CHAPTER 52 Archer Bradley
Press Conference
It’s all happening so fast, but I think that’s just how it goes when it’s right.
And this? It’s right.
We win on both Saturday and Sunday, and she flies back to Chicago as planned so she can put in her notice with her apartment and get packed up.
It’s hard saying goodbye at the airport, but I also realize how very much this is the life that we’re both going to have to get used to. Life won’t always be a monthlong vacation in the Bahamas. Reality sets in at some point, distorted as though mine may be.
We have a travel day on Monday, and we head to Colorado for three games there before we travel to San Diego for three games there. Then it’s three home games before my next day off, a travel day to Chicago during Everleigh’s wedding weekend.
And I realize far too late that I completely forgot to invite my date to the wedding.
Everleigh has been up my ass wanting to know if I’m bringing a date and if I’m coming to her wedding at all, and I suppose having dated a wedding planner for as many years as I did, I’d know the importance of an RSVP.
I text Millie when I get home.
Me: Did you take off yet, or do you have a second to talk?
My phone rings a second later.
“You never want to talk. You’re not a chatty guy,” she says.
“I guess you’ve changed me, Millie. You’re making me do a lot of things I didn’t think I’d ever do.”
Like being so quick to forgive the transgressions of the past, for example. Or call someone on the phone instead of texting them.
I’m even at a place where I’m ready to start down the path of forgiveness where Tatum and Ford are concerned.
Being with Millie helped me see that being with Tatum was never right.
And though they took a path that hurt me, we all ended up in the place we were supposed to be, as difficult as that is to admit.
Maybe Everleigh’s wedding is a good time to get all that out. It’s another way Millie has changed me for the better.
One person I won’t be forgiving anytime soon, however, is my father.
I suppose he’s yet another person I’ll have to face at the wedding…if Everleigh decided to invite him. I’m not clear on that, exactly.
“Is that a good thing?” she asks.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” I murmur.
“Well, good then. Now tell me why you called before I really start to freak out on you.”
I laugh. “Sorry, sorry. What are you doing on the twenty-ninth?”
“Of May?”
“Yes.”
“Um…no clue. What day of the week is it?” she asks.
I cradle the phone between my ear and my shoulder, and I rub my hands together a little nervously. Why am I nervous? This girl just agreed to move across the country to live with me, head up my foundation, and give this a real try in the real world with me.
It’s un-fucking-believable.
I blow out a breath. “It’s a Saturday, and I have a game in Chicago, and I’m hoping you’ll travel there since it’s home for both of us. My sister is getting married that day, and I was wondering if you’d be my date?”
She gasps. “Oh my God, Archer! Yes, of course! I would absolutely love to!”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because honestly, I don’t really even want to go myself, and I could just make up something about the team not letting me.”
She laughs. “You will absolutely not lie under any circumstances. You’re taking me. I’m meeting your entire family.”
“Oh God, what have I done?” I wonder aloud.
“You’ve unleashed it now,” she says.
“So six road games until I get to see you again?” I ask.
“I can come to Colorado or San Diego, but I think it’ll just be easier to pack up here and get back out there and be waiting for you at home in Vegas when you arrive,” she says.
It was my idea, and I wish I hadn’t suggested it. Of course I’d rather have her on the road with me. Next to me in my bed. Beside me when I wake.
It’s better this way. It gives her nearly a week to close out her chapter in Chicago, and it gives me a week to focus on being back in the game.
It also gives us a moment to breathe—something I haven’t really been doing much of lately in the whirlwind of realizing I don’t want to live my life without her.
We win two against the Rockies, and we win two against the Padres. At the press conference after the third game in the second series, someone asks me, “That was a hell of a catch in the sixth, and you’re smiling out on that field more than we’ve ever seen you do. Tell us what’s got you so happy.”
I can’t help but smile at the question. I never answer questions about my personal life. Ever. But maybe just this once…
“I met the love of my life. Check out the blog Millie’s Miles. My girl gives all sorts of incredible tips about champagne travel on a beer budget.”
I’m exhausted after six nights on the road when I arrive home on Sunday night, and when I pull into the garage, I spot a Kia Sportage with Illinois plates parked in there.
I practically fly out of my Mercedes and run into the house. She’s here, and I’m here, and it’s finally time to reconnect.
She’s standing in the kitchen when I walk in, and there’s a twinkle in her eye. “Hi,” she says softly.
“Hey.” I drop my bag and freeze in place. I’m tempted to run to her. Fuck, it feels good to have her here.
“I saw your post-game press conference,” she says, and she raises a brow.
“Oh, you did, did you?” I ask.
She must be thinking the same thing as me because she grins and then makes a break for it. She runs toward me and practically crashes into me, and I grab her into my arms and hold her.
We’re not even kissing yet. It’s just holding one another, staring at each other in wonder, unsure how we got to this point.
It’s surreal.
While the world felt turbulent and upside down for the past six days, it feels like it’s tipping back onto its axis now.
My eyes flick down to her lips. “So what did you think of it?”
“I’m the love of your life?” she asks softly.
I blink, surprised at the vulnerability in her tone.
I drop a soft kiss to her lips. “I’m stubborn, okay?
And it took Cooper reaming me out to see how I was about to lose the only thing that ever really mattered.
I’ve never felt like this before, Mills.
I want forever with you.” I squeeze her a little more tightly to me.
Her eyes shine with unshed tears at my words. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” My mouth moves back to hers again, this time with all the urgency and need of being away from her for the last six nights.
Her mouth opens to mine, and it feels mutual.
It feels exciting and new, which it is. Maybe that’ll wear off eventually.
We’ll get to know each other more. She’ll be annoyed that I sometimes miss the hamper with my socks.
I’ll be annoyed when she’s on her phone.
But those are the small things, the things we can overlook so we can focus on the big things.
I pick her up into my arms and lift her up onto the kitchen counter. I lift her shirt until my eyes fall onto her gorgeous tits. She’s not wearing a bra under the sweatshirt she has on, and my mouth latches on there immediately. God, how I missed these tits.
I suck on both her nipples, taking my time, listening to her little moans when I suck at exactly the right force that I know she loves. She starts to shift her hips, getting a little restless and needy, and I read the signals I’ve already learned so well.
I shove her leggings down along with her panties.
I toss them on the floor, and then I dive in face-first, making a meal out of her sweet cunt right here on my kitchen counter.
Her legs clamp on around my ears, and her fingers dive into my hair as I lick my way through her cunt.
I dip my tongue inside a few times before I move up to suck on her clit, and then I repeat the pattern.
Her hips buck when I suck, so I focus on that as she starts to come undone.
“Fuck, Archer, oh God,” she gasps. “Oh God, yes.”
Her body tightens the way it does before it unleashes the bouts of pleasure, and her legs tighten around my head as she starts to come. It’s a goddamn flood as her cum coats my tongue, and I continue to lick and suck on her until the contractions turn into smaller trembles of pleasure.
She lets out a soft sigh as I straighten to a stand. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and her eyes are heated as she watches me. “God, you’re hot,” she mutters, and I laugh as I help her sit up again.
“Right back at you, Monroe.”
“Now take your pants off so I can suck your dick.”
She doesn’t have to ask twice.