By Your Side. (Sequel to Art Girl and Wolf Boy)

By Your Side. (14)

Archer's POV:

It turns out, some people still wanted to play. Max volunteered to go to the nearest store and get a ball. I decided to go with him, at the last moment, and he agreed. I think it was the look that was reserved just for him all over my face.

We walked to his pickup and got in, shutting the doors after us. Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw that Phoebe was playing a hand game with Melody. I smiled.

We drove away.

After a few minutes of silence and surity that we were out of earshot, I turned to Max.

"We need to talk."

"I figured so." He said, eyeing me. "What about?"

"Phoebe."

"What about her?"

"Now, I understand that you're cousins and everything...but dude, you're setting me on edge."

His eyebrow raised. "On edge?"

"Yes."

"And why is this?"

I hesitated. "That's private information."

"THAT'S a load of bull. Start talking."

I sighed. "You can't tell anyone, not even her. Promise me, Max."

"I promise," he said quickly. "Scout's honor."

"She's my mate." I felt a huge weight being lifted off my chest, butterflies in my stomach. It felt good to tell someone. I wanted to scream it at the world, but that wouldn't have worked out very well...

The feeling of relief qucikly evaporated when we suddenly squealed to a stop. Max turned to me, his eyes slightly dark. "What?"

"Phoebe's my mate." I said, looking at him weirdly. "What's wrong?"

"She's thirteen. Her dad wants to kill you. Does he know? Why aren't you
dead yet? She's thirteen."

"Tell me something I don't know," I said dryly. "Look, just keep driving. I wouldn't have told you if I knew you were going to go all theatrical on me."

He obeyed silently, scowling and keeping his eyes on the empty road. "When are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I just don't know when's the right time, what with alpha training and her time traveling left and right-crap. Forget I just said that."

He was obviously not going to forget it. Max had actually frozen up, foot on the gas, not turning, only his eye twitching.

"She time travels," he said slowly.

"You can't say anything about that either. Only me and Phoebe know."

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Anything else you want to tell me? My sister's going to sprout wings? I am actually half demon?"

"I killed someone," I said thoughtfully. "Does that count?"

"Why did I have to ask," he groaned. I looked at him. "You won't tell?"

"No."

"You're a good best friend, Max."

"I know. You SO owe me for this."

We sat in silence again, then he pulled to the side of the road. I looked at him and he smirked. "Want some more practice in driving?"

Yep. Definetly an awesome best friend.

When we got back with ten kickballs, we continued the game and had a cook out later. Tony grilled some ribs, my mom made her special potato salad, and we basically had one large potluck. We joked around with each other, with Max waggling his eyebrows at me everytime I looked at Phoebe for a little too long.

I excused myself, walked over to Max and told him under my breath, "If you so much as twitch your eyebrows again, so help me Max you will be going straight into the fire."

He stopped. Satisfied, I went back and sat down next to Phoebe.

I had no idea when I was going to tell her. I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to be soon. I guessed that I would respect Tony's wishes, and wait until she was a little older, and until she got a hold on her 'gift'.

There was so much to worry about, so many questions that hadn't been answered.

How was Phoebe supposed to deal with the whole 'time traveling' thing?

What was I supposed to do with my own strengths?

Was Tony even going to allow me to live to see my sixteenth birthday?

And most importantly: who was that man, in the woods, just a few days ago. Who was the proffessor? Who was after Phoebe?

I got a hard nudge to the side and whipped my head toward Phoebe. "What is it?"

"You're going to get wrinkles early, Archer." She tried to smooth out my brow. I had been unconciously scowling.

The darkness slowly slid off my face and I felt ashamed. "Sorry. I was just thinking."

"Don't think, Archer. You'll give yourself an annuerism."

"So I'm supposed to just ignore the problems?"

"Look around you, Archer. Right now, these people are happy. God knows they have a ton of stuff for them to worry about tomorrow, but they are setting their worries to the side, just for a moment, because they know that if they focused on them all day every day, it would break them. Don't be broken, Archer."

"I won't."

She ignored me. "Relax, dude. I'm right here. There's nothing to be worried about."

That last comment scared me. It was as if she knew more than half my worries were about her. As if she had seen exactly what was in my head.

I managed a weak smile. "I beg to differ."

"Just shut up and enjoy your family, okay Archie?" She rolled her eyes, looking impatient. "I'm going to get another hotdog. Do you want one?"

"You don't have to-"

"Give it a rest, Archie." She walked away, leaving me disgruntled. Why couldn't she just let me take care of her? It'd be so much easier on my brain...

My dad, my mom, Max, and Tony (surprisingly) were trying to muffle their laughter. I glared at all of them.

My predicament was NOT funny.