Oh. Hm? Why, yes, thatisbitterness you’ve detected. How astute.
Why bitter, you ask? Over a stranger enjoying his hard-earned freedom from the perils of the working world?
Well, it certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with myownretirement at the age of twenty-eight-and-a-quarter or my beloved family’s less-than-enthusiastic reception of said early-age retirement. That reception being what may or may not have led to me crying on this park bench as I glare at a stranger’s perfectly aesthetic Hawaiian shirt.
Because, you know,myfamily would never ever, ever look me dead in the eye and say something like, oh, perhaps, “Sarelia, sweetie… are youreallymaking enough money on your books for that? I know you say it’s going well, but…” or, “Oh, no, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. We justlove you,” or even, “We want what’s best for you, and we worry about you. Sarelia, please, please stop crying.”
Definitely my father and my mother and my brother would not have said all of this after having sat me down intervention-style this morning to discuss the news I had delivered—happily, I might add—to them yesterday morn.
Because if theyhaddone that, it would have been devastating. Heartbreaking. Eye opening in an oh-they-don’t-believe-in-me-or-trust-my-judgment sort of way despite the twenty-eight-and-a-quarter years I’ve spent thinking if I just prove I’m a capable adult, they’ll believe in me finally.
Sodefinitelymy very caring and loving and supportive familydid notdo that, and I am sitting here having an existential crisis for some other reason that makes perfectly good sense.
Def-in-ite-ly.
And this crisis is happening in the park not because I don’t want to have it at home where I live with my well-intentioned though apparently trustless parents, but because having your cry on a park bench is all the rage. Public displays of affliction: everyone’s having them.
“Retiring, yes,” the man says, right in the midst of my trendy affliction. “After one last job, which is what I wanted to discuss with you.” He sighs, shaking his head at me. “I don’t think Archie would be very happy to see you crying like this.”
Cogs turn in my head as I work to process what it is he just said and how the sentences could possibly correlate to one another.
He is retiring.
He has one last job.
He wishes to discuss this job with… me?
And Archie would not be happy to see me crying.
My brows furrow.
Yeah… he’s lost me in the middle there.
“Are you talking about Archie Pine?” I ask, because priorities.
“Is there any other Archie that matters?” he retorts.
I decide that the man can speak as nonsensically as he likes. He is, clearly, of sound mind and great intelligence.
“Not that I know of,” I reply, pausing to blow my nose into his handkerchief. “Archie Pine is life.”
The older man’s eyes twinkle down at me as his shoulders wiggle, then straighten, prouder than they were before. “Archie’s my nephew.”
My breath catches, and I freeze. Archie is his nephew? ArchiePineis his nephew?
My eyes dart across his face, searching his features for hints that he’s telling the truth. His nose is rather like Archie’s… as are his jawline, the curve of his upper lip, and the shape of his earlobe.
My heart rate kicks up a notch or twelve.
“Stone Pine, at your service.” He offers his hand, and I move to shake it, only just remembering to drop my used hankie before our hands collide.
“Sarelia Prim,” I reply, squeezing his palm as I marvel at him. Stone Pine. Possibly Archie’s uncle—AKA a man whoshares bloodwith Archibald Charles Pine: CubeCraft gamer, British heartthrob, and unequivocal love of my life.
Stone smiles. “I know. Archie’s told me all about you, and I’ve learned a thing or two myself.”
My heart goes from sixty to zero in point-oh-five seconds flat. “Archie’s told you about me?” I wheeze. “Me?”
Surely not.
