‘Fine, I’ll try to keep you safe without being quite so uptight.’ He exhales heavily.
‘Thank you.’ It’s a start, I suppose.
‘Now, to the beach,’ he says.
We walkfour miles side by side across the length of Portobello beach and back. The chill blowing in from the North Sea does nothing to cool the inferno blazing inside of me every time Archie’s arm bumps against mine. He scans the horizon as we walk, but true to his word, while we sip Americanos and make small talk in a beachside café, he maintains eye contact as the world passes by us.
I watch as a young couple kiss on the pavement outside the café window, imagining this is what people who don’t have a day job do. People-watch, observe their surroundings.
Looking in from the outside has never been enough for me. It’s one of the reasons I devour romance novels. I love glimpsing the world through someone else’s eyes, even if they are a fictional character. Hoping to shed some light on why people behave the way they do. Why, when they fall in love, they often lose all sense of rationale. Why they forsake their careers, families or anything else they may have dreamed of along the way.
There has to be so much more to it than attraction, but even as I’m beginning to experience these new overwhelming feelings for the first time, I’m no clearer on the subject.
Words can’t explain why I crave Archie so much. Why I can’t control my tongue or the rest of my body around him.
I’ve always wanted a partner, and not just because of the urges I teased him about.
I want to find that innate bond I can’t live without.
Sasha has it with Ryan.
Chloe has it with Jayden.
I have a sneaking suspicion if Archie drops his walls completely, I could find it with him. Though that could just be wishful thinking on my part. Perhaps the lingering of my silly teenage crush.
But then why does it feel as if we’re teetering on the verge of something so much more?
He admitted the attraction is mutual, but it’s so much more than that. Long before I even thought about Archie romantically, we formed a friendship. I was still a kid then. He accompanied Ryan, Sasha and me on a trip to the Winter Wonderland. Then he accompanied us on several European dates of Ryan’s farewell tour.
He was funny, sunny and kind. Effortless to be around.
He still is, when he drops the armour.
When Sasha insisted a bodyguard accompany me to Edinburgh, initially I was devastated, fearing I would be robbed of the usual student experience. Then I began to wonder if it was a gift in disguise.
I begged her to let Archie be the one to come with me.
It didn’t occur to me that he’d turn it down.
When he did, I felt foolish for even suggesting it. He was this mature, muscly mountain of a man and I was a silly girl with big dreams of saving the world.
My biggest fear is that’s how he still sees me deep down. Even now. A senseless girl. Is that why he won’t cross the line with me? The ‘I can’t protect you if I’m perving on you’ line is bullshit.’
Surely if we were intimately involved, he’d want to protect me further? It doesn’t make sense.
I’m twenty-three years old, about to qualify as a doctor. And somehow I get the feeling I’ll always be ‘Little Victoria’ to Archie, just as I am to my sisters.
Doctor Dickson, however, doesn’t seem to see me as childlike in any way. My phone vibrates on the chequered tablecloth in front of me.
Archie squints to read the screen upside down. ‘Is that your teacher again?’ He pronounces the word teacher like it’s the dirtiest word in the English language.
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you think he offers his other students the same attention he showers on you?’ Archie’s fingers flex into a fist on the table.
Is that jealousy in his tone? Hope sparks inside of me. ‘The other students didn’t get held hostage under his supervision, even if it was for a fleeting moment.’
‘Huh. You want to keep an eye on him.’
