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Despair gripped his heart. He didn’t want to think about his manager’s response, or the end of the summer. It was too much to handle. He wanted to stay on this couch, under the streaming golden sunlight, wrapped up in her forever. He didn’t want to think about the future. He wanted to live in blissful ignorance.
He slid his hand up her leg and kissed the center of her chest, then worked his way up her neck. “Join me in the shower?”
She hummed, her arms making their way around his shoulders as she shimmied into the cushions.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
They both froze. Archer lifted his head to the door, wondering if someone was yelling at him. But the sound was coming through the open window of his bedroom, on the other side of the cabin.
A muffled voice responded. He couldn’t make out the words.
“¿Estás chalado? You’ve been doing this all this time? ¡Qué locura!”
It was Jorge.
A door slammed shut. “I don’t understand you!”
And that was…Joel?
Archer looked at Tea.
“Fishing cabin,” they said at the same time.
They bolted upright. Archer pulled on his shirt as they exited his cabin, then jogged over to the commotion. By the time they reached the small fishing hut, others had congregated as well. Rhonda, Steph, Kelly, Lily, and his father.
Joel stood in front of the door, arms crossed, his face tight with irritation.
Jorge stood at a distance from Joel, shaking his head as he made his way over to his wife, rapidly filling her in on what happened in Spanish. Archer knew a few words from his time in school and working in the service industry, enough to pick up on the gist of what was going on. When Jorge opened up the door to clean his fish, he found Joel making a mess of it.
He glared at Joel. “You’ve been angry at me about not catching the culprit, but it’s been you all this time?”
Joel crossed his arms. “I was teaching you a lesson on leadership. You clearly couldn’t figure out who it was, and it’s been months.”
Rhonda laughed out loud. It wasn’t a true laugh though. It was more of a disbelieving one—a I can’t believe you one. “So you come in here every week and make a mess of everything, then blame my kids and get angry at Archer? Joel, I’ve been waiting years to say this, but I think you’re a lunatic.”
Steph patted her wife’s shoulders. “All right, calm down.”
“How can I be calm? The man’s insane!”
Joel pointed a finger at Astor. “No, he’s insane for giving up his position five years before we all agreed he would!”
Dad’s brow wrinkled. “You’re blaming me for this?”
“Yes.”
“Funny.” Dad crossed his arms. “I don’t remember agreeing to anything, and I didn’t think I needed to consult you on my business decisions.”
“I think you do. Your family might be managing the resort, but we own our cabins. We are the ones in charge.”
“And are you dissatisfied by how the place has been run this summer?” Dad breezed a hand around the landscape to make a point. “We don’t have our cleaning services coming in and we don’t have money from renters and many of us currently don’t have jobs. Yet despite all of that, my son has done an excellent job keeping this place in shape while caring for everyone here, and for at least a fourth of what he was paid in Minneapolis.”
Many pairs of eyes darted in his direction. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably.
Dad continued. “Let me remind you that I am still an owner, and I know for a fact that without Archer, things could have gone a lot differently this summer. I don’t think I would have had the same energy to take care of Wild Pines and manage to keep people safe during a global pandemic.”
“He helped me fix my boat. For free,” Jorge added.
“And he helped all of us with delayed association fee payments,” Lily added.
