Chapter Two
Calling in Reinforcements
Archer
Lily is naked.
Not partially. Fully, completely, standing-in-the-kitchen-with-her-arms-out naked.
“Lily. We need clothes.”
“NO.”
“Lil—”
“NO CLOTHES.” She stamps one bare foot on the tile. Her bottom lip juts out. This is a hill she’s prepared to die on.
Luke is at the table, eating dry Cheerios one at a time and watching his sister with zero concern. He’s fully dressed—shirt, pants, shoes on the right feet, which is more than I managed yesterday.
“Luke, help me out here.”
He looks at Lily. Looks at me. Then goes back to his cereal.
Thanks, buddy.
I check my phone. 10:14. Sydney’s flight lands in less than an hour, and the house looks like it’s been robbed by someone who only wanted to scatter toys and leave half-eaten food on every surface.
I told her I’d pick her up at the airport and I meant it.
But Lily is naked, and Luke just knocked over his water. There’s no scenario in the next forty-five minutes where I clean the house and get two three-year-olds into a car and across the city to JFK on time.
I text her, knowing she might not see it until she lands.
Me: Can’t make the airport. I’m sorry. Can you grab an Uber?
Sydney: No problem. See you soon.
Sydney: How bad is it?
Me: Lily is naked and singing about frogs.
Sydney: Don’t worry. Backup is on the way.
I put the phone down and look at my kitchen.
The breakfast dishes. The toys on the floor.
The pile of unopened mail on the counter.
The permission slip I forgot to sign last week.
There’s a sippy cup under the couch that I’m pretty sure has been there for three days, and I’m choosing not to investigate what’s inside it because whatever it is, it won’t improve my morning.
Bree moved out in April. Five months ago now, but it feels longer because the marriage was over long before she packed her bags.
We spent almost two years sharing a house and separate bedrooms, moving around each other like polite roommates who happened to be raising the same children.
She stayed for the twins—we both told ourselves that—and when the season ended, she sat me down and said it was time.
I didn’t argue. There was nothing left to argue about.
The summer was fine. We split custody, and it was the offseason. No travel, no games—just me and the twins, figuring out what our life looked like without her in the next room. We found a rhythm. It worked.
Now the season starts in three weeks, and that rhythm is about to fall apart. Morning skates, road trips, late games—the schedule that swallowed my marriage is about to swallow my ability to parent alone. I need someone here. I need help. I thought about hiring someone, but that felt… I don’t know.
Instead, I called Sydney.
I’m running on four hours of sleep, I can’t remember the last time I ate something that wasn’t standing over the kitchen sink, and now I’m kneeling in front of Lily’s chair. “Lil, I need you to pick one outfit. Just one. Any outfit. Your choice.”
She considers this. “The tutu.”
“The tutu with what?”
“Just the tutu.”
“You need something with the tutu.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how clothes work.”
She thinks about this for a genuinely long time. “Rain boots,” she decides.
“Rain boots and a tutu.” I lift one brow.
“And nothing else.”
I look at this tiny, stubborn, perfect human being who is exactly like her mother in every way that drives me crazy and exactly like me in every way I can’t admit, and I make a decision.
“Fine,” I say. “Tutu and rain boots.” I’m praying she pairs this with underpants and a shirt, but we’ll start there.
She beams, hops off the chair, and runs upstairs to get the tutu, her bare feet slapping the hardwood. I lean against the counter and close my eyes for three seconds.
My phone buzzes. It’s my teammate Zayden.
Zayden: You good?
He’s been checking in every couple of days since Bree left. Not pushing, not prying. Just being there.
Me: Good. Sydney’s coming today.
Zayden: THE Sydney?
Me: She’s the only Sydney I know.
Zayden: About time.
I have no idea what that means, so I don’t ask.
I clean the kitchen, do the dishes, and shove the laundry pile into the closet and close the door. I find the sippy cup under the couch, open it, immediately regret opening it, pour the contents down the drain, and throw the cup away entirely because some things are beyond saving.
By 11, the house looks passable. Luke is on the couch with a picture book about sharks. Lily is wearing the tutu and rain boots and, after a second round of negotiations, a t-shirt that says DADDY’S GIRL across the front, which she specifically chose because she knows it makes me soft.
I stand in the living room and take a breath. Sydney will be here soon. My best friend, who I haven’t seen in person since Bree’s birthday in March, is flying across the country to help me hold my life together.
I’ve known her since I was a freshman in high school, when Coach Davis forced the hockey team into a ballet class that I would have rather died than attend.
She was one of the dancers assigned to help us—small, dark-haired, standing at the barre with her chin up and her spine straight, looking at a room full of hockey players like we were an inconvenience she’d been asked to tolerate.
She gave me hell. She corrected my form, rolled her eyes at my footwork, and made me repeat the moves until my calves burned. She was five-foot-two, and she terrified me. By October, I was showing up early just to be the first one in the room.
That was fifteen years ago. We’ve been inseparable since—through high school, through college at different schools, through girlfriends and boyfriends, and the whole messy stretch of early adulthood where everyone figures out who they are.
Sydney was always the constant. The person I called before anyone else.
The person who showed up every time without being asked, without making it a thing, without needing anything in return.
Everyone always thought we’d end up together.
For years, it was this background assumption—when are you and Syd going to figure it out?
I laughed it off every time because Sydney wasn’t someone you fumbled.
She was loyal and honest and sharper than anyone I’d ever met.
She was my best friend, and I wasn’t going to ruin that by making it into something it wasn’t supposed to be.
I’m glad I didn’t. That’s what I tell myself.
Because look at what happened with Bree—I did the relationship, did the marriage, did all of it right, and she still left.
If that’s what happens when you go all in with someone, then I made the right call protecting what I had with Syd.
Our friendship survived everything. Every girlfriend I had, every boyfriend she had, the wedding, the twins, the divorce. We’re still here. Still good. Still us.
I’m not going to be the one who wrecks that.
My phone buzzes.
Sydney: Landed. In an Uber. ETA 40 min.
Me: Door’s open. Let yourself in.
Sydney: Can’t wait to see the frog song situation in person.
Me: She’s moved on. Now it’s a tutu and rain boots.
Sydney: Bold fashion statement. I respect it.
I put the phone down and do one more pass through the house. I wipe the bathroom counter, check that there’s toilet paper, and put out fresh towels in the guest room.
The guest room. I made the bed this morning with clean sheets, cleared out the closet, and put a lamp on the nightstand because the overhead light in there is harsh. I don’t know why I’m thinking this much about a lamp. It’s just a lamp. She’s not going to care about the lamp.
I’m standing in the guest room adjusting the angle of the lampshade when I hear a car door outside.
I walk to the front door and open it. She’s coming up the walk.
And here’s the thing about Sydney that I forget every time I go a few months without seeing her—she’s tiny.
I know this intellectually. But there’s a gap between knowing someone is five-foot-two and watching her walk toward you carrying a suitcase that’s almost as tall as she is.
She still looks like a ballerina all these years later.
She’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers, but her dancer’s background is still there in how she carries herself.
She looks tired in the way people look tired after early flights and bad airport coffee.
But she also looks really good. Which is an observation I’m going to file away and never revisit.
She gets to the porch steps and looks up at me, grinning—a real one, big and warm, the smile she’s been giving me since we were kids—and I feel my whole body relax in a way it hasn’t in weeks. Months, maybe.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
She drops the suitcase and walks straight into me, wrapping her arms around my waist, her face against my chest. She barely reaches my collarbone.
I wrap my arms around her and hold on. She’s warm and solid, and she still uses the same shampoo she’s used since college.
For a second, I just stand there on my porch hugging her and breathing for what feels like the first time since Bree walked out.
“You look terrible,” she says into my shirt.
“Thanks.”
“Like, really bad, Arch. Have you been sleeping?”
“Enough.”
“Liar.” She pulls back and looks up at me, her hands still on my arms, her brown eyes scanning my face with an attention that makes me want to look away. “You’ve lost weight.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Hmm.” She lets go and picks up her suitcase. “Where are the tiny humans?”
Before I can answer, the front door bangs open, and Lily appears in her tutu, rain boots, and DADDY’S GIRL t-shirt, running full speed down the porch steps.
“AUNTIE SYD!”
Sydney drops the suitcase again and catches her, scooping her up like she weighs nothing, which she almost does. Lily wraps herself around Sydney like a koala and buries her face in her neck.
“I missed you,” Lily says. “I missed you so much. Daddy can’t do braids.”
“I can do braids,” I say.
Neither of them acknowledges this.
Luke appears in the doorway. He doesn’t run. He walks because Luke does everything at his own pace. He stops at the top of the steps and looks at Sydney with those big serious eyes.
“Hi, Luke,” she says, still holding Lily. “You got bigger, buddy.”
He takes two more steps, then reaches out, takes her free hand, and holds it, his face turned up toward hers.
I watch the three of them on my front porch—Sydney holding my daughter, my son holding her hand—and I have the thought I always have when I see her with my kids, the one I never let myself finish.
She’s good with them. She’s always been good with them.
That’s as far as I let it go.
“Come inside,” I say. “I’ll show you the guest room.”
“Is there coffee?” she asks.
“Always.”
“Then lead the way, Lockwood.”
She walks past me into the house, Lily still attached to her like a barnacle, Luke trailing behind holding the handle of her suitcase because he wants to help.
I close the front door and follow them inside.
The house already sounds different.