CHAPTER 40 Archer Bradley
Running Scared
I swing harder than usual, and I miss the ball completely.
Another swing. Another miss.
My batting average is slightly higher than the overall league average for left fielders, but you’d never know it from today’s performance.
I think I’m trying to take out my aggression on the ball, and instead, I keep missing it.
I’m alone, though, so I don’t really care. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s keeping score.
Alone as usual.
Baseball usually calms the storm inside me, but today it’s raging in a new way. A way only one person could possibly calm…the same person who caused the storm itself.
I’m in my backyard, where I set up a batting cage years ago, and I’m out bright and early since the temps start to heat up pretty quickly now that it’s the start of May here in Vegas. It’s only sixty-four now at seven a.m., but by later this afternoon, it’ll be in the upper eighties.
I hit for an hour, and then I change into my swim trunks and jump in the pool.
I swim a few laps, naturally thinking of the last few times I was in a pool. The time I slipped right into Millie in the middle of the water where anyone could’ve seen but no one did—probably because half of them were doing the exact same thing, something we never noticed, either.
Yeah, swimming isn’t working for me, either.
I do some core work with my medicine balls.
I run through some throwing drills as I focus on accuracy.
I get my arms loose and game-ready since I only have another twelve games to sit out.
The Heat plays every day for the next twelve days, and the day I’m scheduled to return is a rare night off.
That’s fine, though. It gives me the chance to access the clubhouse and training complex ahead of time.
And that’s how my days go. I’m doing my best to put the past behind me and act like I’m not destroyed over what happened. As if I’m not thinking about her every second of every hour.
Do something. A little voice in my head is trying to convince me to fight.
How can I? That’s my only reply.
I wish she would have told me the truth. Maybe if she had…
I don’t know her well enough to push the betrayal behind me or to know she wouldn’t do it again. So the sex was good. So I felt things I didn’t even feel with Tate. So I let her in a little.
I’ll find someone someday who’s right for me. My commitment right now is to baseball, and it’s great for the guys who can manage families and playing, but that life’s not for everyone.
Cooper invites me over for breakfast on Sunday. I decline.
Danny tries to convince me to join him for a drink.
I stay home. I watch ESPN. I try to get my head back in the game and off the girl.
It’s impossible.
Johnny calls, and I don’t answer.
He’s harder to ignore when he comes knocking on my door.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask. I glance at my watch. “Don’t you need to be at the clubhouse?”
“I’ll get there when I get there,” he says, and I can’t help a chuckle. He’d never talk to Troy that way even though he pretends to be some rebel rule-breaker. “I know you have eleven games left or whatever, but fuck, I need you back.”
“You sound like a little bitch.”
He shrugs. “Coop and Brewer said you’re ignoring their invitations. They sent me to do their dirty work. What the fuck happened on that island?”
“You really want to know?”
“No, but they forced me here against my will. Look, Cade is all right or whatever, but he doesn’t get me the way you do.” He follows me into my kitchen, where I perch against the counter and he drops onto a chair.
“Now you really sound like a little bitch. Can I get you anything?”
He shakes his head. “An insult and invitation in a single breath.”
I chuckle.
“Are you going to talk?” he asks. “Or did I waste my time coming here?”
“You wasted your time.”
“Figured as much, but dude, you act like you’re all alone all the time, but you’re not. You’ve got me. Coop. Brewer. Troy. Everyone on the Heat, man. We’ve got your back, suspension or not. You keep it all inside, and that’s not healthy.”
I raise my brows. “Look at you, being all psychological and shit.”
He tilts his head. “Stop deflecting.”
“Where is this coming from?” I ask. “I thought we were good with each other, and now you’re digging up shit.”
“No, I’m not. Look, I’m a pretty simple guy.
Baseball, beer, and boobs, and I’m good.
But you, you’re a complicated fellow. You’re deeper than me.
You’re so desperate to keep to yourself that you can’t even see what it’s doing to you.
But you have twelve days to get it together and get your ass back in the outfield so we can get back to it, man.
And I need you back, not the guy who was sulking because he broke it off with his woman, not the guy who obviously went through something during this suspension, but you.
Don’t you get that? Other people depend on you.
Other people like you. We need you, Arch.
And you act like we don’t and like you have to deal with all your shit alone. You don’t.”
“You don’t want the burden of listening to me moan about my ex, or my family, or what happened in the Bahamas,” I mutter.
“It’s not a burden, dude. We’re friends. It’s what friends do. Your family may be fucked, but you’ve got a family with us. Your teammates. We’re here for you. Every single one of us. Well, maybe not Eric because he can be kind of a dick, but the rest of us got you, man.”
“Eric can be kind of a dick,” I agree.
Johnny laughs.
I blow out a breath. “Fine. Yeah, things were shit when I ended it with Tatum and she was with my brother five seconds later. I signed some paper for my dad. My mom died. My brother married my ex. My dad was indicted and I was associated, so the league benched me for forty games. It was like one thing after another. I felt like my ex wanted to use my family for her business. I felt like my dad used me as a shield for his illegal activities. I went to the Bahamas to lay low, as Bodine told me, but I also went to escape all this shit for a while. I met a girl my first night there. She was there for a month, too, which I found out later. Long story short, I fell for her. But she’s a travel influencer, so there were total red flags that she’d want to use me, too.
I asked her not to put me in her content, and then she did.
She went mega-viral going live when Coop, Brewer, and AJ came down for the night. ”
“She featured you?” he asks.
“She went live knowing we were in the background.”
“But did she actually name you?”
I shake my head.
“Could’ve been a coincidence,” he says.
“It wasn’t.”
“She admitted it?” he asks.
I nod.
“So what happened?”
I push off the counter and grab a lemon-lime Gatorade from my fridge. I hold one up, and Johnny asks, “You got any cherry?”
I shake my head, and he nods at the one in my hand, so I toss it to him.
I take a long drag of my drink before I finish the story. “I walked out. Came home early.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown two heads for a few beats. “You walked out?”
I nod.
“That’s it?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Have you talked to her since?” he asks.
I shake my head. “We never exchanged numbers or anything. I suppose I could track her down based on what I know, but what good would it do? She betrayed me.”
“I mean…you could just, you know, get the fuck over it,” he says.
“And wait for the next betrayal? No thanks.”
He spins the lid of his Gatorade on the table. “How do you know there will be one?”
“There always is.”
He’s quiet a while before he picks up his cap and screws it back onto the bottle.
“Are you sure? Or do you think maybe you’re running scared because it got too real too quick and you were looking for an out?
” He moves to a stand. “You don’t have to answer that.
In fact, I know you, so I know you won’t.
I need to get to the clubhouse before Bodine reams me a new asshole, but I needed you to know that, as cheesy as fuck as it sounds, you’re not alone. Okay?”
I nod. “Thanks, man.” I walk him to my front door, and he claps me on the shoulder.
“Anytime, Archer. You know that.” He tosses a light punch at my stomach. “Now get back in shape. You’ve only got twelve days.”
“You’re an asshole,” I mutter, and he laughs as he walks out the door to his car.
It’s the first time that someone asked me that question. It’s the first time I thought about it, too.
Maybe he’s right.
What if it did get too real too quick, and that’s why I bowed out?
Am I willing to give her another chance, or will I always worry whether the next betrayal is waiting around the corner?
It’s definitely something to think about.
But for now, he’s right. I need to get back in shape.