Chapter Twenty-five

OLLIE

The following morning, I planned to help Tim as I usually did. But instead of the smile he'd taken to offering me when I arrived in the kitchen garden, he ignored my greeting.

"Hey," I said, thinking he hadn't heard me.

He straightened, and the immobility of his face was pure Archer, hiding what he was feeling. "You lied to me."

"I did? When?"

"You said you weren't screwing my brother." His eyes were oddly bright in the gloomy morning.

"That's because I wasn't then," I said. "We're together now, but Archer said he wanted to be the one to tell you, and also, how am I supposed to open that conversation with his younger brother?"

Tim looked up at the sky and swallowed, and I realised that brightness looked like unshed tears. "Yeah, okay," he said, his voice slightly thick. "Grab the hoe, would you. The rhubarb bed's out of control."

I grabbed the hoe and tackled the rhubarb bed. But as I attacked some blameless weeds, I was thinking about Tim. I hoped he and Archer could sort out whatever their problem was because it looked like they were as upset as one another over it. If only they'd tell each other that.

I steered away from any mention of Archer as we worked, though it was difficult. I was in love, and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Instead, I kept to neutral topics of conversation. Unlike previous mornings, this one seemed to drag. I was counting the minutes until I could see Archer again. This morning, after he'd fucked me, he'd kissed me for what felt like hours. "I don't want to work. I want to stay here with you," he told me afterwards, and my heart had flipped over in happiness.

"Do you ever take a day off?" I asked him curiously.

"I've never had a reason to," he said. His grey eyes were warm as he looked at me. "Until now."

I hugged that to myself all morning as I worked.

Mia had made pasta and salad again for lunch, though she'd evidently burned something at some point because the kitchen was filled with an acrid smell.

"I'll take it," Tim said as he spotted Archer's plate already laid out, and he was out of the door before I could protest. I was bitterly disappointed not to have an excuse to see Archer, but I knew I mustn't interfere if Tim and Archer might actually be going to talk.

I concentrated on making tea. Maybe Tim and Archer would finally work things out. Or maybe those swords would end up being put to use…

"Ollie!"

Mia's voice jerked me from my thoughts and I realised I was still pouring boiling water into an overflowing mug. Shit.

"They'll sort it out," she said, but I had the feeling she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

ARCHER

I was disappointed to find it wasn't Ollie bringing me lunch, warming my workshop with his bright smile. I stamped on that swiftly—the fact Tim was doing this felt as if he were making a statement. Perhaps hostilities were over.

"Thanks, "I said. "How's the garden coming along? It looks good." My words came out awkwardly, proving that compliments didn't come naturally to me.

Tim's face lightened. "Cheers," he said gruffly, and nodded at the steel I'd cut out. "What're you working on?"

As I told him about the twenty-something millionaire with more money than taste, things between us felt almost as they used to.

"I better get back before the others eat all the lunch," he said after a while, before hesitating. "Is it okay if I have seven friends to stay? I was thinking three nights wouldn't be too long, but long enough to make it worth them travelling."

"That's fine," I said firmly, while wondering where the hell seven extra people were going to sleep. The house was big but not huge, and part of the upstairs space was taken up with that minstrels' gallery, which could have been more usefully made into bedrooms.

"I thought a couple could crash in my room, and the rest could share the other two spare rooms. If that's okay."

What had I done to make him so uncertain of me? "Sounds like a plan. Will they be bringing air beds or something similar to sleep on?"

He grinned, and for an instant, I saw the old Tim. "They can sleep on the floor. They're young."

In the past, he'd have finished that off with some statement about me being an old man and my back not coping, but he was still wary. So I did it for him.

"Unlike me, you mean. It would be helpful if they could bring sleeping bags, but we'll manage if they can't."

"Cool. I thought maybe next week, coming on Thursday because Hig has to go back on Sunday evening for work."

"I'll let Shona know to expect Mia."

"Thanks, Archer."

That was when I realised one of the things that had gone so wrong between us was the power disparity I'd enforced out of habit, not realising that things had changed. I fiddled with a couple of tools on my table for a moment, wondering if I had to say this. But I knew that I did.

"Tim," I said, as he was heading out of the door.

He turned back, suspicion on his face.

"You don't need to thank me. You don't need to ask permission to have your friends here once Mia's eighteen. All you need do is to check in with the rest of us that it's convenient. You're an adult now, and this is your home as much as it's mine, and"—Ollie had done something to me. He'd got me talking about feelings —"I'm sorry if I made you think otherwise."

He nodded jerkily, his face flaring bright red, but said nothing before he left. That was okay. Tim always had been easily overwhelmed, and I remembered how it was to be his age with hormones firing and every single thing feeling like it mattered. I wondered when I'd stopped feeling that things mattered. Somehow, I'd withdrawn, and I hadn't even realised it until Ollie, with his love of even the smallest of things in life, came along.

I had no idea how a talkative, accident-prone copper dragon had wormed his way into my life and, it seemed, into my heart. All I knew was that I didn't want to go back to how my life had been before Ollie.