He reached across the table and Archie stopped cradling her coffee cup to give him her hand.
“Maybe if you gave that info to Elijah, he’d have an epiphany, feel the same way and do something about being such a drag on you and your family,” he finished.
She sensed someone was having an epiphany, and it wasn’t Elijah and not because he wasn’t there.
She sidestepped that too.
“I’ll have a conversation with him,” she said.
Jag nodded, letting her go and returning to his Colorado Burrito.
Conversationally, they moved on before they went back to their B&B, packed up, got on Jagger’s bike and locationally moved on.
But this didn’t mean Archie didn’t see the issue that lay like a sleeping dragon between them.
Her man was troubled. She didn’t know why. She wondered if he knew why.
She had come to terms with that, deciding to let that be his and only hers if he offered it.
The thing was, she did that for him because she sensed he needed time with whatever it was. To face it himself without pressure. She couldn’t see how it would help to push him to focus on something he clearly wasn’t ready to tackle.
But now, she was wondering if that was the right call.
Though, she didn’t have to wonder who to ask if it was.
And who that was wasn’t Jagger.
* * * *
“Hold the phone!” her dad, Andy Harmon shouted when he opened the door to Archie. “A double dose of my daughter in a week? Starting on a Monday? What did I do to earn this awesomeness?”
He didn’t let her answer.
He yanked her into a bear hug.
Archie’s father was a big guy. Not as tall as Jagger, but tall, and brawny. He’d never let himself go, even now after he’d cranked into his 50s.
But he had a bit of a gut.
This was due to Haley, the stepmom, who loved to cook, and was a proud curvy girl, from the moment she met Archie’s dad to that day. She was this to the point the woman was deep into the double digits size-wise and wore a bikini.
And looked cute in it.
That was something Archie had always respected her for, and not just the cute part.
Archie hugged him back, mumbling, “Stop being a dork, Dad.”
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, thank God we’re having spaghetti,” Archie heard her stepmom cry. “I can make more pasta and throw a couple more pieces of Texas toast on the cookie sheet.”
Archie broke from her dad, came in the house more fully as her father shut the door, and assured Haley, “I’m not staying for dinner. Sorry. I’m meeting Jag for a movie. I just…uh, wanted to talk to Dad a second.”
Andy and Haley exchanged glances about what Archie would want to talk to her father about that she couldn’t call or text about, and Archie knew they were coming to the same conclusion, just the wrong one.
“It’s about Jag,” she said.
Not Elijah, she did not say. At least not now, maybe later, she went on not to say.
Haley looked relieved.
Her dad’s gaze grew sharp on her.
“Is everything okay with him?” Andy asked.
“It’s fantastic. He’s the greatest. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Totes looking forward to tomorrow night.”
Andy and Haley exchanged another glance.
Then Haley did what Haley was prone to do.
Waded in when her dad was being clueless.
“Andy, honey, she’s meeting her guy for a movie. She can’t stand around forever. Get her a drink and have your chat. I’m gonna go stir the sauce.”
She shot Archie her sweet, somewhat goofy, sadly still-nervous-after-all-these-years smile and she headed to the kitchen (and Elijah was responsible for those nerves—being such a dick, it eked into how Haley thought Archie felt about her).
“You want a drink, honey?” Andy offered.
“No, Dad, just…”
How did she even start this?
Especially when she needed to be at the theater in forty-five minutes.
But all the together time with Jagger meant she didn’t have a lot of windows to do something like this.
And right now, she needed to do this.
“Archie, what’s up?”
The concern in her father’s voice got to her and she laid it out.
Quickly.
No nitty gritty, but her father knew who Jagger was. That Jagger had lost a parent. And that he’d been someone to Archie before he was someone to Archie. So she went over that part fast.
“The thing is, like I said, he’s great. We’re great,” she started to sum up. “Everything’s going great. Joany likes him, and Joany makes everyone earn a like.”
“That’s big stuff, Joany liking him,” he agreed.
“I just…there’s something…off.”
As was his wont, Daddy Bear reared up instantly, and Andy declared, “Archie, if you’re feeling at all strange in your gut about this guy—”
Before he went too far down that path, Archie pulled him back to the right one. “He’s lost.”
Andy’s head jerked back in surprise. “Sorry? Lost?”
“I think it’s about his dad.”
Her father closed his mouth.
“And I know there’s something there,” she carried on. “I even have this feeling I might have triggered it. At first, I warned him we’d have to get into it. Because, you know, I’m giving him all there is about me. And that should go both ways. Then I decided that was wrong. I should let him be. I should give him space to come to me when he’s ready about this, or about anything, really.”
Andy grunted, which was no help at all.
“But, the thing is, I think I can find out without him telling me,” she announced.
She then watched her father’s jaws bulge, an indication he was clenching his teeth.
In other words, proverbially biting his tongue.
“Dad,” she prompted.
He unclenched to say (still unhelpfully), “I want to guide you, sweetheart, but I haven’t even met this guy.”
“Okay, but this is my guy, and I think you get how deep he’s my guy, and I want to be there for him. Am I there for him by just being there? Am I there for him by pressing him in a gentle way to face whatever’s troubling him? Or am I there for him by going around him to find out what’s troubling him so I can be there for him from a place of knowledge and he doesn’t have to give me that knowledge or maybe even know I have it?”
Her father looked perplexed.
“How would you do that last?” he asked.
“There’s a movie about his Club. I didn’t watch, but I read about it. His father is mentioned in the blurb. Like, really predominantly.”
Andy grunted again.
For shit’s sake.
“Dad!” Archie snapped.
“Okay, honey, I’m not in a place of knowledge to be able to advise what to do about this.”
“Well, you’re a guy, aren’t you?” she threw out the rhetorical. “How would you feel if I watched a movie about your life and your history and your dead dad without you knowing I did that?”
“I…Archie, I really want to help—”
Jagger was right.
She was usually very chill.