CHAPTER 42 Tatum Barker
Turning Thirty
What do you get for your husband when he turns thirty?
That is my current dilemma.
It’s particularly difficult since Ford has the option to buy pretty much anything he could possibly want…and that giant bottle of McGillicuddy’s from Christmas is still three-quarters full.
The week passes quickly. Ford has been an incredible assistant to me, sorting through the inbox that I've been desperately ignoring and creating new systems for me to keep me organized and prevent continued overwhelm. Where I’m all chaos, he’s all strategy.
He’s even started organizing my downloads folder. If he thought the number of notifications I had was bad, well, those have nothing on the extreme number of files that clog my downloads folder on my laptop at any given time. We’re talking in the tens of thousands.
So I need something great to celebrate this man, but the gifts I keep coming across seem ridiculously cliché. This birthday is a big deal, too. It's not every day that someone turns thirty.
With that in mind, I send Everleigh a covert text.
Me: Can you help me out with a birthday present for Ford?
She replies that she can, and I send her the details of my plan.
It’s a lot to pull together with my already full plate, but it’ll absolutely be worth it—and it’ll mean so much more than a watch or another framed jersey.
Friday is the big day, and when we awake, we start the day with slow and sensual morning sex, where I ride on top of Ford’s cock as I wish him a happy birthday between moans and grunts of pleasure.
I make him breakfast—or, rather, I order up from the restaurant downstairs, and I make sure to ask twice for extra bacon. We sit on the terrace and enjoy our food, and we take a long walk along the bay, hand-in-hand, as our bond somehow seems to strengthen.
I work for a few hours before my dinner plans, and just before I need to hop in the shower to start getting ready, I click on that old familiar listing for the mansion as I try to piece together how I can afford to put time into another venue even if it is my dream venue.
But something’s different this time.
There’s a red dot at the top of the page accompanied by the words Accepting Backups.
Accepting backups?
That means someone put in an offer.
That means Ford accepted an offer.
He didn’t tell me.
He knows how much I love that mansion—how much we all love it, how much it means to all of us.
He also knows I can’t afford it. Maybe he was just trying to save me from more heartache where the mansion is concerned, but an awful feeling that he kept it from me on purpose pulses up my spine.
I can’t bring it up tonight. It’s his birthday, and there’s only one way that conversation will end: in a fight
I’m overreacting. I get that.
But I want that place with my whole entire soul, and somehow when there wasn’t an offer on it, it still felt like I had a chance.
Seeing accepting backups means there is no chance.
My dreams of the perfect venue in the city I love with my whole heart go up in smoke.
I’ll find another place. But he didn’t have to sell.
In fact, once upon a time, he made a promise he wouldn’t sell without exploring all the options.
He explored nothing with me or, to my knowledge anyway, with his siblings.
He told me once that Liam didn’t want him to sell. Everleigh wants to get married there.
And he still accepted that offer. I wonder if any of his siblings know.
He could’ve kept it in the family. It’s his legacy. It’s their legacy.
And he’s choosing to pawn it off to the highest bidder, or something like that.
The only reason he’d accept a backup offer is if the first one fell through, and on a mansion like this, it’ll be all cash. Whoever made a cash offer for fifteen million dollars wants that place, and the chances of them backing out of it now are exactly zero.
I can’t help but feel like this is a crack.
Keeping secrets was what led to the end of things with Archer, and now I’m at a point where I’ve let myself fall for Ford.
I can’t be pushed aside with the claim that it’s for my protection from the Bradley name.
Not again. Not when he made a promise to me.
Not when I think about the history we share.
I force the window closed and get in the shower as I debate how to handle this.
I guess not at all. It’s his birthday, and I don’t want to ruin it with a fight.
It was his right to sell that house. What doesn’t sit right with me is the fact that he hasn’t bothered to tell me that it sold. It hurts.
I shake it off. Tonight’s for celebrating.
We head to the restaurant, and we’re seated in an intimate corner booth. I order a double vodka soda, and he looks at me in surprise. I guess I’m hitting it a little harder than usual, but I play it off. “What? It’s a celebration. It’s not every day your husband turns thirty.”
After we order, he glances at me. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” I say tightly.
He lets it go.
“Do you want your gift?”
“Now?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. “Not that. You already got that once today.”
“I know. I’ve been wondering why it’s been only once.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“Because I’m not a cum dumpster.”
“That’s a lovely image,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “What’s gotten into you?”
I clear my throat, ready to come out with the words, but something stops me. “Just work stuff. Devon and Lindsay’s wedding is in three days, and it’s my Tampa debut. There’s a lot riding on it.”
“I get that. It’ll be perfect, Tate.”
I press my lips together, and then I pull out my phone and pull up the video I spent countless hours working on. I shove it over to him and turn up the volume.
The first person in the video is me. “Happy thirtieth, husband. Here’s to thirty more years of love, laughs, adventures, and memories.” In the video, I hold up a glass, and when the glass pulls away, magically it’s Everleigh.
“Happy birthday, little bro! Remember, thirty is just a number. Some of us age gracefully, and then there’s—” She cuts off, and Dex is up next.
“Bro! Happy birthday from your older, better-looking big brother. Remember to always keep it dirty at thirty. Cheers!” He holds up a glass, and when that one moves away, it’s Liam.
“Happy birthday to my old-as-fuck brother.” He holds up a glass, and Ivy is pulling hers back.
“Happy birthday, Ford! Love you!”
She blows a kiss at the screen, and then she puts her hand over it. When the hand pulls away, it’s Madden.
“Thirty is the new twenty, except when it comes to hangovers. Make it a great one, bro.”
The video transitions from his siblings—minus Archer—to his teammates. I got Cole’s number during our own wedding, and I put it to good use. Several of his teammates sent in videos, and when they’re all done wishing him a happy birthday and the video ends, his eyes move up to meet mine.
“This is incredible, Tatum. Thank you. It means everything to me.”
That’s exactly what I was trying to go for up until a few hours ago.
I have got to get over this. It’s only going to drive a wedge between us.
I’m just not sure how to move forward.