Touch of Fondness: A New Adult Romance (Stay in Touch)

by Joy Penny

  Pauline waved a hand in the air, dismissing him.

  But he continued. “They had comics in ‘your day,’ Pauline. Comics before your day.”

  Pauline nodded and slowed the van down, glancing over her shoulder to switch lanes. “If they don’t have an actual Chris Hemsworth to look at, they aren’t worth my time.” She flicked her eyes to the rearview mirror. “Well, I mean, your art is always well done…”

  “Sure, sure,” said Archer. “Blame the writers.”

  The car fell into a slightly uncomfortable lapse of silence and Brielle felt compelled to fill it. “I prefer Loki to Thor.”

  “Ah,” Archer said. “One of those women.”

  Brielle felt like he’d punched her in the gut. So after all this, he’s one of those guys, huh? Going to complain how all women love the bad boy and he doesn’t have a chance because he’s “so nice”?

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Pauline, more like a chaperone than ever.

  Archer slapped his knees. “Nothing,” he said. “Just… I guess she likes tall, dark, and handsome.”

  “Or more like pasty and evil?” said Brielle, unable to help herself. She felt relieved that was all he’d meant. “Not that I love the evil types in real life, let me assure you. But villains are where it’s at in fiction.”

  Archer snorted.

  “What?” Brielle turned around, ignoring the seatbelt now digging into her shoulder. He was grinning, but he tried to hide his grin in his hands.

  He stared at her, the mischievousness in his light brown eyes sending shivers down her spine. “Will you settle for slightly naughty?”

  Brielle whipped her head around so fast, she practically got whiplash. She could feel her face coloring.

  “Okay, you two. Grandma Pauline is still here, you know. She can only take so much pheromones floating in her direction.”

  Brielle buried her face in her hands. She’d known the guy for less than a week. This was ridiculous!

  “Pauline,” said Archer. “Be cool.”

  Brielle really, really felt like she was riding with her boyfriend and his mom on the way to junior prom.

  Still, she didn’t think she was imagining things. Even if Daniel—god, why did she too often think about Daniel?—had made it crystal clear much earlier he wanted her in his twin XL dorm bed. Other than with him, she didn’t have much experience, so she wasn’t sure how one normally did this thing. Other than she knew this situation wasn’t exactly normal in its own right—not that Archer could help it.

  Besides, he was so handsome and could sometimes—reluctantly—be charming, so he’d probably had a dozen opportunities to date even if he relied on a personal nurse driver. He just must have not wanted to.

  He probably had fangirls waiting for him at this comic store right now, ready to jump him.

  That was an image Brielle couldn’t shake—only she was imagining herself holding up a poster board saying how much she loved him, herself waiting in line to shake his hand, herself crawling onto his lap.

  A flush of heat from her midsection roared up and down her body. She needed to change the subject like yesterday. “I’m not a huge comic reader or anything. I mean, obviously, I’ve read some. But I haven’t heard of your comic, sorry.”

  Archer didn’t even hesitate. “No apologies necessary. It’s not an entirely unheard of comic, but it’s not exactly mainstream, either.”

  Oh. Brielle had been worried he’d be one of those comic book guys who think anyone—a woman especially—who only sees superhero movies is somehow “lesser than.” “I should have asked to read a trade,” said Brielle, happy she had Pembroke in her life to teach her words like that. Even though she never in a million years thought she’d meet a comic book artist, let alone maybe, possibly, date one. She cocked her head. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen any in his condo.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ve only been on the book a few years.” He sniffed. “You can look at one tonight.”

  Brielle had to stop herself from burying her face in her hands. Somehow, Archer acting like he didn’t want her to see his book—then contradicting himself—was the most adorable thing she’d heard in ages.

  Her phone buzzed and she fished it out of her purse to make sure it wasn’t her mom, but it was just Gavin sending a photo of himself and his date, both looking hot and hipster-y in some kind of tight quarters café. Brielle had texted her mom earlier that she was going out, but all her mom had said back was, Ok. She was still waiting for the hammer to come down and the lecture about not looking for jobs.

  She had looked for some that morning. She’d applied for three or four, although nothing really spoke to her. She’d finally gotten back one reply from the jobs she’d applied to the week before, thanking her for her application and stressing that there were many qualified applicants.

  She didn’t know what was worse: the few outright rejections, the “we got your stuff but just so you know, you’re probably not going to be good enough” emails, or the frequent, frequent dead silence. She’d had one Skype interview for a historical society in Iowa of all places about a month ago that went nowhere. That was actually the only interview she’d scored at all so far, and it’d come so early into her job-hunting process that she’d assumed this whole job-finding thing would be easy. Ha.

  “We’re here,” said Pauline. She scoffed. “Not a lot of accessible parking.” There weren’t any parking spots, period. There weren’t many uptown, where all the buildings seemed a little worn, like they were built back in the days of horses and carriages. But there were a lot of cars parked up and down along the block.

  “Pull around the back,” said Archer. “The owner said he’d open it up for me.”

  Pauline actually cringed as she pulled into the back alleyway. “This doesn’t seem shady at all…” She stopped in front of a door next to a dumpster, ignoring the “No Parking / Cars Will Be Towed” sign and shifting the car into park. “Sorry about the lack of space. I need more on this side for the chair.” She looked over her shoulder. “No offense, hon, but once I make sure you’re situated, I think I’ll spend the next couple of hours at that Starbucks we passed.”

  Archer unbuckled his seatbelt and waved a hand. “You can go home if you want. Don’t worry about it. Mother will pay you the full extra three hours, but I doubt I’ll need you again until it’s time to go.”

  Pauline pulled the keys out of the ignition and hit some buttons, opening the door beside Archer and the door beside his wheelchair automatically, extending the ramp. “Nonsense. What’s waiting for me at home? A husband who promised to give me a night off from two very dramatic preteen children. Let them bond with Dad for the day. Mom’s getting her mocha.”

  Pauline exited the vehicle and started reaching for Archer’s wheelchair and Brielle scrambled out of her seat, shoving her phone back into her bag. She had to be careful to hold her door as she opened it and slid out so it wouldn’t hit the dumpster. She actually exhaled audibly when she managed to sneak out and shut the door without dinging it, like it’d all required physical exertion.

  Looking at Archer slowly sliding out of the vehicle with the help of the grab bars, she felt bad for even making a peep.

  “Can I help?” she said, wondering if that was the wrong thing to say.

  Archer laughed, grunting, and nodded behind him. “Hand me my canes?”

  Brielle reached under his extended arm, her face brushing his side as she grabbed hold of the canes. He felt warm and she had to fight the temptation to bury her face into him for more than a couple of seconds.

  “Here,” she said, backing up to give him more space.

  He rested up against the first extended step of the ramp, taking the canes from her with one hand. He stared up above her head and laughed, gesturing upward.

  Brielle slapped her hands above her head and felt how her hair was sticking up. Had his shirt been covered in static? She often did his laundry, so if it was, it was her fault. She swallow
ed and smoothed her tresses down, probably stroking her hair more times than was necessary.

  Archer looked away as he slipped his arms through his canes—they kind of wrapped around his forearms when he used them—and swung his brace-covered legs down one at a time. “Can you… Um, go in from the front? And ask someone to open the door?”

  Brielle jumped, clapping her hands together. “Okay.” She felt relieved to be useful. She scrambled around the van, smiling awkwardly at Archer as she plastered herself against the wall and passed mere inches from him before heading down the alleyway. Turning the corner, she passed a couple of guys in comic book shirts who gave her a onceover as she headed for the door.

  She’d wanted to look nice for Archer, but she didn’t think dressing to the nines was a good idea for a comic book shop. So she’d just thrown on her nicest (albeit tightest) jeans and a slightly wrinkled flowery Boho top still in one of her boxes from her dorm room. Still, she felt like a freak as she stepped inside and saw the crowd gathered there. More than one group of people—almost all in comic book or flannel shirts, although some of the women had cute animal hats on as well—stopped talking to watch her warily as she headed for the busy cash register.

  Brielle cleared her throat. “Um, excuse me…”

  The guy behind the counter looked her over from top to bottom. Twice. “End of the line’s that way.” He handed a receipt to the guy in front of him along with a pen for him to sign. Brielle got a look at the stack of books the guy in the Pac-Man shirt was buying: all The Mystified except for one called Wheels.

  “She’s not buying anything,” muttered Pac-Man guy as he signed the slip.

  Brielle bristled. She’d discussed this before with Pembroke—that feeling that you weren’t allowed to enjoy something if you didn’t show up dressed for the part. (And sometimes not even then if you might be confused for a hot cosplayer.) She’d been to a comic shop before with Pembroke, a much nicer one in their college town, thank you very much.

  Brielle ignored Pac-Man fan. “I came with Archer—Archer Ward? He asked me to get someone to meet him at the door.”

  That made everyone within earshot stop what they were doing. The cashier and the customer were both still clinging to the same receipt as they stared at her, wide-eyed, their hands frozen mid-movement.

  “Oh,” the cashier finally said. He snatched the receipt from the customer and picked up a phone. “George? Can you come to the front—pronto?”

  The customer grabbed his bag and slinked his shoulders, stepping around Brielle and muttering something she couldn’t hear. She watched him sit in one of the few empty folding chairs at the back of the store set up in front of a desk with stacks of graphic novels on it. There was a big cardboard cutout of a superhero Brielle only recognized from Archer’s crumpled-up drawing.

  So the guy had gone from outright contempt to muffled loathing. That’s what happened when you dissed someone who’d shown up with the guy they were all here to see.

  The cashier went back to ringing up the line of customers—the next guy was also buying The Mystified—and Brielle stood there, resting her hand on her cross-body purse, trying not to tap her toes and come across as impatient. But the truth was, she felt uneasy in such a place without Pembroke, and Archer being the only person she knew there made her feel even more awkward.

  “What’s up?” asked a middle-aged guy with short-cropped gray hair and countless visible tattoos. He even had big round black discs in his earlobes that made his ears bigger.

  “This... lady,” said the cashier, gesturing to Brielle with both hands like she was a display on The Price is Right, “says Archer Ward is waiting at the door.”

  “Oh!” The middle-aged guy jumped and held out his hand. “George.”

  Brielle took it and shook. “Brielle.”

  George gestured over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

  Brielle did, excusing herself a few times as they slinked through the too-big-for-the-too-small-store crowd, although George just sort of sucked in his breath and maneuvered through them without saying anything like a ghost sliding through unnoticed. He stopped only at the front of the rows of folding chairs briefly, nodding at the front row, which had eight seats with sheets of paper tossed haphazardly on them reading, “Reserved.” The only person on that side of the aisle in the front was a rather severe-looking woman who looked more out of place than Brielle did. She sat there, her legs crossed, in crisp slacks and a silky top more at home at a cocktail party, a pair of designer sunglasses resting on top of her head. Her attention was focused solely on her phone, which she kept in a case like it were an e-reader and prodded at with a stylus. “You can sit here during the presentation,” he said. “How many others did Archer bring with him?”

  “Tw—” Brielle started to say, then remembered Pauline was leaving for the next few hours. “Just me.”

  George nodded and strode over to the chairs, scooping up two of the “Reserved” papers and crumpling them in his hand. “The rest are for my staff,” he explained. They’d just barely taken three more steps toward a door leading to the backroom before two girls in adorably eye-catching Batman and Wonder Woman dresses squealed from the line of people standing to the side and rushed to take those two seats.

  Once George got to the “Employees Only” door, he held it open behind him, revealing a mountain of boxes, a couple of computers with figurines perched all around them, a bathroom, and a couple of lockers in the back. Brielle took hold of the door and was about to follow when she glanced to her right and saw Pembroke.

  “Pem?” she said, her jaw dropping.

  George stopped ahead of her. “I’ll head on back to let him in,” he said, and Brielle nodded.

  She hesitated, wondering if Archer was really expecting her to show up with George or to chat with him before his presentation began. It seemed the right thing to do—she could hang with Pembroke later, assuming she was here for the signing, which she seemed to be, as she was currently reading a volume of The Mystified—but there was this niggling worry at the back of her mind, the shock at seeing her friend after almost a week of dead silence. “Pembroke?” she said again, and she finally looked up.

  Her eyes widened. She shut her book and slipped back behind the line of people.

  “Pembroke?” called Brielle, and she let go of the backroom door to follow after the skittish young woman.

  She almost lost sight of the oversized cargo pants and the tight black T-shirt she knew belonged to her diminutive friend, but Pembroke’s thick-rimmed black cat-eye glasses and blue-streaked hair made her easy to spot, even amongst so many others with just as much indie fashion style.

  “Excuse me,” Brielle kept saying, finally letting out an exasperated sigh, holding her breath, and just shoving forward through the crowd. She grabbed Pembroke by the shoulder and spun her around. “Did you seriously just try to avoid me…?”

  Pembroke’s gaze flittered up to Brielle’s and she adjusted her glasses with the hand not holding onto the book, rolling her shoulder out of Brielle’s grasp. “Sorry,” she said, almost too quietly to be heard.

  “What?” said Brielle, slouching down to hear her better over the noise.

  Pembroke straightened her back. “I said I’m sorry, okay?”

  Taken aback, Brielle stepped on a guy’s foot. “Sorry,” she said, over her shoulder, feeling the full fury of the greasy guy’s glare. Ugh. This close, it seemed apparent the guy was way overdue for a shower.

  She grabbed Pembroke by the arm again. “Can we go somewhere to talk? Somewhere quieter? Like outside, maybe?”

  Pembroke swallowed visibly as she cradled her book to her chest. A receipt stuck out like a bookmark. “The panel is about to begin. I don’t want to miss it.”

  Brielle frowned. “You came all this way to see Archer?”

  “It’s only an hour away.” Pembroke said. “Archer Ward doesn’t do much traveling, so his rare appearances are usually within the vicinity of his hometown.”

&n
bsp; They both stared at each other for a minute. “What are you doing here?” asked Pembroke at the very same moment Brielle asked, “But why did you come here without letting me know?”

  “I forgot you lived here,” said Pembroke, holding her book higher up to her chin and practically pouting.

  Brielle gripped her purse over her abdomen where it hung, grunting when someone trying to make her way across the room bumped into her from behind. She spoke loudly to be heard. “Why haven’t you answered any of my messages? Or any of Lilac’s and Gavin’s?”

  Pembroke wagged an eyebrow. “Lilac hasn’t sent me any. A handful of ‘look at me, I’m so perfect and fun and flighty’ photos she tagged all of us into, but nothing besides that.”

  “Okay,” said Brielle, shaking her head. It was like dealing with a ninth grader. She almost made Nora look mature. Almost. “So what? Gavin and I have been trying to reach you…”

  Pembroke shrugged. “I haven’t been online or on my phone much.”

  Brielle cradled her forehead in the tips of her fingers. Then how did you know Lilac hasn’t sent you many messages? she wanted to say. But she clearly wasn’t getting anywhere here.

  “Wait,” said Pembroke, studying Brielle suddenly as if she were an alien species, “is that disabled guy you mentioned cleaning for, the one who made you put your foot in your mouth so to speak, actually Archer Ward?”

  “So you have read my messages!” Brielle clenched her fists at her side. “You were just ignoring them!”

  “I’ve been too busy to write, okay?” Pembroke pushed her glasses up her nose again. “And I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me anymore.”

  Brielle cocked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Pembroke bit her lip and shrugged. She really was one of Nora’s peers. The quieter, more sullen, stubborn variety. She grimaced. “How could you not tell me it was Archer Ward you were talking about?”

  Brielle crossed her arms. “Maybe I would have if you’d bothered to return my messages.” She looked over her shoulder, taking in the packed store. “Besides, I didn’t know he was famous at first.”