CHAPTER 17 Tatum Barker
Heart Versus Brain
I’ve never been nervous to see Archer.
But today, I am.
My flight landed in the early afternoon, and instead of heading to Kenzie’s house, where I have a bed waiting for me, I head back to the house I lived in with Archer for the last four years since my car is still parked in the garage.
I think about ringing the bell, but I don’t. Instead, I walk right in like it’s my house—because it is. I may have moved out, but I texted him earlier that I’d be coming, and I still have the key.
For now.
It’s something I plan to give back to him while I’m here.
“Archer?” I call out, and I walk toward the kitchen. I hear footsteps coming from the hallway where his home office is located, and then he appears there in the kitchen.
My chest tightens as I stare at the man I’ve loved for the last decade.
Maybe we broke up a few times in there, but we also made up a few times in there, and I guess somewhere deep down, I always assumed we’d just…
figure it out. End up together. We had an understanding.
He doesn’t open up to people, but he opened up to me.
And now it feels like I don’t even know him anymore.
I’ve questioned more than once if he’s an actual Bradley—to myself, of course. Never aloud.
The Bradley children all have dark hair and dark eyes like their father, Thomas Bradley, but Archer is the anomaly.
He’s got lighter hair and greenish-hazel eyes that sometimes pick up some gold depending on the lighting.
And he’s not built like a football player.
He’s tall and lean, made for baseball in the same way his brothers were made for football.
Maybe he takes after Vivienne, his mother, but it’s hard to tell with her since she’s colored her hair since I first met her.
It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s been altered.
As our eyes connect across the kitchen we used to share, he seems like a stranger. But I think that has less to do with him and more to do with the fact that my feelings might have changed in the last few weeks I spent away from here. Away from him. Away from what used to be us.
“Hi,” he says, his voice soft. He doesn’t make a move to come toward me, to take me in his arms. It sort of signals to me that it really is over this time. This wasn’t some fight that we’ll recover from. This is the end.
“Hey. How have you been?”
“It’s been quiet around here without you.” It’s his way of saying he misses me. There’s always subtext with him, and I guess I’ve gotten better about guessing what it is over the years.
I tilt my head and study him. “Can I ask you a question?”
His eyes meet mine, and he nods.
“What happened with your father?”
He scoffs before he asks, “When?”
“Before we broke up. The illegal casinos. How did your name get on them? When? Why?” These are the questions nobody can seem to answer.
He’s all but estranged from his family for God knows how long—a decade, maybe? When he went off to college? Somewhere around there, or maybe before that, even when he was in high school. But suddenly, out of nowhere, he agrees to sign paperwork for his father? It’s not adding up.
“My father came to me begging for my help with a family business,” he says. “He claimed he wanted a reconciliation with me before we lose my mother. In a moment of pure weakness, I agreed. Heart won out over brain. I had no idea it was illegal.”
“What did he tell you about it?”
“He said it was for tax purposes or some shit. I was stupid enough not to dig any deeper.” He shakes his head. “I should’ve known better. Should’ve trusted my gut. Never should’ve trusted him. But he used my mother’s illness, and I fell for it.”
I feel like I should go to him, like I should rush into his arms and comfort him. But it’s not my place anymore. “I’m sorry, Archer. What he did was so, so wrong, and he’ll pay.”
“Yeah.” His voice is low and totally unconvincing, and even though I say that he’ll pay, the truth is that bad guys like him know how to use loopholes to get out of trouble all the time.
There’s nothing saying Thomas Bradley will pay for what he’s done.
And he’s evil enough to use his own wife’s illness to garner the sympathy of his estranged son, ensuring his son will stay estranged. It’s sick. It’s awful.
He glances away from me, eyes toward the window, and his voice is low and raspy when he says, “I miss you.”
Goose bumps break out on my skin at his words as a shiver runs up my spine.
“I know,” I say, the volume of my voice matching his. “But we both know we’re better off as friends. It’s how we started.”
He presses his lips together. “Is there someone else?”
I weigh how to answer that. The truth is no, there’s not.
Not really. But I’m starting to have feelings for someone else, someone related to him by blood, and given what I know about his relationship with his family, the words are hard to form.
“There’s not. Uh, not really. I’ve been staying with Ford. ”
He raises his brows. “He’s in love with you, you know.”
I gasp at his words. “What?”
He lets out a soft chuckle. “You didn’t know? Everybody knows.”
“Everybod…” I say part of the word, trailing off as a million questions plow into me.
Like, for example, exactly how long has Ford been in love with me? Why didn’t he say anything? Who’s everybody?
Before I can figure out how the hell to form words to respond to that bomb, he adds, “You should know the real reason I ended things with you. My father was about to be indicted, and I knew it could get messy for me since he put my name on that fucking place. I couldn’t do that to you.
I didn’t want you to be affected by any of it.
It’s not over yet, Tate. Not by a long shot.
I’m still being investigated. My father, too.
But I want you back. I never wanted to let you go in the first place.
But if you’ve moved on, fine. I want you to be happy.
If it’s with a Bradley, so be it. It’s not like we’ll be interacting at our weekly family dinners.
” He shrugs like he couldn’t care less, and I’m not sure what to make of it.
His words are saying one thing. They’re talking to the part of my brain that says yeah, this makes sense. This is good. We love him.
But for some reason, my heart is telling me something else entirely.
He’s in love with me. Everybody knows.
Ford-Ford. Ford-Ford. Each beat repeats his name.
And I’m not quite sure what to do about that.