Graphically Novel (Love Hashtagged #3) (8 page)

Archer smiled, and his chest lightened for the first time in days, when Tori’s car pulled up in front of the shop. She tugged a dry-cleaning-bag-wrapped something out of her backseat and trudged up the walk. She hadn’t returned any of his messages, and she refused to answer the door when he showed up to apologize in person.

It took all his restraint not to run out, scoop her up, and kiss her, telling her how sorry he was. He wasn’t sure where the compulsion came from, but everything about it appealed to him. Feeling her warm body against his. Tasting her. Making her moan.

She pushed inside, and her icy stare obliterated his impulse. Her gait was stilted as she crossed the room and draped the costume on the counter. “For Mara.” She set a folded T-shirt next to it—one of his. “For you.”

“Thanks.” He poured as much warmth and sincerity into the single word as he could. “Can you hang out for a while?”

“No.”

“Are you coming back later?” He hated the desperation in his voice, but he needed her to hear it. To know he meant it.

“No.” Her phone buzzed and was in her hand in a flash. Her tone turned pleasant. “This is Tori.”

She reached the front door and spun on her heel, pacing toward the other side of the room again. She focused her gaze on the carpet for the most part. As she talked, she wore a virtual ditch in the middle of the floor. Her voice shifted from polite phone-voice, to abrupt, and then to the same clipped language she’d used with Archer. He’d heard her half of these conversations more times than he cared to count, but something was different about this one.

The pit in his chest grew, the more her mood soured, and every time he saw the tight lines on her face and her hard-set eyes, he beat back the desire to take the phone from her and tell off the person on the other end.

“Give me fifteen minutes.” Her voice sounded like a blade, cutting through the air-conditioning. She dropped the phone in its holster and finally met his gaze. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Red rimmed her eyes. She shook her head and turned away, the door rattling behind her seconds later.

He clenched his fists into tight balls. He’d never wanted to find someone and rip them a new one more than he did right then. Whoever had been on the other end of the phone should suffer for whatever they put her through.

At the very least, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold her until she knew it was okay. He would’ve given anything to be able to erase those lines off her face and soothe her nerves.

She wasn’t talking to him, she wasn’t dealing with things at work as they deteriorated, and he was powerless to do anything about it. Or maybe he could do something, and if it put even a little smile on Tori’s face, he’d do it again and again.

He clicked on the first website his search engine directed him to. He picked out something with daisies, roses, and a teddy bear, and then paid for the as-fast-as-you-can delivery. He furrowed his brow when the screen told him there was a problem processing his payment. He tried again, and then a third time.

What the hell?

He took a detour to his credit-card site, and all sorts of negative emotions pumped through him when he saw the card was over its limit. How the fuck had that happened? He clicked back to the flower site, gave them his debit-card number instead, and then returned to the maxed-out balance.

How had he missed that? Things were worse than he realized. He needed a new money solution. Now. Maybe trying to puzzle through it would take his mind off Tori.

* * * *

Tori paced the length of her living room. The faded carpet scratched at her bare feet. She needed to get the crap replaced. Or maybe put down some throw rugs, like Archer’s. Thinking of him added another layer to her mounting irritation. Best to ignore it and focus on the task at hand.

Voices buzzed through her blue-tooth earpiece and echoed in her head. Candace was explaining why the wrong art had been sent to big-ass-client Number One, how prototype designs had been shown to a group they weren’t meant for, and that it came down to Tori not reminding Candace to do her job.

“This is Mary.” A smooth voice came over the line.

Tori bit back the retort that they all knew who she was. The Vice President of Client Relations didn’t let anyone forget who she was.

“Tell me, Victoria,” Mary continued. “You knew this was a critical step and what kind of deadlines we were under. Why didn’t you check the art before it went to the client?”

Because that was what she paid Candace to do. Tori choked on the snide response. “I didn’t think I would need to—”

“What didn’t you understand about
mission critical
?”

Tori gave up keeping track of who was saying what. She knew all of the people by voice, but at this point, they were slinging shit at her. She muted her phone as another conversation erupted about why this happened, and she collapsed on her couch. Why couldn’t she defend herself? That was the root of everything. She couldn’t stand up for herself at work. She couldn’t tell Archer why she was really upset.

Someone knocked on the front door, and she hesitated. She tuned back into the phone conversation long enough to realize they weren’t going to ask for her input, and even if they did, they wouldn’t listen, so she decided to answer.

Unexpected tears stung her eyelids when she saw the large teddy bear holding a bouquet of daises and roses. The delivery guy handed over the bundle. “Victoria Goode?”

She nodded and took the stuffed animal from him. He flashed her a wooden smile, already turning away as he said, “Have a nice day.”

She extracted the flowers and set them on an end table, until she could dig up a vase. Her heart hammered a million miles a minute, as she pulled out the white envelope peeking up from the top. A typed script font read,
If you won’t let me be there for you, maybe you’ll let this take my place. Archer.

A few tears escaped and trickled down her cheek, and she sniffled them back. She grabbed the bear by the hand, thoughts a jumble, and dragged it back with her. The stuffed animal was huge; it had to be at least three feet. She sat it next to her on the couch and then turned back to her laptop, though nothing was happening there, since everyone was on the phone call.

Then she realized something didn’t sound right. The buzzing in her ear had gone silent.

“Victoria,” Mary said, “are you still there? Do you have us on mute?”

Shit. Tori unmuted the phone. “I’m sorry. I’m still here.”

“Dana asked what you have to say for yourself.”

The haughty question snapped something inside. How dare Archer think he could apologize with a bunch of gorgeous flowers? Why the hell did her employees think they could push this on her? Who the fuck were these people, to think they could walk all over her?

“I’ll tell you what I have to say for myself.” Tori’s words were cold and removed even to her own ears, and she sank into the verbal ice, letting it encase and drive her. “I’m not the lackey you bitch at, because someone pissed in your coffee this morning. I’m fucking co-owner of this business, and you people work for me. And somehow this mess is my fault because I didn’t… what? Do your jobs for you? Because I didn’t anticipate you people were incompetent?”

Her messenger on her laptop chimed, and she ignored it. She was going to speak her mind. “Every time something happens, not only am I on call—even if it’s two on a Sunday morning—but I spend the next twelve hours telling each and every one of you, individually, why it happened, trying to be politically correct and not cast blame. I spend more of my life reassuring you I have things under control, than I do actually controlling them.”

Her messenger chimed, again.

“I’m sick of you not doing what you were hired for. Of you taking advantage of the fact I’m a lax manager. And maybe you ought to take a look at your operations as a whole, before you continue to lay blame on a single individual—”

“Did I miss something?” Brad cut over the line.

Great. Someone tattled to her brother. How
fourth grade
of them. “Not at all. I’ve got this under control,” she said.

“Fantastic.” A strain bled into Brad’s words. Would anyone but her hear that? “And I know this is urgent, ladies and gentlemen, but Tori and I have a family emergency, and I need her help. You can all take care of yourselves for a moment, right?”

She swallowed a growl and tried to sound as professional as he did. “I’ll speak with you, folks, later.” She disconnected and threw the phone aside.

A series of notes from Brad sat waiting on her messenger.

Mary emailed me. What’s going on?

Tori, this isn’t the way to handle this.

You’re frustrated. I get it. Take this offline with me, so we can figure out a solution.

Now, please
.

She sent him back a note.

Fine. I’m done. You’ve been telling me for years to take a stand, and now I’m not doing it right? What do you want from me?

She flopped back on the couch, confusion, anger, frustration, and betrayal battling for her attention. She didn’t know how much time had passed—ten minutes or half an hour—when her phone rang.

“Hello.” Her voice was flat.

“What the hell was that?” Brad’s voice was loud enough to rattle her brain.

She turned down the volume on her phone. Fresh tears pricked her eyelids. Damn it. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t lose it now. But she couldn’t find the right words.

When she didn’t answer, he continued—hell, he might’ve continued anyway. “We had members of senior management from every branch of the company on that call. I’m glad you’re doing something about Candace, but this isn’t how you handle disputes.”

She managed to find her voice. “It’s how
they
handle disputes. You missed the ninety minutes of them dragging me through the mud.”

“If you want to flog one or more of those people privately—or even publicly—and they deserve it, that’s fine. You’ve got the authority to do that, and you never exercise it. But you can’t tear into them without focus. If you want them to take you seriously, this isn’t the way to do it.”

“Fire me.” She expected the words to taste bitter, but they were the best part of the conversation.

“Not funny. Candace has already filed a complaint with HR. Says you’re harassing her. I
know
you’re not. I’ve got your back on this. You’re not wrong, and I’m not upset at you. I’m a lot concerned that you snapped. What do you need from me, to get through this?”

A different job. A new perspective. She didn’t know. “I’m fine.”

“Tori—”

“I’ll be okay. I promise.” It took a force of will she didn’t think she had, to keep her tone steady. Would he buy it? “It’s been a bad day, but I’ve got it now.”

“All right. But call me if you need me.”

“Sure. Always.” She dropped her phone, and the impact of the conference call and Brad’s follow-up slammed into her. She wanted to be furious with him for stopping her, but she couldn’t find fault in his words. She tore out her earpiece and flung it across the room. The rubber and plastic bounced off the far wall and clattered to the floor with an unsatisfactory
plink
.

She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. Fuck. How could she get out of this? She grabbed the teddy bear, squeezed it to her chest, and rolled to her side, unable to stop the sobs that racked through her.

Archer glared at the analytics for his website. Given some time and a lot more work, he could probably make the site take off. Online sales were up this month, and at this pace, it could be the thing that saved the shop.

Right. And if he willed the numbers to change, three extra zeroes might appear at the end. It sounded as effective as anything else he’d tried.

He sat in his office—a tiny room tucked behind the main store, which had been a walk-in pantry at earlier points in its life—hoping he’d find a new answer if he stared at figures long enough. He wasn’t picky where the numbers came from. At this point, he was tempted to write down a few random ones, to have something positive to look at.

He pushed aside his laptop and flopped back in his office chair. If he was willing to tighten his belt, cut his salary, make sure the middle-floor apartments were never empty—and raise the rent fifty bucks a month—and stop hosting the anime club, or at least stop paying to feed them, he could make things work.

Maybe he could call Gwen or Zane and ask for some help with the search-engine keywords. As soon as the thought formed, he knew it was a bad one. Without Tori, he didn’t have any connection to Gwen, and he was lucky Zane hadn’t brained him for what he’d pulled with Riley. What the hell had he been thinking? Why did being around Riley do that to him?

The train of thought was derailed by memories of Tori’s reaction, and the fact she still wasn’t speaking to him. Well, that wasn’t completely true. She had texted him a
thank you
for the flowers. He sighed. Forget about Zane or Riley. How was he going to make things better with Tori?

He probably wasn’t. He turned his attention back to the website. He was on his own for all of this.

Derrek knocked on the door frame at the same time he poked his head around the corner. “Elliot’s here.”

“Send him back.” Something told Archer he didn’t want to be having this conversation, but there was no reason to be rude.

A moment later, Elliot dropped into the padded chair across from Archer’s desk and kicked his feet onto a nearby banker’s box. He set his briefcase on the floor next to him. “How’s business?”

“Same old stuff. Still feeding people’s addictions.”

“We’ve finalized the details on our sponsorship program.” Elliot grabbed something from the side pocket of his case and slid it across the desk.

This again?
Archer kept his pleasant smile in place. “That’s nice.”

“This is a preliminary contract. You can have a lawyer look it over, and all that stuff. The terms are pretty straightforward. We pay you a fixed amount every month—basically an advertising fee—and you agree to feature our comics in your storefront. You don’t have to carry us exclusively, and there aren’t currently any restrictions on how many of their books you stock versus ours. As long as you make sure we get top billing.”

Archer nodded, to indicate he understood. Such a bad idea. He liked Elliot well enough—the only rep he had, who stopped by regularly and was friendly—but Elliot’s company wasn’t his top seller, and they didn’t provide him with any merchandise to back up the comic sales. Archer would be sacrificing prime real estate, to sign this deal.

“You’re not considering it. Are you?” Elliot grabbed the contract off the desk.

“Nope.”

“Did you hear Tori out?”

“You talked to Tori about this?”

Elliot shrugged. “I’m surprised she didn’t say something. Well, no. Actually, I’m not.”

Archer wasn’t either, but he didn’t like the disdain in the other man’s voice. “Don’t drag her into this. And what the hell kind of ethics are you practicing, to go behind my back and discuss my business with someone else?”

“But it’s not just about you.” Elliot folded back the pages of the contract and placed it in front of Archer again. “Addendum A says she gets a cut and your cut grows, if she’s willing to make one costume a week, to our specifications, for display in your store.”

A foreign kind of frustration and impotence poured through Archer. On one hand, not only did he need another revenue stream, but this could give Tori the encouragement she needed to do more with her talent. On the other, something didn’t feel right about the deal. That didn’t mean he liked her keeping the information from him. “What Tori does is her decision.”

“Really? What makes you think she’d seize something like this without someone pushing her every step of the way?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m giving both of you an excellent chance. You know—
know
—that left to her own devices, she’ll let this opportunity rot. She doesn’t have the confidence, she doesn’t have the balls, and she’d rather someone else took the reins and gave her a direction.”

“Get out.” Archer was on his feet before he could process what he was doing.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re not.” Archer clenched his hands by his sides. “I won’t listen to you talk about anyone like that, especially not her.”

“The truth hurts.”

“Get the
fuck
out.”

“Call me when you see the light.” Elliot nodded at the contract, never flinching. “The offer won’t be good for long.”

Archer held back his roar, but only barely. He dropped back into his chair, hands still shaking. He didn’t know which of Elliot’s assumptions bothered him the most. The one thing he knew was he owed Tori a serious apology.

Besides, he wanted to see her. Needed to talk to her. Was desperate to hold her. He paused as the desires sank in and took root. It was as if every thought of Tori had crawled under his skin.

It should bother him. Getting involved so deeply with someone, relying so heavily on having them around, was what had gotten him in trouble in his last relationship.

Except this was different. Riley was an impulse, but Tori was an addictive, wonderful, all-consuming need. And he wanted to feed that craving.

He grabbed his keys and cut a straight line for the front door. “I’ll be back later,” he called to Derrek as the door swung shut behind him. “Close up if I’m not.”

“Got it.” Derrek’s response was muffled by the glass, as the door swung shut.

Archer was grateful Tori lived close, but the drive still seemed to take forever. He pulled into the visitor parking next to her condo, shut off the engine, and sprinted up the steps to her place.

Please let her answer.
He couldn’t help his smile when her door swung open.

She didn’t look quite as happy to see him. “Hey.” She stepped aside and gestured for him to come in.

He stopped immediately inside, unable to wait any longer, to say what he was thinking. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “About what happened with Riley the other day; about brushing you aside because she was around; about whatever else I may have done to hurt you…”

The corners of her mouth tugged up, but her eyes still looked sad. “It’s all right.” She nodded to the couch. “Do you want to stick around for a little bit?”

“What’s going on?” He hated her sorrow, but he had no idea how to erase it. Something thrummed in his chest when he saw the large teddy bear sitting in one of the easy chairs. He dropped on the couch and patted the cushion next to him.

“Work shit. Same old stuff,” she said.

Right. That. One of those things he couldn’t threaten for her or make go away, regardless of how much he wanted to. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.” She straddled his legs and draped her arms around his neck. “Talking doesn’t solve as many things as you think.”

He hadn’t expected this. Almost a week of not speaking to him, and now she sat in his lap. Every time she shifted her weight, she rubbed his cock through his jeans. He hardened under the attention.

He needed to find out where the sudden one-eighty came from. He dug his fingers into her hips, and he exhaled through clenched teeth. This felt incredible. He wanted to let her drive the moment as much as he wanted to know what was going on. It wouldn’t solve anything, but they could work that out later, right?

He didn’t resist when she pressed her lips to his, hungry and desperate. Fuck. She tasted amazing. She trailed her nails along the back of his neck, and he ran his fingers up her spine to clasp her head and hold her in place. She whimpered and ground against him.

Something salty mingled with the kiss, and his gut sank. He broke away, his heart crashing at the sight of her tears.