”
“I’ll wear colored contacts then.”
“Please don’t,” Ollie said, sounding horrified. “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Sandy returned with a small paper bag. “Here you go.”
I pulled my wallet out of my messenger bag before Ollie could stop me. I let Sandy keep the change for her trouble and told her I looked forward to seeing her again.
“Where to?” Ollie asked once we were standing on the sidewalk in front of the diner.
“Someplace where we won’t be interrupted by another living soul.”
“IKNOW A PLACE,”I said. God, I wanted to see him among my things again. I wanted to hear the awe in his voice when he looked at my drawings and to see his fair skin against my cream bed linens. I wanted to hear the sounds he made when he came.
“Ollie, you know what will happen if I go home with you again,” Archie said, a smug smile stretching across his face. “Neither one of us will be satisfied with rutting against each other until we come.”
“I know.”
“We need to do some talking before we get to the um…” He didn’t want to say fucking because he worried he might offend me, and I was certain lovemaking was a foreign word to him.
“We’ll talk on the ride there, and we can talk more once we arrive. We can talk all night if that’s what you—we—need.”
“You have church in the morning.”
“I wouldn’t force you to attend my church service. Is that why you’re hesitant tonight?” Knowing he was waiting for me in my house would certainly have me hustling back home as soon as the last member left.
Archie threw his head back and laughed. It was joyful and beautiful; I wanted to find more ways to create the kind of happiness spilling out of him. “It never crossed my mind, Ollie. Besides, I’m not the kind of guy you can force to do anything I don’t want to do. I was thinking more along the lines like maybe you don’t want to stand at the podium after a night of debauchery. I can see you looking all disheveled and imagine you still smell like me.” Archie sobered immediately. “Take me back to my car then follow me to Ryan’s Place so I can pack an overnight bag. I need to text my mom.”
“You need Maria’s permission to stay the night?” I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. “Is it wise to get her hopes up? She clearly loves me and has decided we work together.”
“Oh, Ollie. I adore this sassy side of you, and I can’t wait to see the other facets of your personality.” He shook his head like I might be too much to take, but I was glad he found it endearing instead of annoying. “I need to tell Mamma I can’t come to church with her in the morning because I’ll already be there.”
My breath froze in my lungs. “What?”
“Mamma called me before I left for QCD to inform me she, Esther, and Henry are going to your church service in the morning. She invited me to go along.”
“What was your answer?”
Archie tipped his head to the side and gave me a wry grin. “I played hard to get, of course.”
“You mean you weren’t sure,” I countered.
“True,” he admitted. “Religion is a touchy subject for me and one of the reasons why I tried so hard to resist you, Ollie.”
“I think that’s where we need to start our conversation then we can work our way to Ryder.”
“He’s not important,” Archie countered.
“Maybe he’s not important to you now, but I didn’t need Gracie Lou to tell me Ryder mattered to you once.”
“I hate that queen.”
“Archie, you might say the guy isn’t important—”
“You don’t believe me?” All the joy from earlier was gone.
“I believehe’snot important toyouanymore, but I can seeyou’restill important tohim.That’s all I meant. He’s not going to go away, and to be fair, I need to know how hard I’ll need to fight to keep you.”