The doorbell to the front door chimed as I was kneeling behind the front counter, rummaging through some old boxes of paper invoices.

“Just a sec,” I called out.

“I can wait,” a familiar voice replied.

Moving quickly to stand, I bumped my head on the bottom edge of the counter and winced.

“You okay?” Archer asked, a hint of teasing in his voice. When I looked up, he was leaning over the edge of the counter, looking down at me.

God, I wanted to kiss him. There wasn’t a thing I wanted more than to lock the front door, pull him down there with me behind the front counter, and kiss him until I forgot there was ever a time I’d pushed him away.

“Yeah,” I replied sheepishly. I stood up more slowly this time, rubbing the back of my head. “Wasn’t expecting you, is all.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No. No, of course not. Never.”

“You sure?” he asked, glancing down at the invoices in my hand. “Forget where you left your abacus?”

“Real cute, Archer.”

“You think I’m cute?” The smile on his face was ridiculous. I never wanted that smile to leave.

“I think you’re stunning.”

He looked away from me for a moment. Redness began creeping up from under the collar of his T-shirt.

He asked, “Well, what are you doing?”

I laid the papers down on the counter. “Trying to do some inventory.”

“I tried looking up Oak & Varnish online. You don’t even have a website.”

I shrugged. “Haven’t gotten around to it.”

“That’s nuts, Mallory. You’re missing out on a huge selling tool. Plus, you don’t even have social media. How are people supposed to shop online for any of your stuff? Or see your store hours?”

“Call?”

“No one calls for store hours anymore.”

“I do.”

“That’s because you’re a caveman.”

Before thinking any better of it, I grabbed the neck of his T-shirt, pulled him toward me, and kissed him over the countertop. He hesitated, only for a moment, before kissing me back. His lips were soft and his stubble scratched when I tilted my head to press my tongue into his mouth.

He made a sound that caused a shudder to travel down my spine, and I knew we had to stop.

I pulled back and said, “Come over for dinner tonight.”

“Just dinner?” he asked.

“Yes. Or no. Whatever you want, Archer.”

The bell to the front door rang and I mumbled a curse under my breath. Customers walked in through the front door, and before I knew it, I was standing next to a young couple, talking to them about one of the coffee tables I’d made a few months prior.

I kept glancing over at Archer, making sure he didn’t leave before I’d convinced him to come over for dinner later that night.

When the couple left, promising to be back with their truck later that day, I looked back at Archer. He was standing behind the counter, leaning on his elbow, looking at one of the hand-carved Christmas ornaments sitting in a display bowl.

The sight of him behind the counter caught me completely off guard. I paused for a moment and looked at him, my heart pounding in my chest.

Yes, I thought. This. This is happiness. This is what I want.

Archer looked up at me, and I wished I had more for him. More than this store or a mending heart or a promise to do whatever I could to make him happy.

“Tell you what,” he said, motioning toward the computer. “I’m going to sign you up for some social media. I’ll take some quick pictures with my phone and upload them, but you have to get a good digital camera in the future. I’m also going to make you a basic website. I mean really basic. But it’ll be better than nothing.”

“Archer, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. No, I have to. You not even having any pictures of your work online is driving me a little crazy.”

“I don’t know how to update anything,” I answered honestly as I walked over to him behind the counter and nudged his shoulder with mine. “Caveman, remember?”

“I’ll show you. And I’ll write you a guide or something. I’ll make it easy. And you can pick one day a week to do all of your updating, and then you can schedule posts.”

I groaned and he laughed.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’m doing it anyway. It’ll be good for your business.”

“Sweetheart, you can do whatever you want. I don’t have it in me to say no to you.”

The smirk he gave me was lethal. Derek had been right. I didn’t know if anyone was strong enough to say no to Archer.

For the rest of the morning, I found myself bringing each item I had for sale out into the middle of the store, piece by piece, so Archer could take a picture of it with his cell phone.

He’d say that the lighting was wrong so I had to move the table just ten degrees. Or made me pose for pictures holding a few vases and other small decorative items. After what had to be the twentieth picture of me, Archer accused me of glowering and couldn’t stop laughing about it. Maybe I had been glowering, but I didn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun or smiled as much.

When customers came in, I’d go over and talk with them while Archer clicked away at the keyboard doing whatever it was he was doing. An older woman bought a large bowl as a gift for her granddaughter’s housewarming, and I rang through her sale, showing Archer each step along the way.

Around noon, I told Archer that if he wanted to stay and watch the shop, I’d go grab some lunch for us. I showed him the basics again of how to ring through a sale, not that I’d be gone long.

I went to a cafe around the corner, grabbed us juice and two sub sandwiches. When I came back, he was absolutely ecstatic that he’d convinced someone to buy one of the end tables.

The hours ticked by without either of us noticing. It wasn’t until I realized the sky had turned crimson that I told him it was time to close up shop.

“Just in time,” he said. “I’ve finished setting up a few social media accounts for Oak & Varnish and already posted some pictures. I’ve scheduled a few other posts for later this week too. Oh, and I set up a basic website.”

I leaned over his shoulder as he showed me the pictures he’d taken and posted, and the website he’d made. It was simple but bold with information on our location and store hours, along with a few of the better images posted to the gallery.

“Archer,” I said slowly. “This is… amazing. I don’t know how to thank you. It’s perfect.”

“It’s simple, but it will work. In the future, we should set up an online store so people can order directly from your website. We’ll have to figure out shipping, but once we’ve streamlined that, I think it will be a huge boost for sales.”

We.

It would’ve been impossible for me to miss that word.

“Tell me what I can do to repay you.”

He grinned. “Make me dinner.”

---

I was nervous.

It made me feel like a teenager again.

Archer sat at one of the stools with a glass of wine in front of him on the counter. He sat in the same spot he’d sat many mornings years ago. A lifetime had passed since then, and yet, sometimes it felt like no time had passed at all.

Butter melted in the saucepan on the stove while I shredded mozzarella over a cutting board. The aroma of cooking butter and garlic mixed with chives filled the large room.

We hadn’t said much since returning home. There was a thickness in the air that I wouldn’t quite call tension. Anticipation? No, something scarier than that.

When I finished grating the cheese, I leaned against the counter to look at Archer. He was turned in his seat, wine glass in his left hand, glancing out at the fading sun through the tall windows behind the dining room table. The mellow light of the sunset softened his angular profile and made it look like some of his hair and eyelashes were glowing.

Christ, he was handsome.

It wasn’t something I’d noticed when he first came home with Danny years ago. I wondered now how I hadn’t noticed. I knew he was a good-looking person, but never like this. When first meeting him, he was standoffish. Not scared, just… reserved. I’d first been attracted to his smile—his laugh—that hard-found easiness he rarely let shine.

And then it was his quirks. He had a rigidity to his schedule that made me laugh and a fondness for familiarity rivaled by none. There was a certain comfort that brought me. Not that he was predictable, but more that he was simply himself.

Archer Hart was anything but expected.

I wondered how anyone as lovely as him could see anything worth caring for in me. But that wasn’t something I was going to dwell on. This time, I would be a smarter man and I’d thank my lucky stars each night that this beautiful, imperfect young man chose to smile at me over anyone else.

“I think it was the song that did it,” I said quietly, almost by mistake.

He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“That time we danced in front of the fireplace. I think it was the song that finally did it. Sophia loved that song, and when we listened to it together, with all my mixed emotions raging inside me, I thought everything would’ve felt wrong. But it didn’t. It felt right. So maybe that’s when I knew. Hell, maybe I knew sooner but was too much of a coward to admit it to myself.”

Archer leaned back a little in his chair and glanced toward the fireplace that crackled in the living room.

“I think it was the first time you showed me your workshop.”

I laughed. “Yeah?”

“It was because it was something personal and you shared it with me. People don’t share things with me—not really.”

Bringing the garlic and cream to a simmer in the saucepan, I stirred with a wooden spoon as I listened to him. “No?”

“People are intuitive, whether or not they know it. They can see something isn’t right with me.”

I turned. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, Archer.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive.”

We filled the rest of the time with silence. Archer watched me finishing the fettuccine Alfredo or watched the sun setting, and I tried not to burn anything while I watched him.

I fished out our plates, and together we sat at the dining room table. I stoked the fire and put on a record—something soft that had been covered in dust.

“I can’t help but wonder,” Archer said, “what you’ve been doing these past years.”

“You know me, Archer. I’m a creature of habit. Same stuff. Working, watching the stars, trying to sell things at my shop.”

He smiled a little. “Yeah. I figured.” For a moment, he glanced away, looking a little unsure. “Are you seeing anyone?”

I set my fork down, startled. “Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought I was seeing you.”

He chuckled, but it hitched a little, adding a nervous tone. “Is that what we’re doing? Dating?”

“You can call it anything you’d like.”

“I don’t know what I’d like to call it.”

I nodded. “I was seeing someone. Her name is Sarah.”

“That woman from the grocery store? I think I met her years ago.”

“I have no idea how you remember that.”

“It was easy to remember the few people you had in your life, Mallory. You aren’t exactly the most social person I’ve ever met.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“So, what happened?”

“With Sarah?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel wrong, either. Didn’t feel like much of anything. It was too easy not to make an effort—so I didn’t. And she’s a smart woman, she knew that.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Water under the bridge. But tell me what your past three years have been like.”

He sighed heavily. “They’ve been… bad.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Archer said, “When I got back home I wasn’t stable. Emotionally. I spiraled. Pretty cliché, but true. Couldn’t look Danny in the eye. He doesn’t even look like you, Mallory. Not really. But I couldn’t look at him. And I sure as hell couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.

“When the doctor came into the room that day and told me about my arm—how it was messed up from healing incorrectly and the muscles were damaged, it was one of the worst days of my life. There wasn’t a thing I used to want in life other than to follow in my father’s footsteps, and not only had life taken him away from me, along with my mother, it took away the one and only other thing I wanted.”

“Archer, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could say to you or do to make it even a fraction better.”

“I haven’t shot a gun since before I got in that stupid fight at the bar. My arm isn’t as bad when it’s not being extended, but the pressure on my joints causes extreme muscle fatigue. I can’t be a shooter with a trembling arm. Shooting used to take some of the pressures of life away. Not because it’s a gun or any kind of weapon but because I remember the exact way I felt when my dad clapped me on the back and pulled me into a hug the day I told him I wanted to join the force like he had.”

I nodded along with him, not sure what to say. Not sure if there was anything I could say to make some of his pain and hurt dissipate.

“Some days are worse than others,” he said softly.

“Yeah, I can understand that.”

“It was in the fall when my parents died. That’s the hardest season. And right around the anniversary of their death is hardest. Each year, I used to—” He paused for a moment, as if unsure if he wanted to continue. “Each year on the day, I would take my dad’s old gun, go to the shooting range, and stay there for hours. I don’t think it was my way of honoring my dad’s memory, but more my way to remember him.” His voice cracked, along with my heart. “And now I can’t.”

I reached across the table, took his right hand in mine, laced our fingers together, and squeezed. There wasn’t anything I could say. He’d lost not only his parents but also his way to feel close to them. I couldn’t imagine what that was like.

In my hand, his shook.

We stayed like that until the record on the player began to skip.

I stood and went to replace it. On my way back, I took a wooden box off one of the shelves and placed it on the table in front of him.

“I have something for you,” I told him as I took our plates and put them in the kitchen.

When I came back, he was running his fingers over the box in front of him. That was another quirk of his that I’d fallen for. It seemed like if there was anything I’d made within touching distance of him, he had to graze his fingers over the surface.

“You made this?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, taking the chair next to him.

“It’s beautiful.”

I shrugged.

It had taken a long time to carve, but it hadn’t felt long since I’d only worked on it whenever I was at home thinking of him. Those minutes seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye.

The box had a detailed carving of a tree on the outside. A big, old oak with wiry branches and a massive stump. I’d taken care to get all the fine lines right. The details of the bark, the veins of the leaves on the trees. And sticking out from every angle of the tree were arrows.

“There’s something inside.”

When he lifted the lid, the look on his face had been worth all the hours I’d put into it.

“When did you make this?” he asked, his voice deep.

“Over the years.”

He looked at me. “You didn’t know you’d see me again. What if you’d never seen me again?”

“Then it would’ve sat on that bookshelf and waited for you.”

Inside the box were dozens of small, wooden puzzle pieces. They were all carved by hand and varnished to be a deep, mahogany color. On the surface, there was an intricate picture that mimicked the design on the box. But the image on the puzzle had many trees and with longer, twining branches, leaves drifting and swaying around them. He wouldn’t know that yet, though. It would probably take weeks to assemble.

He pulled out a few pieces and gently touched the detailed carvings on the surface.

“Why?” he asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Archer put the piece back in the box and closed the lid before fully turning toward me. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you like it.”

“I do. I love it. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. Or anything that I knew was made… just for me.”

“I know exactly how you feel.”

I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and kissed him. Immediately, his arms went around my shoulders and he kissed me back. It was soft and tentative and, most of all, unhurried, like we had all the time in the world.

When we pulled apart, I whispered, “Don’t go.”

“I shouldn’t stay,” he replied.

“Yes, you should. You should stay with me. Tonight, tomorrow, and every night.”

He leaned back. “What are you asking?”

“I got it wrong the first time, Archer. I’m miserable without you. I’m half of a whole.”

“Mallory—”

“I’ll tell Danny. And everyone else in the world, if that’s what it takes. We can move—I don’t care. As long as you’re with me.”

Archer pushed back from his chair and stood up. Without looking back, he walked into the living room and stood in front of the fireplace. I followed, standing a foot behind.

“You’re asking me to stay here with you,” he stated.

“Yes.”

“Indefinitely.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way.”

I took him by the shoulder and spun him to face me. “How can you not know I love you, Archer? I’ve dreamt of you every night that you weren’t by my side. I can’t imagine someone knowing you like I have and not loving you.”

He swallowed hard, and I smiled easily at him. I put one hand on his back while taking his arm and placing it around my neck. I moved closer so not an inch of space was between our bodies. When finally he put his head on my shoulder, I could breathe again.

That was how we spent the rest of the night until Archer left late into the evening: dancing.