Page 88 of Beautiful Thing

Silence lingers and I can tell he’s fighting with himself over this. He’s considering giving in. He’s considering compromising his values—again—just to make me happy. But I don’t want him to have to do that.

“You deserve to have the kind of relationship that you want, Archer. It’s not fair that you make all these sacrifices for me then end up settling for some knockoff, discounted version of the love you know you deserve.” Tears sting my eyes, because it sucks so bad that I can’t be what he needs. “I won’t do that to you. It would be selfish of me.”

“You’re not a knockoff version of anything, Layla. You’re the ultimate prize.” His shoulders sag in defeat. “But unless you can see that for yourself, I guess this is how it’s going to have to be,” he says conclusively.

His strong fingers gently stroke down my shoulder to curl around my bicep and he presses a long kiss to my forehead. I close my eyes against the brick of emotions that slams into my chest.

Archer is already backing away from me, putting space between us. He grabs his coffee and his bagel. He turns and retreats into his library.

35

ARCHER

“Holy shit, bro. Did you get attacked by a bear?”

“What? Me?” I glance across the locker room to where Darius is sitting on a bench, staring at my back in horror. Or disgust. I’m not sure.

He gets up and hustles closer to get a better look.

Wiping his head with a towel, Felix strolls over and inspects my back in that doctor-way of his. He smirks. “Hey, Mason. Get over here. I need a second opinion.”

Our brother-in-law tugs a T-shirt over his head and sidles up to Felix. Nolan jogs over and joins the party too.

Now the four of them have got me under a microscope like I’m a damn science experiment gone wrong.

Mason just chuckles. “The diagnosis is in. Looks like Archie-Boy’s just a man who’s been keeping his new ladyveryhappy.”

All four of them break out in laughter. I spin around to jab Mason with my elbow. “Gross, man. Don’t ever fucking call me that again.”

As they continue to cackle, I catch a glimpse of my back in the mirror. Sure enough, the network of scratches Layla made all over my skin less than 24 hours ago is on full display.

Fuck. That’s kind of hot.

The memory of all the things we did sends a sizzle through my blood.

Darius snorts. “I think he prefersBig DaddyArchie-Boy.”

“BigStep-Daddy Archie-Boy.” Nolan winks.

“SirBig Step-Daddy Archie Boy.” Felix is doubled over, laughing his ass off.

I hate them all.

Right now, I’m so glad that Ronan is on the road with his team tonight. If he were here, he’d only be adding to the annoyance of all this.

Roughly tugging on my T-shirt, I mutter under my breath. “See? I knew I should have just gone home after work.”

The guys practically begged me to be here. Now look how they’re treating me.

They were blowing up my phone with text messages all day at Hammers and Hardware, trying to get me to join them for a game of basketball here at the community center. I ignored their messages, leaving them onreadand carrying on with my day.I didn’t want to come. I wanted to go home to have dinner with Layla and Sky.

I like getting home before Sky goes to sleep for the night. I’ve actually been thinking about changing up the hardware store hours just to have more time at home in the evenings. I mean, I only bought the hardware store so that Layla could have a stable job anyway, so I’m not all that worried about whether shutting down operations a bit early every night is a smart business decision.

Anyway, my brothers never take ‘no’ for an answer. So they insisted on me being here tonight. Eventually, they dragged Layla herself into the conversation. They screenshot the message thread in our group chat and forwarded it to her.

Next thing I know, she was marching into my office, flashing the text messages in my face and demanding that I spend time with my brothers. In her words, she refused to let me sit at home like a boring recluse, holed up in my library tonight.

But a part of me thinks she was really just trying to get me out of the house. These days, things under my roof can get a bit ‘unpredictable’ in the wee hours. Case in point, last night.

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