Archer showed me their two bathrooms and supply room, which stored their towels and linens.
“Joy and Salem are down there,” he said, pointing to the lasthall on the left. “Across from the bathroom. Maybe you know already since you two talk.”
“Where do you sleep?”
Archer ushered me back the other way toward the staircase and turned right in the hall just before it. There were four doors—two on each side.
He tapped on the first one on the left. “This is an extra storage room, but we’re not allowed to put anything in there yet. It doesn’t have a closet, but if the pack grows fast, we can always use it as a bedroom until we add on to the house. The next one’s mine.”
I approached the window, which overlooked the backyard, and touched the doorknob on the left. “Can I?”
He shrugged. “Enter at your own risk. I didn’t clean.”
When I walked in the dark room, Archer moved ahead of me to the left and switched on the lamp next to the bed. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he didn’t have many possessions. To the right of the door, a comfy-looking oversized black leather chair filled the corner. The bed had an abundance of pillows despite the absence of a headboard.
I strolled past the curtainless windows and gestured to a door. “Closet?”
“Yep. There’s a dresser in there. Most of the stuff I shipped down was gym equipment.”
He’d built a shelf to the left of the windows to store his prosthetic arm. The black device reminded me of a sci-fi machine part, but I didn’t touch it.
Nearing the dartboard by the bed, I noticed a dart pinned to the bull’s-eye. Upon closer examination, there weren’t any holes in the wall. “You’re an excellent shot,” I said. “Either that, or you rarely play.”
“Oh, I play.”
I peered into a recessed nook to the left of the closet andstared at a rack with several bows on it. There were also arrows on display as well as a quiver hanging on the wall.
“That’s just a bunch of junk from my past,” he said offhandedly.
But it wasn’t junk. I could tell by the proud display that these things held special significance.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked.
Leather creaked from behind me. “Nothing now.”
I turned around. Archer had made himself comfortable in his leather chair, watching me with keen interest as I skirted around the bed to his nightstand.
Lifting a giant bottle of coconut oil, I gave him a playful smile. “Aha.”
“Shit.That’s not what it looks like. I moisturize after my showers.”
I smiled and sat, the bottle in my hand. Archer always carried a faint smell of coconut, and his supple skin suggested he took care of it in every way possible. I squirted some in my palm and spread it across my arms. “What did you used to do for work? Or do you come from family money?”
He sighed and stretched his legs out. “I lived in a prestigious pack, so I didn’t have to work. But I made money through betting.”
“What kind of betting?”
He rested his elbow on the armrest and rumpled his hair. “I was into archery. Nobody could beat me, so people were always throwing down a challenge they deemed impossible. Hitting a small target from different angles and distances, sometimes blindfolded or facing away. One guy put an apple on his head.”
“Did you always win?”
“All except the apple guy.”
I set the bottle on the nightstand. “You shot him?”
Archer snorted. “Not exactly. He panicked and hit the groundbefore I made the shot. He refused to go through with the bet, so we called it a draw. I would’ve felt guilty taking his money since his girlfriend was watching.”
I toed off my laceless sneakers and stretched my legs across his bed so I could see him better. I could imagine myself easily falling asleep on Archer’s bed with the moon setting in the sky. After fluffing the pillows, I stared at the expansive window. “This is a nice room. You could watch the sunset.”
