but Archer promised to come over the night he was back, then he tucked his phone into the pocket of his jeans and pushed himself up to stand. He felt awkward and very alone there in Crescent Cove. He wanted nothing more than to take Julian away and never look back, but he promised he’d see it through to the end.
Forcing himself out the door, he made the walk over to the banquet hall and let out a sigh of relief to see that most of the people had cleared out, and there was only a small station left with fruit and coffee. The caffeine had the most appeal, so he grabbed one of the larger paper cups, filling it to the top, then snagged an apple and moved past staring eyes through the side doors and spotted an empty bench near the walkway that led to the beach.
The wind was cooler than it had been, and he used his teeth to tug his sweater sleeves higher around his hands as he sat. It didn’t feel like December anymore, like Christmas was a week away. Of course, Archer had never felt connected to any sort of holiday, really. Rex had gone out of his way to make sure Archer always had a birthday party with a lot of friends, but the death of their parents severed any real connection to distant family members who hadn’t bothered to call after the funeral.
Their home had always been quiet and somber. Archer would open presents with feigned enthusiasm because it made his brother smile—it made Rex feel like the effort he put into shopping for Archer meant something. But he would watch movies, or listen to his friends talk about their big family gatherings, and he used to envy it with a vicious ferocity.
It wasn’t until he moved to Paris—when he and the other students would hunker down in one of their little flats and eat over-cooked turkey and gorge too much on cheeses and baguettes fresh from the little stalls preparing to close the following day. Paris was Archer’s first snowfall, and first melodic carols drifting over the Seine from people turning up their holiday music. Paris was the first time he realized that another sort of life existed outside of the bubble Rex had kept him in.
And he wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t his brother’s fault. Rex had done everything in his power to make sure that Archer hadn’t gone a single day in his life without knowing he was loved. But Paris started a craving for more, for different, for new. And it stayed with him until the moment he met Julian’s family and he realized that maybe his envy was misplaced.
Maybe, behind those big families and smiling faces was cruelty and disappointment and pain. Probably not everyone, but it allowed Archer to feel a fresh wave of gratitude for his own circumstances, and a fresh wave of pain because he couldn’t turn back the clock and take away the hurt these people had caused the man he was falling for.
“You look lost.”
Archer’s brows lifted when he recognized the voice of Julian’s ex, and he tried not to give in to his urge to stand up and just knock the man out. “I thought we were done with our conversation.”
Bryce chuckled, low in his throat and shook his head as he sat. He looked good—at least, on the outside. He was trim, and his pants were tight, his hoodie over-sized. His hair was wind-swept, and his cheeks were pink from a skin treatment before his big day.
“I’m not here to try and see if you’ll make good on your promise, though I don’t think you’ve ever been in a real fight before, Archer Dawson.”
Archer let out a sigh, unsurprised that Kent had given him up. “I wasn’t hiding from you.”
“No, you were just hiding from my husband,” Bryce said, then covered his mouth. “Whoops. Ex husband, I guess. Hard habit to break.”
“Even when you were fucking around?” Archer asked, and Bryce laughed.
“You’ll figure out soon enough exactly why I strayed. I’m not the sort of person who lies to themselves.”
At that, Archer snorted a laugh and took a bite of his apple, speaking through a full mouth. “No. No, you’re the sort of man who lies to everyone around them so you can convince them you’re the man you think you are.”
“And what sort of man is that?”
“A worthy one,” Archer said, swallowing down his bite with coffee. It was an