CHAPTER 23 Archer Bradley
Surprise
I think about heading to one of the bars in this tower, but I don’t. I head to my room instead. Clive can get me a drink. All I have to do is ask. The minibar in my room has alcohol, though not likely what I’d order. Not that it matters.
I’m not sure why this has me so pissed off. I guess after showing her a good time this afternoon, I wanted her to see that she’s more than just her alter ego—only for her to grab her phone and tune out the rest of the world the very first chance she got.
It seems like it’s the only thing she cares about, and maybe I wanted something, anything, to close out what felt like a perfect afternoon to me.
I’ve only been with Tatum, and maybe I naively believed this second connection was something more than just sex despite our agreement that we’d just hang out for the month. But I felt unseen enough with Tatum as she ran around Vegas planning weddings.
Jesus.
I’m not sure where the thought comes from, but it’s the first time it hits me. Maybe all this goes deeper than I first realized.
The longer I’m here, the more I want it to be a chance to heal. I didn’t give myself that luxury after Tatum and I ended things and then she married my brother a few months later.
It feels like nothing is going my way, and I’m letting myself get buried in it. I can’t do that.
And so I focus.
Instead of drinking, I head to the fitness center in this tower.
I run until my lungs burn, until my legs hurt, and then I run some more, because feeling the pain of a heavy workout is better than the pain of whatever is buried beneath the surface that I haven’t allowed myself to explore yet.
I don’t want to explore it. I want to focus on the physical pain instead.
It’s unhealthy, I know. At some point, I need to deal with the anger and the emotions burrowing on the inside. I’ll get there. Just not today.
The message light is flashing when I return to my room. I unplug the phone.
I raid the minibar, and when I wake up in the morning, it’s with regrets.
So I pull open my laptop and dive into foundation work.
I sit on my balcony as I work, checking up on Archway and looking through the information on the foundation my mother left to me when she died.
It’s really just money meant to start something new, and I do a little research and make some calls to try to figure out exactly what I want to do with it.
Since I already have one that’s sports-related in Archway, I want to try a different angle for this one. I think about what landed me here and what I could do to show the world that the paper I signed for my father isn’t who I am as a man.
And that’s when it hits me.
A quiet revenge. A fix for a problem my family caused. One more thing to separate me from my father’s goddamn legacy.
I call my lawyer first.
“Mr. Bradley,” he answers formally.
“Mr. Donovan,” I mirror.
“What can I do for you?”
“I had an idea for the foundation my mother left me,” I begin. I launch into the details, and he stops me pretty much right away.
“Gambling addiction? Are you serious right now?”
“Dead serious, Wes. This is what I need to do. My family’s entire empire was built on gambling. I’m sitting out forty games because of it, and in all honesty, I can’t sit here believing my mother condoned it all those years. So it would honor her memory.”
“While getting revenge on your father,” he says flatly.
“Not the intended effect, but a definite benefit. I want to help people who are stuck in a cycle created by people like my father,” I say.
“I’d have to do some research on this, Archer, but in all honesty, I can’t think of a single player whose foundation benefits gambling addicts.”
“That makes me an original in the field, then.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a huge risk that won’t pay off,” he points out.
“How will helping others in any capacity not pay off?”
“Because of the timing. You’re in timeout because of something tied to gambling, so it’ll look like damage control. If you put your name in the same headline as gambling, you’re pushing the narrative that you yourself have a problem.”
“I don’t care about the optics. I care about doing something good to offset the shitty things my father has done.”
“I’ll get someone on the research right away,” he says. “But talk to your agent first. Make sure it’s a good idea before you proceed.”
It doesn’t matter what my agent says, or what my publicist says. This is what I’ve decided I want to do, and once my mind is made up, there’s literally nothing that’s going to change it.
I spend the next few days either in the fitness center or in my suite. When I need something, I text Clive. I sit out on the balcony for fresh air, and I head to the fitness center for a solid six hours each day to keep my thoughts at bay. I run, lift, stretch, and sit in the sauna.
I pay for someone to come to my room to give me massages, ignoring the twinge in my soul every time I climb onto the portable table. The resort staff even set up a batting cage for me in a private area that the public can’t access, and I’ve been punishing myself in there, too.
It's been six days since the massage table excursion, and I haven’t seen her. I’ve actively avoided being seen, actually, and it has definitely been better for my mental health.
She’s knocked on my door a few times. I haven’t answered it.
Clive told me she asked about me, but he didn’t give her any information.
It’s easier this way.
Maybe we never would’ve worked out in the real world, and sure, it’s been great making sure I’m in top shape to return to the field in a couple months while working on the foundation in every spare moment I have, but nothing has helped the pressing ache of loneliness.
Nothing has helped me forget about her, either. About the fact that she’s here as long as I am. That she’s in the same tower as me, that she’s still close enough to call.
And so, on a Friday night, I finally decide to let myself out of my cage. I’m not sure why. Maybe my intention is to meet someone new. To have a good time. To help ease the isolation.
It turns out to be a bigger mistake than I ever could have imagined.
I should have just stayed in my room.
I head down to the restaurant in my tower—the same one I first met Millie at.
It’s crowded just like it was last time, but at first, it feels good to be out of my room and among other people again.
Clive called ahead for me, and the hostess tells me to follow her to my table.
It’s as we approach a table that my eyes catch on the woman at the table beside the one where the hostess is stopping.
Long, wavy blonde hair that seems to sway in some breeze even though we’re indoors and there’s no breeze to speak of in here. Wide, light blue eyes that I once knew so well.
My eyes move to the man she’s with, and I’d recognize him anywhere. Of course I would. He’s my fucking brother, the traitor who married my ex-girlfriend.
My stomach lurches as the blindside plows headfirst into me.
I’m about to dart away from the table and run back up to my room, away from this disaster, when Tatum’s eyes meet mine.
Her mouth moves into a surprised O-shape, and I see my name form on her lips even though I don’t hear her voice.
My brother turns around, and his eyes land squarely on me.
Fuck. There’s no running now.
Ford rises to a stand, and he looks well and truly shocked to see me standing here.
“Archer,” he says quietly. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t speak the words, and neither does Tatum, but there’s this underlying question of whether I’m here to stop their vacation, possibly their honeymoon, the way I tried—and failed—to stop their wedding.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, and I turn to walk out of the restaurant when I slam into the woman standing right behind me.
Any guesses who that might be?
This just keeps getting better and fucking better.
Her eyes are wide as she correctly assesses the situation, and I remember one time when she told me how she’s a huge football fan. I’ve told her enough about my past that clearly she has deduced what’s going on here without me having to utter a single word.
“Sorry I’m late, babe,” she says, and she rises to her tiptoes to press a kiss to my lips. She lets her fingertips linger on my jaw for a beat, and when I pull back, her eyes are searching mine. It’s like she’s trying to tell me something, and I think I understand.
I follow her lead even though I haven’t spoken to her in six days. “No worries.” I nod at Ford, who’s staring at me like I’m from outer space. It would be comical if I felt like laughing.
“Hi, I’m Millie,” she says, sticking her hand out toward my brother. “I’m sorry, Archer isn’t the best at social cues sometimes.” She laughs affectionately as she leans into me a little, her eyes still on my brother. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Ford,” he says, his voice an echo as he tries to piece together what the hell is going on.
Truth be told…so am I.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “This is my brother, Ford, and his wife, Tatum.” I purposely call her his wife rather than my ex, but I’m certain Millie knows exactly who they are. I don’t look at Tatum as I say the words. “And this is Millie.”
“You’re one of the footballer bros?” Millie asks.
Ford nods. “I am. Uh…how exactly do you know my brother?”
She glances at me. “You didn’t tell them?”
I shake my head, and I guess in doing so, she reads in my eyes that she should go ahead with whatever story she wants to concoct.
She laughs. “God, that is so Archer, isn’t it? I’m his girlfriend.”
“G-girl…girlfriend?” Ford stutters.
It’s as if the wind gets knocked out of me at that single word, but it’s also sort of like the wind gets knocked out of my brother, too. And possibly Tatum, who rises to a stand.
“It’s so good to see you,” she says, walking over to pull me into a hug.
I grunt out some non-reply as I give her a half-hearted hug, and my brother gives me a bro-style hug, too.
“Nice to meet you,” Tatum says to Millie, who replies in kind, and they hug each other in a very awkward and formal kind of hug with exactly zero warmth to it.
I’m sure she has a million questions—starting with how the hell did I manage to find a girlfriend, a question I don’t have the answer to since it’s a total lie.
But we’re here now, and I’m not going to fall on my face in front of my brother and my ex, and so I play along.
“I’m starving,” Millie says after the introductions, and she plops into one of the chairs at my table and grabs the single menu the hostess set down when she showed me here. I take a chair beside her, facing my brother and Tatum, because it feels like it would be rude not to.
“How long are you two here?” I ask Ford.
“Just a week,” Ford says. “I’ve got some team stuff next week, and Tatum has weddings every weekend from now through the summer, so it was the only week that worked. How about you?”
“We’re here through the end of the month,” Millie answers for me without looking up from the menu—without missing a beat—and making it sound like we planned a monthlong vacation together when that’s obviously not the case.
“Wow, an entire month,” Tatum says, and it strikes me that the whole reason I chose this resort was at her recommendation once upon a time.
I never thought I’d run into her here just because she had once said she wanted to visit, and I also never cleared an entire month to vacation with her—all things I’m sure are running through her mind.
Let them run.
Let them figure their shit out. If they run into problems because they happened to choose the same resort I’m at out of all the resorts in the entire world…well, that’s on them.