“I have to go home,” Simon stated, although there wasn’t an ounce of conviction behind it.
“Why?” Paige huffed a laugh. “Because you need to water your nonexistent plants? You could walk away from that apartment tomorrow and not miss a damn thing.”
“It’s like she knows you or somethin’,” Archer joked.
“And what am I supposed to say to her?”
“Well, you could start by telling her you’re in love with her.”
Simon’s head snapped to the left, his eyes slamming into Paige.
“Oh, come on,” Archer said. “Like she just told you somethin’ you didn’t already know.”
“I … I…”
“Save it for when you find her,” Paige told him, pointing toward the door. “Go. Find her. We’ll take care of this. When you get back, we’ll lay out the rough draft outline for the season. Because if we don’t start this up soon, I’m gonna have to look for a real job.”
Laughing, Archer added, “Me, too. Steady income is a necessity.”
It was a discussion they’d all had numerous times. While the podcast made money from sponsors, the downtime caused problems. And since Simon seemed to be waffling on whether he wanted to do this story, they were already behind. Archer tended to get antsy when he didn’t have something to do. Hence, the reason he’d gotten his private investigator license last year.
“Fine,” Simon said. “But if she tells me to take a hike…”
“We’ll pack it all up and head back to Dallas tonight,” Paige said.
Archer saw the fear that flashed in Simon’s eyes. The fear of walking away from something important could mess a man up.
As soon as Simon closed the door behind him, Archer turned to Paige. “You know we’re not leavin’ this town, right?”
She nodded, smiled. “I’ve known it from the moment we got here. The second I looked at him, I knew something was different.”
Archer moved the empty bag and case off the desk and onto the floor. “You okay with that?”
“More than I thought I would be. You?”
Archer thought about Spencer Elliott. He smiled. “Yeah. I think it might be a good thing.”
Not just for Simon.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“You want popcorn?” Spencer asked.
Violet looked up from the television, shaking her head. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen her look quite so lost before. That thousand-yard stare had been present from the moment she knocked on his door two hours ago, claiming she needed to hide out for a little while.
He flopped down on the couch beside her, stretching his legs out and propping his feet on the coffee table while his arm moved around her shoulders so he could pull her against him.
“You know you can’t hide out here forever. You will have to face him sooner or later.”
“No, I don’t,” she said petulantly.
“He’s leavin’ in what? A few days? You sure you wanna spend your time with me when you could be doin’ nasty things with him?”
“He doesn’t care,” she muttered. “Paige referred to me as athat. I don’t even rate a qualifier. I’m athat.”
“Maybe they weren’t talkin’ about you.”
“Trust me,” she said, blowing her hair out of her face. “They were talkin’ about me. Simon said he didn’t wanna deal with me. He said I knew what was comin’ because we’ve talked about it. He’s not wrong. We have. I just need to move on.”
