“Yeah,” he echoes.
Cole peeks his head around the wall. “Ready?” he mouths to me.
I nod at him. To my brother, I say, “I gotta go. We’ll talk soon.” It’s better not to tell too many people what Tatum just told me. She and Archer are notoriously off and on, and I feel like I should talk to my sister Everleigh before starting the rumor mill with my entire family.
I cut the call, and then I head to the bar with my teammates where I plan to get all the way fucked up tonight to try to dull the ache of this total mess I suddenly find myself in.
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 younevergive me that sort of unenthusiasticbye, 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.”
