Archer nods at me. “Oliver, you want to come with me while they’re getting the boards?”
“Sure.” I make my way to the cart parked nearby.
He brushes a kiss on Finley’s lips even though we’ll be gone for five minutes max. Then he joins me at the cart and climbs into the driver’s side.
He drives, glancing at me in the passenger seat. “Are you having a good time?”
“Sure. Why?” I grab the metal bar near my head as he navigates a bump in the dirt road.
“You seem, I don’t know, bored?”
“I’m not bored.”
“Good.” He turns up the incline drive toward the main house. “So. About you and Piper.”
My shoulders tense.
“I see the way you look at her.”
“And what way is that?” I keep my voice dry and impersonal.
“Like she’s the only thing that makes you feel.”
I should have expected this conversation, the one where he scares me away from Piper. She is the delicate princess, and I am the devouring dragon. It makes sense, yet part of me burns at the assumption, anyway.
Archer knows me better than almost anyone. He understands me in a way no one else does. I always feel a little like an exposed nerve around him, like he could wound me without a thought, but the fact that he might begrudge my relationship with Piper is like a knife in the gut.
“I would never hurt her.”
He parks the cart and turns in the seat. “I also see the way she looks at you.”
My ears prick, all my focus centering in on his words. “How is that?”
He rests his elbow on the steering wheel. “Like she’s been walking through the desert for three years and you’re an oasis.”
I frown in confusion. “Where are you going with this?”
“You’re the closest thing I have to family—you and Mason—but Piper is my family now too. Sometimes people get hurt despite having the best intentions.”
I press my lips together. The only reason I don’t ignore him completely or brush him off with a curt comment is because of our shared history. “I don’t think you understand. I would rip out my own heart before I would do anything to hurt her.”
Archer nods. “I know. I’m not worried about Piper. I’m worried about you.”
An owl hoots in the distance. Leaves rustle in the tree overhead. I stare at Archer, baffled. “Are you very stoned?” Where’s the lecture and the recrimination for wanting to put my foul fingers on Piper?
“No. I’m dead serious.”
“You’re worried about my delicate nature?”
He grins. “Actually, yeah, I am. You keep everything inside except for irritation and general superiority. But with Piper, you’re different. Sort of. I mean, you’re still an ass, but you do things you wouldn’t normally. You came here and took time off from working, not because I asked but because Piper wanted to be here.”
“And you think she will hurt me and not the other way around?”
“I guess, my concern is that Piper is still healing. Maybe she isn’t ready for your level of intensity, and she might spook easy. And yeah, I don’t want you to get hurt.” With that, he slides out of the seat and heads into the house.
I follow, stewing on his words. Archer is worried about me? It’s unfathomable.
Inside, he grabs graham crackers and marshmallows from the pantry and hands me a package of chocolate candy bars and another of peanut butter cups. Then we fill a bag with a variety of nonalcoholic drinks from the fridge. My mind is churning, flipping through parts of our conversation like a stack of cards then going back through them, turning them over more slowly, one at a time, considering the impact.