CHAPTER 2 Tatum Barker
Three Cups
I stare at my screen, lost in thought about what a goddamn walking cliché I am.
I am the wedding planner who can’t seem to get her own life together. Paperwork and cups litter my desk, and honestly, organized chaos is my fatal flaw. Or maybe my superpower.
I have three drinks on my desk at any given time.
Sometimes more. Sometimes I leave them there for a few days.
Water in my hot pink Stanley, of course.
I do live in the desert, after all. Coffee because it’s fuel.
Sometimes a second coffee for later—one iced, one hot—and sometimes a lemonade or tea instead. Either way…three cups.
Archer loved to tease me about the mess even though I do most of my work at the small office space I rent now.
It’s a place to meet with clients somewhere other than Archer Bradley’s house, but it also managed to get the mess out of the house and onto a desk somewhere else where I wouldn’t be judged for my chaos.
I’m sad it’s over, and at the same time, I’m ready to move on. Part of my heart moved on a long time ago while the rest of me felt too comfortable. I think we both clung to that comfort for far longer than we should have.
I started feeling less and less supported where I was. All I did was support his dream career, but it didn’t feel reciprocated, I guess.
And now instead of going through the paperwork and finalizing details for a wedding taking place next month, I’m looking at listings for rental homes nearby. It’s all wrong, and while it all feels like a big, flopping failure, at the same time, it feels like a fresh start.
Maybe I need to get out of Vegas altogether. I could go back to Chicago where I grew up. My parents retired to Florida, but I still have family back home. My brother and his family. Aunts, uncles, cousins.
I followed Archer to Vegas because we were together when he signed with the Vegas Heat. I attended almost every game but missed a few when weddings I planned fell on game days—though I tried my best to avoid that.
I listened when he spoke. He’s a man of few words, and it takes a lot to get him to open up. But I did. I was one of the rare, lucky few…until I wasn’t. Until he shut down on me, too.
It’s because of him that I decided not to work for someone else when I moved here. I had our future in mind, the need to pick up at a moment’s notice always in my periphery because playing professional baseball doesn’t guarantee placement stability.
My career started by happy accident, really. A friend wanted to fly to Vegas to get married. I was local. I planned it all for her. I got to know the local vendors and the ins and outs of Vegas weddings.
Sometimes I’m a walking contradiction—having to plan something as big and important as someone’s wedding while I tend to fall on the whimsical and disorganized side—but somehow planning a wedding is different.
It’s what I know. I’ve planned hundreds now, my business growing by word of mouth mostly, and even though I don’t have personal experience planning my own wedding, I’m damn good at what I do.
It's why I want to expand into a destination brand, but now I have to put it on the back burner while I figure out where to live and what to do with my life without Archer in it.
So yeah, I’m sad. Of course I am. It hurts. It’s the end of an era. Any way I slice it, my life is about to change.
But part of living in that organized chaos means I’ll land on my feet wherever I wind up, and maybe being forced to fly on my own will grant me the opportunities I thought were dead and buried.
“Tater Tater, see ya later!” Kenzie, my assistant who works in the office next to mine, says.
I rent two offices in a larger complex that houses a large kitchen, dining area, and all-purpose space, so we eat lunch together nearly daily, and we’ve gotten close over the two years she’s been working for me.
“Bye, Kenz.”
She doubles back to my doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“How could you tell?”
“You didn’t meet me for lunch today,” she begins, clearly ticking off my offenses. “And you never give me that sort of unenthusiastic bye, Kenz. You sound like you’re down in the dumps. What’s up?” She slides into the chair on the opposite side of my messy desk.
“Archer and I broke up,” I admit.
“Oh, babe. Again?” she asks.
I twist my lips and nod. “Yeah. Again. But this time feels final.”
She wrinkles her nose and tightens her ponytail. “What happened?”
I debate how much to get into it. I know some things, but I think those things are meant to be held tightly to the chest. It may be over, but it’s not like we’re enemies, and I’m not really the type to burn bridges.
“We grew apart. I didn’t feel like he supported my dreams anymore while I continued to give things up to support his.” I shrug. “You know, that sort of thing.” The answer sounds rote even to me, but it’s sort of what I have to say, isn’t it?
I can’t exactly go around telling people that I asked my long-term boyfriend if I could talk to his brother, who heads the family’s real estate development company, about my plans of creating a destination wedding brand and his answer was a clear, resounding, nearly angry no.
It was final. Decisive. Like us. It’s what spelled the end, anyway.
I wasn’t asking because I wanted to use him for his connections. I was just thinking of who I respect and trust in the industry—someone I’d want to give my business to.
I guess it won’t be the Bradleys.
“I want you to stay far away from my family.” Those were his words. He stayed far away, too, until he didn’t. Until he signed some papers for his father, and now he’s under investigation.
He didn’t share much about the paperwork, but it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. His father opened a lounge here in Vegas that was a front for something illegal.
I get it. But his father’s name is off the Bradley Group now, so I don’t see why I can’t work with Madden, his oldest brother, on developing venues.
I want to start with Vegas, obviously. I’m also considering Chicago, San Diego, and Hawaii.
Vegas and Chicago because they’re home, San Diego since Madden is there and it’s where he’s operating his business, and it’s also a gorgeous backdrop for weddings.
Hawaii because—duh—nearly everyone who has thought about a destination considers it.
Eventually I want to take it to the Caribbean for the same reason. Maybe Florida for a more affordable wedding. Depending on how it goes, maybe someday there will be a Tatum Barker venue in every state and in countries across the world.
If it’s not clear yet, I’m a dreamer, and I dream big. What’s the sense in dreaming if it isn’t big? And I work my ass off to see those big dreams come true.
“Anyway, now I’m looking at places to rent and debating if I even want to stay in Vegas,” I finish.
“Stop it,” she says. “Listen to me, you’re staying in Vegas, and you’re staying with me until you figure it out.”
I tilt my head. “That’s really sweet, Kenz. I couldn’t possibly—”
She holds up a hand. “You didn’t ask, I’m offering, and I mean it.”
“I wasn’t going to say that I couldn’t possibly ask you that. I was going to say I couldn’t possibly stay with you when you have two kids whose combined ages total five.”
She laughs. “You know our guest room is the casita, right?”
I’ve been to their house, and they have a little pseudo-apartment attached at the front of their house that has a completely separate entrance from the main house.
“Then you have yourself a deal. I need to wrap up some details on the Brown-Mayfair wedding and then I’m heading out of town for a few days. Is it okay if I start hauling stuff over this evening and stay until I leave for my trip?”
“Absolutely.” She nods resolutely.
“Don’t you need to check in with Cody?” I ask, referring to her husband.
She shakes her head. “He once invited his brother to stay with us for a couple months without running it by me. Said brother listened to death metal on full blast at three in the morning when I had a newborn. It may be soundproof, but it’s not idiot-proof.”
I giggle. “I promise to keep my death metal at a reasonable volume after eight PM.”
“Seven,” she says, pursing her lips.
“Deal. And can you handle things here while I’m out of town?”
“Of course. Whatever you need, you know I’m on it.”
I know she is. She’s the best, and she could run Barker Weddings on her own at this point.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
She nods. “I need to go get dinner started, but just text me when you’re on your way, and we can talk more tonight, okay?”
I nod. “You’re the best assistant and friend I could ever ask for.”
She grins. “Back at you.”
She heads out, and I flip from looking for somewhere to live to somewhere to store my stuff while I’m in my starting over era.