His back was to me, and I had every intention of getting straight to work, but seeing him like that hit me hard. I’d seen Archer after the two losses the team had taken this season, and he hadn’t looked a fraction as distraught as he did now.
A ball lodged in my throat out of nowhere. I wondered how long he’d waited this morning. I wondered what he’d thought with every minute that passed when I didn’t show up. I wondered what he’d looked like when he left. I wondered about it all when really, I shouldn’t have been wondering about any of it.
As though he could sense my presence or the tone of my thoughts, his back stiffened right before his head rotated over his shoulder. Our eyes locked, and while I was trying to fake the indifference in mine, the hurt in his was the genuine thing.
Shoving to a stand, he turned toward me, making no qualms about where he was heading as he moved through the locker room. The look on his face, the way he was moving toward me, I knew I had to get out of there. From the set of his jaw, I guessed he didn’t care if the whole locker room heard what he was about to say.
Veering to the right, I ducked into the med room. Just as I was closing the door, it shoved open.
“You’re not shutting this door on me too.” Archer moved inside the room, closed the door, and pressed the lock.
If this was the way he wanted to do this, then fine. No time would be opportune for confronting him. Slipping an imaginary coat of armor into place, I crossed my arms at him. “Looks like you didn’t exactly wait all day for me to show up.”
He had to work his jaw loose to respond. “After six hours, I got the hint that you weren’t planning on showing up.”
He’d waited six hours. I didn’t know why, but at the same time I felt myself harden with guilt, I softened with affection. Both were erased by the anger that surged to the surface when I realized I was letting emotions cloud my judgment where Luke Archer was concerned.
“Six hours isn’t all day. Try not to make a habit of lying—you might get caught in one someday.”
“You’re pissed at me. At least I know that now.” He motioned at me, his voice annoyingly calm. “What would be really helpful to know is why you’re pissed at me?”
My teeth sank into my tongue to keep from lashing out my answer. The honest one. “I’m not pissed at you, Luke. I’m just over you.”
He made a face. “What does that mean?”
“This. Us.” I waved my finger between him and me. “I’m done. I’m out. Over it.”
He was about to snap something back when he caught himself. Scrubbing his face, he took a few breaths before opening his mouth. “And you decided this when?”
My shoulder lifted. “A little while ago.”
“You said yes to wearing my letterman jacket three nights ago, Allie. What in the hell’s changed since then?”
Besides finding out why I’m really here? “Oh, please, Luke. You and I both knew this wouldn’t go anywhere. It was fun, but it’s time to move on.”
“‘It was fun’? Is that really all you saw us as? Is that really all you wanted?”
“What did you want? You were the one trying to get me into bed two sentences after introducing yourself to me. What did you really want if it wasn’t a lot of no-commitment-required fucking?”
My words hit him like a shove. Backing into the door, his body hit it with a heavy thud. “Is that what you really think? That all I wanted was a few good fucks out of you?” He waited for my answer but kept going when I didn’t give him one. I didn’t feel the need to provide a verbal confirmation. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come on so strong, maybe I shouldn’t have fallen into bed with you so quickly.” When I exhaled sharply, he kicked his heel against the door. “Okay, I know now I shouldn’t have, but I pursued you not because I wanted to get between your legs but because I was hoping to work my way, eventually, into your heart.”
I didn’t know I’d grabbed one of the folded towels on the counter beside me before it was flying at his face.
“What the hell, Allie?” Archer ducked the first one, but he didn’t move when I threw the next few. He let them hit him, one right after the next, until I’d gone through the whole pile.
I didn’t feel any better after. That he could stand there and say those things and seem so sincere and be so full of shit wasn’t fair.
“Just give it up, Archer. It’s fine. We’re both adults. Consenting ones.” I hoped the tremor in my voice was only noticeable to me. “But it’s run its course.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s the truth. You can call it what you want, but our relationship was based on sex. You don’t need to apologize. It was great; I just need to move on now.”
His shoulders tensed. “It was not based on sex.”
“It was. It was about two reproductive organs that really liked each other. Don’t make it something it wasn’t.”
The emotion he’d managed to hold back was pouring out of him now, filling the room. “Isn’t,” he snarled. “Stop talking about us like we’re in the past.”