The Unknown Road

22 - Tessa

"SO YOU GUYS ARE together, together?" I hear Millie's voice.

I answer, as Archie seems to be daydreaming. "Well... Yes? But I think Arch has some stuff to sort first," I look at him.

Archie's cheeks redden as I remember this afternoon and he nods. I know he needs to have a proper talk with Dee, that's for sure. He needed to sort through his issues so he didn't explode at Callum at school and get suspended or something.

I didn't want to rush into this either. And I think we both wanted him to be in the right headspace, for the start of our relationship but also for how we wanted it to be going forwards.

I just hope I could compare to Dee. She was a lot to contend with on all fronts, but from the way he's been looking at me and the way we've both been acting, it's all very different for us. All very new, raw and exciting.

"Yeah... I have some... issues... to sort, but you'll be the first to know," he says to Millie, making me laugh.

"This is so exciting!" Millie yells as she gets up to bounce on the bed.

He touches his forehead to mine as we let Millie have her fun.

Now that I know the others are coming round, I know we won't be able to hang out with each other like we'd want to. We'll have to pretend we don't know what it's like to feel the way we do, and the thought makes me deflate slightly.

"I love you," he whispers.

I smile in return and push my lips to his as I grip the back of my head with her fingers, putting my other hand on her cheek. I scratch at the stubble beneath his chin and his fingers grip me tighter.

Millie does a front drop and a moment later I look to my right and her head is about three inches from mine.

"You guys are seriously the cutest already," she beams, before pushing up from the bed and dashing out the room, probably to call Matt again to tell him to come round, thus starting our charade.

"Have I ever mentioned that I love your sister?" I ask, pushing myself off his lap and offering him my hands to pull him up.

He takes them and I heave, pulling me up hard enough that he almost slams straight into her and knocks me onto the bed, but he catches me.

"She has her moments," he says, kissing me one final time before putting his arm around me as we head down the stairs.

***

THE REST OF THE afternoon was torture for Archie and me.

We only had one more hour of bliss before Matt, Dad and Wendy arrived, so Millie left us to it downstairs in front of a movie, which was amazing. But when they came in the door we had to go back to pretending. And it was incredibly difficult to keep my hands off him.

After deciding to keep our relationship a secret, except for Millie, we agreed to stick close to the opposite sibling all night, and so far it seemed to be working.

I sat next to Millie at dinner, opposite Archie, which actually turned out to be a bad idea because he was playing footsie under the table. Then we settled in to watch another movie. For that we sat on opposite sides of the room, me sitting in between Millie and Wendy, and Archie on the large beanbag in the centre of the living room floor. And he was distracting me, big time.

I couldn't concentrate on anything other than his fingers playing with his hair, and my insides felt like they were vibrating with this newfound energy I never knew I had. I felt like I was floating, and that I had to be careful to keep a hold of myself, otherwise I'd find myself quite happily letting myself float away.