07

Archer looked duped there. “Uh…excuse me?”

Now it was my turn to stare at him like he had something sticking out of his head.

“Help me catch a cab?” I repeated, a little more slowly this time.

Archer let out a low, impressed whistle, dropping his Tupperware bin down on nearby table before slouching his way to the tiny door of the restaurant.

“Who would have thought…” he was muttering annoyingly as he walked. “A girl finally talks to me and it just so happens to be a psychotic whack job who likes to pinch herself.”

I stared after him in open mouthed horror.

What a jerk!

“Asshole,” I muttered back under my breath, trying to keep from feeling too offended.

God, I needed to toughen up.

If this was how it was going to be being around Archer Morales, clearly I was going to need to get a thicker skin. I already felt like bursting into tears from his little snippy, snide comments he’d thrown at me so far. How was I going to take it if he actually insulted me to the third degree?

One could only hope that I wouldn’t cry in front of him.

Forcing a determined look on my face, I stomped my way out of the restaurant and into the brisk night air after Archer, who was now standing off to the side of the curb, looking for a taxi.

“Thanks,” I told him as I stood beside him, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

He glanced back over his shoulder at me with a wry look on his face.

“Yeah,” he agreed sarcastically. “I can tell you’re real thrilled, Hadley.”

“Why are being so rude to me, Archer Morales?” I demanded in a high pitched voice before I could stop myself. “I haven’t done anything to you and yet you’re acting like a complete and total jerk!”

“Oh, ho. Now who’s acting all high and mighty?” Archer snorted derisively, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not!” I squeaked in response. “I just asked you an honest question, and there you go again, throwing it back in my face!”

“I don’t even know you, you stupid woman,” he replied in a rather snarky voice a beat later. “So why on Earth should I be polite to you?”

“Uh, it’s common courtesy, duh,” I said, like it should’ve been plainly obvious. “I be nice to you, you be nice to me. That’s kinda the way it works. And I’m not stupid!”

“You really sure about that one?” Archer asked in a coy manner, arching an eyebrow.

“Shut up!”

Wow, I bet Death was sure proud of me.

I hadn’t even been around the guy for half an hour and already we were biting each other’s heads off. I could only imagine with cheery joy how the rest of these twenty seven days were going to go.

“You’re making this surprisingly difficult, Archer Morales,” I huffed out distractedly, going hands on hips. “Here I am, trying to be nice to you, and you’re hardly returning the favor.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me, Hadley, so I don’t think you’re really in a position to tell me what to do,” Archer fired back in a surprisingly heated voice.

“I know that you’re going to – “

I stopped speaking abruptly, realizing the severity of my words and just what I was about to blurt out. Death hadn’t exactly elaborated on the entire thing, but I figured it was an unspoken agreement that I wasn’t going to tell Archer I knew he was planning on killing himself.

I had to fight back a shudder at the thought of how detrimental that would be.

“That I’m going to what, exactly?”

Archer’s voice was dangerously low, extremely deep and husky sounding.

“N-N-Nothing,” I stammered out, fighting the urge to put distance between us.

“Yeah, right,” he said, his amazing eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Hadley Jamison, but I’m not a fan of it.”

I stood up, straightening myself up to my pathetic height of 5’3’’, and tossed my dark hair over my shoulder, my chin jutting out defiantly.

“I’m not playing at anything, Archer Morales,” I sneered, my lips curling. “I think you’re the one who’s socially inept. Clearly you can’t tell the difference between a death threat and somebody trying to be nice to you.”

Those rather harsh words had an effect on Archer that I hadn’t been expecting. The look that came over his face was almost akin to me slapping him across the face. His wavy, tangled hair was rustling in the slight breeze that blew down the bustling streets of New York City, and his eyes were narrowed, giving him this sort of untamed look.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want people to be nice to me? Has it ever occurred to you that I want to be left alone?” Archer suddenly asked me, sounding just the slightest bit unstable.

It was safe to say that I was now staring at him like he had a spatula sticking out of his head or something.

Sure, he had a point there. Everybody had the right to be left alone and everybody had the right to claim their independence. Of course they did.

But when a person knew the things I did, did those same rules still apply?

“But why?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

And I honestly wanted to know the answer to that question. From what I was beginning to see, how could anyone have the attitude that Archer had and still be okay with the way they were?

“None of your damn business, that’s why.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t really care.”

“I have a feeling you don’t really care about a lot of things.”

“You’d be right to assume that.”

“Of course I would.”

“Say, Hadley?”Archer said slowly, dumbly, as if he were trying to piece something together. “Why do you care about anything that has to do with me, huh?”

Because I don’t want you to kill yourself, that’s why.

“You…seem like an interesting person,” I trailed off hopelessly, trying to come up with a good answer.

I, of course, failed miserably at it.

“Yeah, right,” he snorted, rolling his eyes.

“It’s the truth!”

“If that’s the truth, than I’m an – “

My phone started ringing loudly in my pocket, making me jump about a foot in the air from its vibrating. It didn’t come as a surprise when I grabbed my phone out of my pocket to see that the caller ID clearly read “Mom”.

Making a quick sign of the cross, I pressed the answer call button.

“Hey, Mom, I’m – “

“Hadley Ann Jamison! Where the hell are you? Do you know how worried your father and I have been? We live in New York City, for Christ’s sake, and you’re off gallivanting God only knows where, and – “