CHAPTER 18 Ford Bradley
Didn’t Our Old Man Teach You Anything
When practice ends on Saturday afternoon, I think about calling Tatum.
We’ve been texting a bit—she let me know when she landed, I texted a check-in last night, and she texted me this morning to say good morning and to ask me to wish her luck on today’s wedding. But I haven’t heard her voice since she left, and I miss the hell out of her.
I did what I could to put her on the back burner of my mind at practice. I had to. I couldn’t risk Cole calling me out on more shit, and today was a little better. I’m ready for game day, anyway.
But as soon as practice is over, the ache is back.
It’s weird how quickly I got used to her being here.
My cleaning people stopped by today, and they washed her bedding and changed the sheets while I was at practice.
I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight, I guess. That room won’t smell like her anymore, but the one night I spent there was both admittedly weird and strangely comforting.
So I think about calling her, but I don’t. She’s at a wedding, and as much as I want to hear her voice, to talk to her about how the wedding went and whether the groom showed up hungover as she suspected he might, I leave her to concentrate on her own job.
Just because I had a hard time concentrating on mine doesn’t mean I should inflict the same wish upon her.
I arrive home to an empty condo, pack up my shit, and head to the team hotel earlier than usual. We always spend the night before game day at a hotel, even when we’re playing at home.
Being here is better than sitting around my place picturing her smile in one corner, her hot mess of chaos, her three cups on her desk—two now in the recycle bin since they were paper cups, and the third washed and ready for her to use when she returns since she left it here.
I look at it as insurance that she’ll be back.
I shoot her a text once I’m checked into my hotel room.
Me: Hope the wedding was a huge success and the groom wasn’t still shitfaced.
I see the bubbles appear that tell me she’s drafting a reply, and I sit and wait patiently.
Tatum: It’s about as good as I could have hoped for considering I’ve been out of town for weeks. He was only mildly hungover. [smirk face emoji]
Me: Sounds like a win.
I want to ask when she’s coming back. I want to ask if she’s seen my brother. If they got back together the way they always do when they see each other again after time apart.
I don’t. I can’t.
It’s not my place to ask any of that. She’ll give me what she wants to when the time is right for her.
The bubbles appear again, and then they stop. It’s as I’m willing them to start up again that my phone starts to ring.
I glance up at the top of my screen, and my heart starts to race as I wonder whether I might actually get some answers to those very questions…just not from Tatum.
“Archer?” I answer, shocked that my brother is calling me.
We text upon rare occasions. I can’t remember the last time I heard his voice over a phone line—at least when it wasn’t in the background of a call with Tatum. He never calls me. Never.
“Hi.” His single, short word feels like his entire personality.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Tatum said she’s been staying with you,” he says quietly.
“She was. But she’s back in Vegas.” My brows crinkle together as my grip tightens on my phone.
“I know. I just wanted to say thank you for being there for her.”
“We’ve always been close. You know that.”
“How close?” he asks.
“What are you asking?” I ask carefully.
“I know you’re in love with her.” His voice is an accusation, one I won’t even pretend to deny.
“And?” I ask, not quite sure where this is going. It’s a clear admission, and maybe it’s my way of tempting him to tell me what the fuck I should do about it.
He’s quiet a long beat, and in the time of his pause, I wonder why he bothered to call me at all. And then his words come. “I told her yesterday that I just want her to be happy.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m saying I wanted to be that guy for her, but she assured me it’s over. If that guy is you, I don’t want to be the one who stands in the way for either of you.”
“Oh,” I grunt, not sure what else to say. What is there to say in response to your brother telling you that he knows you’re in love with his ex and it’s okay to give it a shot?
It’s not exactly the call I was expecting.
“Anyway, I’m hanging up now.” He sighs.
“Wait,” I say, and the other line isn’t dead yet.
“What?” he asks.
“What happened with you and Dad?”
“Ask Tatum. I told her. I shouldn’t discuss it over the phone. Didn’t our old man teach you anything?”
I can’t help a chuckle at that—a chuckle at a tiny bit of understanding when it comes to Archer.
He shut himself off because of our family, but maybe also because he had to.
Madden, Dex, and Everleigh learned the hard way when they each almost lost what they cared about most because of their loyalty to our family.
I’m not sure yet where I fall on that scale, but Archer managed to figure it out before any of us.
Longer than any of us ever even began to question things, I think.
“When did you know?” I ask quietly.
“Know what?” he asks.
“That we would be better off without him.”
“The day I chose baseball over football. I need to go.”
He cuts the call, and I think back to high school. I was two years older than him, and he played both football and baseball his freshman and sophomore years. He was good enough to make varsity for both sports, but junior year was when he needed to get serious about one sport or the other.
I’d already chosen football. I knew that was my path.
I was a multi-sport athlete in my younger years, too, but colleges started looking at me more seriously my junior year, so that was the make-or-break time when student-athletes had to choose the path that would pave the way for college and beyond.
Workouts got more intense, more strategic, more specific to help with training for particular positions.
I wanted to be a tight end, so I had to focus on my lower body for blocking, whereas a baseball player would be prioritizing upper body strength and shoulder mobility. It was these types of specific workouts that divided our paths.
And when Archer chose baseball, it looked an awful lot like our father froze him out.
He wanted five football players, I guess.
Maybe he gambled on it, something that wouldn’t surprise me at this point.
It was harder to get to his baseball games since the team played multiple games a week versus our football games that were once weekly.
So maybe they didn’t freeze him out as much as they just couldn’t put in the commitment to attend every one of his games.
And it wasn’t just that. Baseball didn’t have the same sort of social construct that football had, either.
All the rich parents paying for their sons to be a part of the team were a community in and of themselves.
The bleachers became a place where Mom could brush elbows with the other high-society women and where Dad could make his backroom business deals.
But Archer didn’t see that. All he saw was that there weren’t any Bradleys in the bleachers at his games.
And as I think about his lighter eyes and lighter hair, I can’t help but wonder whether he was right to feel like an outcast. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered about it.
It’s something Everleigh and I have even talked about before, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense why my dad would have roped Archer into signing the paperwork for his criminal activity.
It makes sense why Archer would’ve chosen baseball when the rest of us chose football, when our entire family is a football family.
Maybe Archer isn’t a Bradley after all.