Page 34 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

‘So, I’m just doomed, then? To worry all the time?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Thanks, this has been a wonderful pep talk.’

His dad laughed again. ‘It’ll get better, Arch. You won’t sleep every night in the hallway. I can promise you that much.’

‘Well, that’s comforting,’ he said, the sarcasm intensified by how tired he was.

His father ignored it. ‘How’s the nanny working out? What’s her name? Lilly? Rose?’

‘Iris.’

‘Right, I knew it was a flower name. How are things working out with Iris?’

Archer had never been particularly good at lying to his father, which had made for an interesting relationship when he was a teenager and very often ended up confessing to whatever he and his friends had gotten up to on Friday nights.

But he’d somehow managed to omit the fact that Iris wasn’t actually a sweet old lady but a gorgeous yoga instructor with a wardrobe of too tight, too tiny clothing and how he’d found himself sniffing her shampoo in the shower this morning like some kind of lovesick teenager.

‘Fine,’ he choked out. ‘Things are going fine.’

‘Fine?’ His father’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses like he wasn’t buying it. ‘Yep. Fine. Olive likes her, so that’s really all that matters.’

‘Hmm. How’s the living arrangement working out?’

The living arrangement in which Iris wanders the house at all hours of the night in the T-shirt that slips off her shoulder, and smiles at him in the dark, and makes him laugh even when he doesn’t want to? That living arrangement?

Archer swallowed. ‘Fine.’

‘Hmm.’ His dad was studying him, but luckily Archer was saved by his stepmom, Cathi.

‘Is that Archer?’ she cooed, her face eclipsing his father’s on the screen. ‘Hi Arch! How’s Olive? When do we get to meet her?’

Archer’s parents had split when he was in high school, and when his father remarried, he’d picked a wife who was opposite from Archer’s mother in nearly every way. Where Archer had never seen his mother wear more make-up than an occasional swipe of chapstick, Cathi was never without a full face, her bleached blonde hair done up like she was heading somewhere much fancier than golf with his dad. Archer’s mother was a scientist, always traveling somewhere in the world to study the effects of climate change on bird migration, while Cathi did nails at the local spa and was always home to spend time with his dad, the two nearly inseparable since the day they’d got married at the courthouse with Archer as their witness.

Archer loved his mother, but he understood why his dad loved Cathi. And she’d always been kind to Archer, never trying to become his new mom, but there for him when his mom couldn’t be.

‘Hi, Cathi. Soon. I just want her to get a bit more settled.’

‘Of course, that makes perfect sense. You’re such a good dad already, Arch. We’re so proud of you.’ She beamed at him through the phone, and maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but he almost wished he was there with them, even though he hated golf and his stepmother’s too-tight hugs.

‘Thanks.’ He wasn’t sure Cathi knew what the hell she was talking about on that front, but it was nice to hear anyway.

‘All right, Arch, we gotta go.’ His father’s voice came from somewhere behind Cathi’s hair.

‘Oh, that’s right! We got a one o’clock tee time today,’ Cathi said, blowing Archer a kiss before disappearing from the screen. ‘Bye, honey!’ she called.

‘Bye.’

‘Hang in there, kid.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘And next time I want to hear about the nanny.’ His dad’s face was the same, stern no-nonsense face that had gotten Archer to spill his guts about the time he and his friends skipped class to go smoke in the woods behind the school.

Archer swallowed his guilt. ‘Uh, yeah. Sure. Not much to tell.’

His father frowned.