CHAPTER 47 Tatum Barker
Trash Pile
I could probably stop paying for this office space since I’m never here, but I haven’t. If I stopped paying, I’d have to clean it out, and I haven’t exactly been around to do that.
“Tater!” Kenzie says when she walks by the office. I’m on the floor, surrounded by paperwork in the usual chaos that’s my style.
“Morning,” I say absently. I pick up a folder and read the name on the tab. Do I really need to keep a file for clients who were married three years ago and have already gotten a divorce?
Their centerpieces were lovely, though. I set the folder in the keep pile.
“When did you get in?” she asks. She walks in and leans on the doorframe. She knew I was here since I texted her I was coming and would be picking up my car from where it’s been parked on the street across from her house.
“Last night.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I booked a room at the Venetian for a few nights.” I pick up another folder and set it in the trash pile as I think about that term. Trash pile. Sort of like my life at the moment.
“Our casita is still open. Come stay with me,” she says.
“I’m okay.” I set another folder in keep. Another one in trash. I take a sip of my coffee and set it back on the floor beside me, and I glance up at the doorway. Kenzie’s hand is on her hip, and she’s staring at me.
“You are so clearly not okay. What’s going on, Tate?”
I blow out a breath, and then it all comes tumbling out.
All of it.
I end with a shaky voice as tears tumble down my cheeks. “It just feels like he doesn’t believe in me.”
She walks in and kneels down on the floor in front of me. “Oh, babe. I’m so sorry.”
I sniffle. “This isn’t how I thought things would go between us.
I’m happy with him, you know? This is our first fight.
I have to set boundaries, but he does, too.
And that’s the thing. Our boundaries, our goals…
they clash. How do we make it work when we’re fighting for opposite ideals?
” I swipe at the tears that are coming faster now.
She rocks back so she’s sitting on her own heels. “It comes down to a single question, Tate.”
“What?” I’m desperate for an answer.
“If you can’t have both, what’s more important to you: the mansion or the man?”
“Ford,” I answer without reservation.
“Then you have to let the mansion thing go. If Ford is your forever and he had his own reasons, you have to find a way to move on.”
“What if I can’t?” I ask, fear very apparent in my tone.
“Then you lose Ford, and you still don’t get the mansion.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a breath. This hasn’t helped even though she’s right. “Fill me in on what I’ve missed,” I say, changing the subject.
She launches into the upcoming weddings we have, and I answer the millions of questions she’s been holding for me. We work until five, and I tell her to go home to her family.
“Come with me,” she begs.
I shake my head. “I’m fine at the hotel. I just need a little alone time, that’s all. I need to figure out how to make this work.”
She gives me a long hug, which feels good, and I fight off more tears.
She leaves, and I finish up what I’m working on. And then I get into my car and drive toward my old house.
I don’t text first, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because if he doesn’t open the door, then I can pretend I never came in the first place.
I ring the bell, and to my surprise, he does answer the door.
“Tatum,” Archer says softly. “What are you doing here?”
I burst into tears.
Fuck. This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go.
“What did he do to you?” he asks darkly.
“Nothing,” I mutter, and he pulls me into the house.
It feels comfortable here. It even smells comfortable, like home.
He pulls me into a hug, and I sink into his arms the way I did so goddamn many times over the last decade.
“I miss you,” he says, and he runs a soothing hand up and down my back.
I’m about to reply that I miss him, too.
It’s an automatic reply. But even as I think the words, I’m able to pinpoint exactly what it is I miss.
I miss his friendship. I miss his warmth.
I miss the way he opened up to me, even when it was only to me.
I miss knowing the mysterious Bradley baseball player.
I miss the ease we had with each other. But all that was over a long, long time ago.
Much longer than a few months ago when we broke it off for the last time, and I flew to Florida to stay with Ford while I figured things out.
But a year or two ago, back when things were good and we still had fun together.
As we embrace, though, I realize for the very first time that what I miss isn’t the intimacy. It isn’t the love. It’s the friendship.
But when I’m away from Ford, I feel like a piece of myself is still with him.
He finally pulls back from our hug. “Come on in.” His voice is a little weary, but I follow him into the home I shared with him for the last five years.
And then I tell him everything.