"Damn it, Hadley! You burnt my hand!"
"I am so sorry, Archer! I told you, you shouldn't have let me try to make coffee!"
"You were only supposed to be changing the filter, not making coffee! How on Earth do you manage to dump hot water everywhere?"
"I told you, I'm not - "
Archer cut me off with a disgusted look, rolling his eyes as he marched over to the sink in the back kitchen.
I just stood there beside the cash register, wringing my hands together like a lunatic while I watched Archer run his very red hand underneath cold water.
You could say that I was not expecting my first day of work at Mama Rosa's Coffee House to go quite as disastrous as it was turning out. Waitressing wasn't exactly a problem for me. It was actually pretty easy. What could be more simple than delivering food to people's tables and taking orders? Not exactly very difficult.
But making coffee on the other hand....well, that was a little more complicated.
I'd told Archer repeatedly that it was a huge mistake on his part to let me even near a coffee maker or whatever, but like usual, he refused to listen to me.
And now his hand was burnt.
I wasn't so sure if it was his fault or mine.
"You're going to permanently be a waitress, that's for sure," Archer griped as he walked back towards the front counter.
"I'm sorry, Archer," I mumbled, ducking my head. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Whatever, Hadley," Archer sighed, waving an airy hand. "It's not like I'm going to die or anything."
I stared at Archer with a horrified look on my face after he said those words.
How thick could you get? Had he really just said that? What the hell was he playing at?
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
I jerked back into reality when Archer snapped two fingers in front of my face, looking more annoyed than before.
"Sorry, sorry," I said quickly, ducking my head again.
"You really are a ditz, aren't you, Jamison?" Archer said, an obnoxious smirk twisting the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah, well, only when you're around, Morales."
It was mere miliseconds after those words were out of my mouth did I realize just how incredibly stupid what I just said was.
Shit.
I quickly threw myself over the top of the counter, nearly falling flat on my face as a result, and went about picking up the stray mugs and dishes left on the tables in the coffee house. I could tell that Archer hadn't moved at all even though I wasn't looking at him. I got the feeling that he was watching me as I placed a few mugs in a gray tupperware bin used for dirty dishes.
Get a grip, Hadley. Get a grip, Hadley. Get a grip, Hadley.
That's what I was chanting in my head over and over again like a mantra while I worked furiously hard to keep myself short of hyperventilating.
"Do I make you nervous, Hadley?"
No, I thought sarcastically. What would have ever given you that idea?
"No," I replied stiffly.
"I think you're lying."
"Hark who's talking."
Archer made some sort of humming noise, fiddling with a few buttons on the ancient cash register so it was making random beeping sounds.
Great. He broke the cash register.
"Why do I make you nervous, Hadley?"
I dropped an empty coffee mug into the bin and turned to Archer with a glare. "Why does it matter to you, Morales? And anyways, I never said that you made me nervous as it is."
"You just gave yourself away right there."
I rolled my eyes, forcing back a disgusted sigh as I picked up the bin and moved to another table beside the frost covered windows.
It was barely six in the evening, but the New York skyline outside was already covered in pitch blackness, and the streets were still covered in a light dusting of snow from yesterday's unexpected fall. Since it was Sunday, Mama Rosa's had closed up early for the evening, and the place was entirely empty, save for the two of us.
And what a joy that was.
Victoria, Regina, and the triplets had gone off to one of the supermarkets in the general vicinity for things that the coffee house would need in the coming days, like baking ingredients and such. As much as I was pleased by the fact that Archer and I were alone, that I could pester him with more questions, I was beyond nervous.
When I had shown up for my very first day of work and had been informed that Archer would be the one "training" me in the art of making coffee, I discovered I was prone to acting like a complete and total airhead around him.
Okay, so it wasn't as if I was unaware of the fact that I already acted like an airhead around him. But this time everything just seemed to be significantly worse. Maybe it was because I had come to the gargantuan conclusion that I had a huge crush on the guy the night before. Or maybe it was just because I was a total hopeless case.
I was going to go with the latter.
I kept the string of profanities running through my head to a minimum as I finished gathering up all of the dirty dishes spread out on all of the tables, trying not to pay attention to Archer. He was still leaning up against the front counter, his head in his hands, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world.
I'd always thought that Archer really didn't have a care in the world. But spending more time with his family, I was beignning to realize that he had a lot more responsibilities placed on his shoulders than most teens our age. It was sort of sad to think about, in all honesty.
I blew out a sigh, making my way around the front counter to get into the back kitchen. I had barely made over the threshold when Archer stepped out in front of me and yanked the bin full of dirty dishes out of my hands.
"What was that for?" I squawked indignantly.
"We're ditching," he replied briskly, marching into the kitchen.
"Ditching what? Cleaning up?"
I followed after him into the kitchen while he dumped the bin into one of the large sinks by the fridge. He twisted on the faucet and sprayed water all over the dishes in the sink, but that was it. He dusted off his hands after turning the faucet off, and he had a no nonsense look about his face.
"Where are we going?" I asked him nervously.
Archer didn't answer, instead walking over to the coat rack in the far corner of the kitchen to grab his black jacket and yank it on.
"Archer?" I repeated, a bit frantic.
"Jesus, Hadley, just put your freaking coat on" was the response I got.
I bit back a very rude remark and stomped my way across the kitchen to pull on my coat. Archer stood beside the back door, his arms crossed impatiently, while I rummaged around in my coat pockets for my hat. After finding the thing and ramming it on my head, I turned to Archer with a ridiculously bright smile, my hands in my pockets.
"All right," I chirped. "Where are we going?"
Archer rolled his more than amazing eyes and gestured over his shoulder wtih a thumb, to the back door. "Let's just go, all right?"
I shrugged indifferently. It wasn't as if I knew what was going on, anyways.
I stepped out of the coffee house in the back, and after Archer locked up, I followed after him as he walked down the cramped alleway to the sidewalk.
The New York City air was full of fumes, like always, but there was a certain holiday scent hanging about that smelt a bit like cinnamon and peppermint.
Archer and I walked side by side down the sidewalk in silence, dodging the clumps of people who weren't watching where they were going. I thought about asking him where we were going, but I figured he probably would just yell at me if I did.
I really had to get some confidence.
It became evident where we were going when we meandered our way across the street and came up short of the entrance to a place I hadn't been to in quite a while.
"Central Park?" I said excitedly, turning to Archer. "This is where we were going?"
Archer shrugged. "I like going to Central Park. Helps me think."
I tried not to stop right then and stare up at Archer with a duped look on my face. This has certainly been an interesting day, no questions asked.
How many times had I heard Archer say anything about his likes or dislikes or anything about himself?
Like, zero times, that's how many.
"I used to go here with my parents on Sundays," I said conversationally as we walked. "We'd always get hot chocolate from that coffee stand by the Central Park Zoo."
"Who knew the Jamisons showed the slightest bit of domesticity."
I rolled my eyes. There was the same Archer.
I was going to have to get over my nerves and just start asking Archer questions, right? I mean, I was down to 21 days now. That wasn't that much time in the long run, was it? It wouldn't do me any good if I kept stumbling over my feet and getting tongue-tied around him.
"Uh...."
My words fell short as I watched Archer pull out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket and light up.
"You smoke?" I demanded with a grotesque facial expression.
Archer raised an eyebrow, giving me a flat look as he took a drag on his cigarette. "I do."
"Why?" I gave an effected shudder. "That's so gross."
"To each her own," he replied with an eye roll.
We rounded a bend in the trail and kept walking, heading towards what I remembered as one of the many ponds in the park. There were still tons of people out and about in the park, but for some reason there was a calm, peaceful air about the place that made me feel relaxed for the first time in almost a week.
"That's seven minutes, you know," I said as we walked.
"Seven minutes?" Archer repeated in a confused voice. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Every time you smoke a cigarette, that's seven minutes less you get to spend alive."
Archer stared down at me as if I'd just demanded that he give me his first born child. I swallowed hard and shuffled back a step, suddenly very nervous.
"Seven minutes that wouldn't matter," he finally muttered, glancing away again.
That comment just about stopped my heart. What had he just said?
"You don't really think that, do you?" I asked him quietly, staring down at my feet.
He didn't say anything. I thought he was about to go running off in the opposite direction or something, but a moment later, he chucked his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with his sneaker.
"There," he said in a falsely cheery voice. "I put out the cigarette for you. Happy now, Hadley?"
There was something about that nonchalant comment of his that rubbed me the wrong way, that made me very, very angry. I wasn't exactly a person who got mad all the time, so this was sort of a momentous occasion for me.
But now that I had so much anger boiling under the surface, I had no idea what to do with it.
"What the hell is your problem, Archer?" I barked, lengthening my strides to keep up with him.
Archer glanced down at me, still walking at a fast pace, and scowled. "Everything's my problem. I thought you knew that."
"Stop! Just stop, okay?"
A few people around us who were walking the trail through the park around us actually stopped walking to stare over at Archer and me.
We had both stopped in our tracks and were staring at each other with furious looks on our faces. It wouldn't have surprised me if we started yelling and shouting at each other in the next few seconds.
"Excuse me?" Archer said pleasantly.
"I don't know what you're playing at, but you've seriously got to stop it," I snapped, letting my anger fuel my words. "Why can't you just be real with me for at least five minutes? Is that so much to ask?"
"The part I'm having trouble understanding is why the hell should it matter to you, Hadley?" he fired back in a heated voice.
"It's not good to bottle things up, Archer! You'd feel a lot better if you actually talked about things going on in your life, you know," I pointed out.
Archer crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at me, his lips pressed together in a hard, tight line.
I stared back up at him, trying to keep my nerves at bay. I didn't exactly know where I was going with this, but at this point, I figured I couldn't do any more damage by just going with it.
"And what would you know, hm?" he said in a low voice. "You're just a sheltered little rich girl who thinks her GPA is a symbol of her worth. What would you know about the real world?"
"This isn't about me!" I hollered at him. "This is about you!"
Archer looked just as shocked as I was when I sawI had leaned up and jabbed a finger into his chest, nearly knocking him back a step.
"Why do you always avoid everything, huh? Why are you so perverse to other people? Did something happen to you when you were younger that made you hate the world or something? Why can't you just grow up and face your problems? Do you think your mom would enjoy seeing you tearing yourself up on the inside like this? This isn't a joke, Archer!"
I quickly leaned away from Archer when I realized what I'd actually just said, understood what words had actually just come out of my mouth. And judging by the look Archer was sporting, he'd just been given a verbal slap across the face, too.
Oh, shit. I was in for it now.
I didn't have a lot of expectations about how Archer was going to answer those questions I'd just more or less thrown at him. Hell, anything could happen, right? But the last thing I was expecting was for Archer to suddenly reach out, grip my forearm, and start dragging me along down the sidewalk towards a bench a little ways away.
"Hey!" I yelped, yanking my arm away.
I didn't like the feeling touching Archer gave me. It felt like I was about to burst from so many butterflies in my stomach.
"Sit down," Archer snapped, giving me a none too gentle shove towards the bench.
I glared at him while I took a seat, still very embarrassed with myself.
It took Archer a few moments of taking deep, calming breaths before he took a seat beside me on the bench, an indescribable look on his face.
My breath caught in my throat, waiting for him to say something.
"You're a little brat, Hadley," he finally said in a disgruntled voice. "And if you ever talk to me like that again, I'm probably going to take off my shoe and throw it at you."
I stared at him with pursed lips. "Well, get used to it. You worry people too much."
Archer didn't make some sort of sarcastic comment or snort out a laugh, like I was expecting. There was a quiet, guarded look on his face as he stared at me that made my stomach drop.
"What?" I asked anxiously.
He took a deep breath before blowing out a puff of air. "If you ever repeat this to anyone else, Hadley, I swear I'm going to - "
I cut him off with a look. "Just tell me, Archer."
His eyes narrowed in an even more annoyed glare, but turned away from me, staring down at his shoes before he spoke again.
"My dad was imprisoned on a first-degree homicide charge when I was eleven."
___________________________________________________________________________________
I am so sorry it took me so long to update!! School and life has been very hectic lately!! ): I hope this chapter makes up for it! I bet a lot of you weren't expecting that twist, were you? haha, sorry, sorry. I should be updating soon, though!
Votes, reads, and comments are always greatly appreciated!! They're so totally awesome, and I thank everyone of you that's ever read, voted, or commented on one of my stories, because that totally means so much to me. :D
So....what do you guys think?