Page 102 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

‘Savoring you.’

Archer groaned, but by the way his cock strained against the front of his boxer briefs, Iris didn’t think he hated it all that much. She made her way around his body, letting her finger trail along, in and out of the dips of his muscles, over his shoulder and around to his back. She trailed a line down his spine and he shivered again. She let her finger catch in the top of his briefs and pulled them down just enough to appreciate the curve of his ass. And to get a glimpse of a tattoo.

‘I knew it!’

‘Knew what?’ he said, looking over his shoulder.

Iris tugged his shorts down further. ‘A tattoo.’

Archer smirked. ‘You didn’t notice it before?’

‘I didn’t exactly get a good look at your ass before. But now that I’m here…’ She dragged his boxers the rest of the way down his legs and Archer kicked them aside.

‘What is it?’

‘An olive branch.’

‘You have an olive branch tattooed on your ass?’

‘It’s not on my ass. It’s above it.’

‘Barely.’ Iris traced the stem and leaves over the top curve of Archer’s cheek. ‘So why an olive branch?’

Archer shrugged and Iris watched his shoulders bunch and flex. ‘I was headed to Italy. I guess I thought I was being clever.’

‘So, you got this before you left?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You had it when you slept with Cate?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then she named your baby Olive?’

‘Maybe? I don’t really know; it could just be an odd coincidence. Is it weird?’

‘That the woman you were hooking up with named the baby you didn’t know you had after a tattoo you have on your ass? Nope. Not weird at all.’

Archer laughed.

Iris leaned her forehead against the warm muscles of his back, her fingers still making paths on his body. ‘It’s nice, in a way. Like she wanted you to be part of naming Olive.’

She felt the sigh that rumbled through him.

‘Do you think she would have told me about Olive?’ he asked, his voice quiet and sad.

Iris wrapped her arms around his front, pressing her cheek against his back, holding him close. ‘I don’t know.’

He let out another long breath. ‘Maybe she didn’t tell me because she thought I would be a bad father…’

Iris held him tighter. ‘She wouldn’t have listed you on the birth certificate if she thought that.’

‘I guess not.’

Iris tried to summon memories of Cate, this woman she barely knew but had seen countless times around town. She was kind, from what Iris knew, sweet to neighbors and quick to offer a smile. Iris had never heard a bad word spoken about her.

‘She was probably trying to do what she thought was best for all of you,’ Iris said, thinking about how Archer must have been back then. Driven and determined. Focused on his goals. Cate would have wanted him to achieve them.