CHAPTER 42 Archer Bradley
The Invitation
My sister has called me no less than twelve times in the last few days.
I still have five more games to go before I get back on the field, so the extreme amount of training I’ve been doing to be game ready isn’t just an excuse to avoid her calls. Not that I need an excuse. I avoid everyone’s calls.
But something prompts me to answer this one.
“Hello,” I answer gruffly.
“I thought you were all happy and in love and might actually answer my calls for once,” Everleigh says.
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“Ford.”
“Ah,” I say. “Yeah, well, I ended that. Why won’t you stop calling me?”
“Are you coming to the wedding or not?”
“When is it?” I ask.
“Didn’t you get the invitation?”
I blow out a breath and look at the huge pile of mail sitting on my counter. “I’ll be honest, Ev, I haven’t gone through my mail since I got back.”
“Haven’t you been home, like, a week already?” she asks.
“Can you just answer my question?”
“It’s three weeks from today. Saturday, May twenty-ninth. Right after OTAs for Mav, and you’ll be in Chicago playing the White Sox, which is specifically why I picked that weekend. So you can be there. You have an early game, and we have a sunset wedding.”
“I need to check the schedule and be sure I’m clear to attend.
” The truth is that I don’t need to clear it with anyone.
Once a game is over, barring any media obligations, generally we’re free to do what we want for the night.
I just need to show up on time for Sunday’s game. But this gives me a reason to say no.
“Then clear it. I’d like you to be there.”
I blow out a breath. Am I supposed to say something about what an honor that is? Because honestly, the last wedding I went to with my siblings was the one I tried to stop when my brother married my ex.
“Will the reno be done in time?” I ask. I know she wanted to get married at the Bradley Mansion in Chicago, which now belongs to Ford and Tatum. Tatum had big ideas to gut and renovate the place to turn it into a wedding venue.
“Tate planned the reno around our wedding. She did phase one with my blessing and input, and that will be ready to go in time,” Everleigh says.
“What’s phase one?”
“Removing a few walls, but only ones that aren’t load-bearing, redoing the floors, painting.
Cosmetic stuff like new light fixtures,” she says.
“She has plans for phases two and three, but those will come after our wedding. They’re waiting on permitting to get that rolling, and even with Madden’s connections, permitting takes eighty-four years. ”
“Literally?”
“No.”
I chuckle.
“No, the full reno will take closer to a year. But the good news is that she hasn’t touched the bedrooms, so you can all stay at the mansion in your old bedrooms if you want.”
“That’s a hard no from this camp. But let me check the schedule to see if I can make it.” I’m ready to hang up when she asks another question.
“So who was the girl, and what happened?”
“This is why I don’t answer my phone,” I mutter.
“You know I’m here for anything, Arch,” she says softly.
“I appreciate it. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hang up before she can ask more questions…and also because emotions keep plowing into me.
A little voice at the back of my head keeps telling me to find some way to reach out to Millie. To make sure she got home okay. To see how she’s doing.
To find some way to forgive what she did because I feel like I’m fucking broken without her.
How is that possible?
How could I feel that way about someone I only knew for a few weeks? I was fine before I met her. I was whole…ish. So why do I feel like she kept a piece of me that I’ll never get back?
I don’t know the answer to that, so I focus my energy on workouts.
I get a text from Cooper asking if he can swing by after today’s game since they’re home.
I don’t reply.
He shows up anyway.
I guess this is what friends are for.
“Why don’t you ever reply to texts?” he asks when I open the door.
“It’s not personal. I don’t reply to anyone.”
He rolls his eyes, and I have no choice but to invite him in.
He waits until we’re in the kitchen and I’ve handed him some water before he jumps in with why he’s here. “Johnny said he stopped by and tried to get through to you but failed.”
“Tried to get through to me?” I ask.
“You’ve always sort of been this lone wolf, right?
But this is different, man. Even when you ended things with your ex, you still showed up.
You fought your ass off during spring training even though you could’ve played it like practice like the rest of us do.
You put in the work, and you were able to celebrate the victories with the rest of us.
If you were invited out for a drink, you might’ve gone.
But now?” He shakes his head. “Is it the suspension?”
I lift a shoulder. “In part, maybe. I guess.”
“And the other part is the girl?”
My lack of reaction is apparently the answer he was looking for. I press my lips together and turn my gaze out the window.
“Come on, man. Let it the fuck out.”
“She fucking filmed us without our consent, man. It’s bullshit!”
He startles a bit at the emotion in my voice.
“We met, we had a night, and I found out she was a travel influencer. I stayed away until I couldn’t, but I told her not to put me in her content. So the second you three showed up, she goes live with all of us in it? For what? To boost content? To go viral?” I shake my head.
“Did you ever ask her why?”
I shake my head. “She said the manager pressured her to include me. Something to do with getting a paid partnership. But how does that make it okay to violate my privacy?”
“Come on, man. You know the moment we showed up, there was zero expectation of privacy. Every single person at that pool had a phone out and aimed at us. Hers just happened to go viral, and she didn’t even name us.”
“She didn’t have to. The comments took care of it,” I point out. “Why are you defending her?”
“Because there was a very physical change in you from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. You were happy when we got there. You were hopeful. You were excited. Despite the suspension, despite whatever the fuck is going on with your father. But then it all changed, and you came home with us. You haven’t been that same guy since. ”
“I just need to get back to the game,” I mutter.
He’s quiet a few beats, and I stare out the window as I wonder whether that’s true. Eventually, he asks, “Were you in love with her?”
“Yeah,” I say, and my tone has a sort of question, as if to prompt him to explain why he’s asking me that.
He’s quiet again, clearly waiting for me to make the leap. He sighs. “I’ve been calling Danny the dipshit all this time and didn’t see you right in front of me.”
“What?” I ask, a little defensive.
“When you love someone, and I don’t mean like she’s a good vacation lay so you have feelings like love, but I mean when you really love someone, you support them.
You make them feel like whatever it is that they’re doing is of equal importance to whatever it is you’re doing.
You honor their dreams like they’re your dreams, too. You feel me?”
I think through his words even though I want to toss them out with this shitty feeling that’s been festering for the last week.
I don’t want to admit that he might be right…but he might be. I never showed any support for her dreams. At all. Not even a little. In fact, when I found out what her dreams were, I bailed. I stayed in my room for nearly an entire week on vacation just to avoid her and her dreams.
But what would have been so awful about letting her use me in her content?
It goes back to the core of my trust issues. Letting her use me in her content is letting her use me. I’ve been used my entire life. She’s just one more on the list.
At first, it was because I was supposed to be laying low. I didn’t need to be in a viral video showing where I was laying low. And yet, against my wishes, I was. Once not because of her, and then once definitely because of her.
But why?
Cooper brought up a good point. I never did ask her why. I never gave her the chance to explain. Instead, I went in with anger and walked out with a broken heart.
He clears his throat. “It’s something to think about, anyway. Yeah, what she did was wrong. But was it so wrong that you’re willing to give up what could amount to the most important relationship of your entire life?”
I twist my lips as I think it through. He didn’t exactly have a smooth path in his own relationship.
As it turned out, the woman he’d been seeing and falling for was the daughter of Troy Bodine…
the man who Cooper considered not just a close friend but also the man who happened to be the Vegas Heat’s team manager, who convinced Cooper to come out of retirement and be the face of a new expansion team.
“I get it. You know what it’s like to fight for love. But maybe this was only ever meant to be a fling,” I say.
He presses his lips together and nods as he gives me a sympathetic nod. “I tried to convince myself of the same. It didn’t work.”
“So what the fuck do you suggest I do, then?”
He shrugs. “Only you can figure that out. Either you sit here moping around and sulking, or you fight to get her back.”
“But I don’t trust her. How do I get past that?”
He gives me a look like I’m a dipshit. “Well…you could start by maybe asking her to explain why she did what she did.”
“We never exchanged numbers.”
“Sounds like an excuse,” he says.
“Who invited you here?” I mutter.
He chuckles. “Not you, that’s for damn sure.
” He glances at his watch and reads it for a second.
“My wife said dinner will be ready in ten minutes. I need to head home.” He rises to a stand.
“But think about it. If you’re miserable, fucking do something about it. Don’t sit in it and let it get worse.”
“They say wisdom comes with age, so I guess if there’s anyone to listen to, it’s Old Man Noah.”
He points at me and glares. “Watch yourself, sonny boy. I can still kick your ass any day of the week.”
“Right.” I chuckle as I walk him to my door, and I open it so he can walk through.
He pauses a second before he moves. “Just think about what I said. You’ve got a few more games to go, and then you’ll be back. Time is short. The season is long.”
“So let’s say I do call her and we figure this out. Then what? I’m jumping right back into things, and I’ll never get to see her?”
“False. I go home and sleep in my bed every night when we’re at home. I’m home in the mornings when Sunny wakes. I get to make her pancakes for breakfast.”
“Yeah, but Gabby travels with us when we’re away since she works with the team. It wouldn’t be the same,” I protest.
He shrugs. “Then look at Danny and Alexis. Look at Rush and Anna. They’re managing to make it work, and there are plenty of other examples.
If it’s important enough, you both put in the effort to make it work.
That’s what real, adult relationships are, Arch.
Which is why I need to get home. Gabby made chili, and my goal is to get home before she’s ready to put it on the table so I can help. ”
“That’s disgusting.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Some might call it romantic.”
“Not me.”
He laughs. “Well, figure out what it means to you, then, and get your shit together before our ninth upcoming game so we get you and your focus back.”
He heads out, and I close my front door.
I guess I have some shit to figure out.