Chapter Ten
The Dinner Party
Archer
I don’t throw dinner parties. I want that on the record. The last time I had more than two adults in this house was Bree’s birthday in March, and she planned the whole thing while I stood in the kitchen holding a bottle of beer and nodding when people talked to me.
But Sydney suggested it, and the twins are at Bree’s this weekend, and the season starts Tuesday, which means this is the last normal Saturday any of us will have for seven months.
So I called a caterer, bought too much wine, and asked Maria to come an extra day this week because having people over when your house regularly looks like a toy store exploded requires backup.
The guest list is small: Zayden and Tori, Banks and Winnie, and the rookie Logan, who invited himself the second he heard the words “dinner party” and has been texting me about it all week.
Logan: Should I bring something?
Me: No.
Logan: Wine? Dessert? A cheese board?
Me: Just bring yourself.
Logan: What’s the dress code?
Me: Logan, it’s my living room.
Logan: Smart casual. Got it.
Logan gets there first because he treats every social event like a race he needs to win. He’s in a blazer over a t-shirt, holding a bottle of bourbon.
“Lockwood.” He hands me the bottle, and then his eyes land on Sydney standing behind me in the hallway, and I watch his whole face rearrange.
I get it. I do. Sydney is wearing jeans and a black sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder, and her dark hair is down.
Her earrings catch the light when she moves, and she’s got this body—the dancer’s body, compact and curved in places that don’t match how small she is.
She’s five-two and built like she was engineered to make men forget what they were saying mid-sentence.
I’ve had fifteen years to get used to it. Logan has had about four seconds, and he’s already failing.
“And you must be Sydney,” he manages.
“That’s me.” She steps forward and shakes his hand, and I can see Logan register the same things I register every morning when she walks into the kitchen—the brown eyes, the full mouth, the collarbone visible above the neckline of the sweater, the way she stands with her weight on one hip like a girl who grew up at a ballet barre and never lost the posture.
The difference is that I’ve trained myself not to stare. Logan hasn’t.
“Archer has told us a lot about you,” he says, still holding her hand.
“Scary thought.”
“All good things. Mostly about how you’ve completely saved his life with the twins.”
“He’s exaggerating. I just make sure everyone wears pants and nobody flushes anything weird down the toilet.”
Logan laughs too hard at this, his eyes dropping to her mouth for a fraction of a second that I catch because I’m a goalie and I catch everything. I take the bourbon to the kitchen before I say something I can’t take back.
Zayden and Tori arrive next. Tori comes through the door, and I hug her before she turns to Sydney and puts both hands out.
“I’m Tori. I’ve been dying to meet you. Zayden talks about Archer’s mystery roommate all the time, and I told him I needed to see for myself who was brave enough to take on those twins.”
Sydney laughs and takes her hands, and within thirty seconds, they’re in the kitchen together, with Tori asking about the senior center and Sydney telling her about Dolores.
It’s like they’ve known each other for months instead of minutes.
Tori does that—she walks into a room and collects people, draws them in, makes them feel seen.
I’ve watched her do it with Zayden, with Maisie, with every person she meets.
Zayden claps me on the shoulder and looks around the house.
“Place looks good,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“You look better too.”
“Uh, thanks,” I manage.
Banks and Winnie show up last. Banks gives me the nod that counts as a full emotional exchange between us—chin up, slight eye contact, we’re good—and Winnie walks straight to Sydney and hugs her like they’ve been friends for years.
The food arrives in aluminum trays from an Italian place Zayden recommended—lasagna, garlic bread, caprese salad, and a roasted vegetable spread that Sydney arranged on a platter because the catering trays “looked sad.” Her words.
She reorganized my catered dinner in twelve minutes and made it look like a magazine spread, and I stood at the counter watching her do it, trying to remember a time when this kitchen felt this alive.
I couldn’t.
We eat in the dining room, which I haven’t used since Bree left. Seven place settings, some candles Sydney found in a drawer, and cloth napkins that she folded into some shape I don’t have a name for because I’m a man who uses paper towels.
Logan sits across from Sydney and immediately launches into his campaign. “So, Sydney. Winnie tells me you’re a dancer.”
“Was a dancer. Now I teach hip-hop to senior citizens.”
“That’s incredible. I love that. What kind of music do you use?”
“All kinds of things. Missy Elliott. Some Snoop. 50 Cent when Dolores is feeling adventurous.”
“Who’s Dolores?”
“She’s seventy-six, has two titanium hips, and better rhythm than anyone at this table.”
“I have great rhythm,” Logan says, offended.
“Logan, you dance like a baby deer in cleats,” Zayden says without looking up from his lasagna.
Everyone laughs. Logan waves this off and leans forward, elbows on the table, fully locked in on Sydney. “What’s your workout routine? You’re seriously fit.”
I put my fork down.
“Thanks,” Sydney says, oblivious to what’s happening. “Ballet ruined my body for normal exercise, so now I mostly just run and stretch.”
“We should work out together. I know a great gym near the arena. They’ve got a dance studio in the back. I could show you around, maybe spot you on some—”
“Logan.” My voice comes out flatter than I intended, and the whole table goes quiet for about half a second. Banks and Zayden exchange a glance. Winnie takes a very deliberate sip of wine.
“What?” Logan says, genuinely confused.
“Eat your lasagna.”
“I’m eating. I’m also having a conversation. People can do both.”
Sydney meets my eyes across the table, her brow furrowed, and I can feel her trying to figure out why I just shut Logan down with the warmth of an Arctic blast. I can’t explain it because I don’t fully understand it myself, except that watching Logan lean toward her and suggest they work out together made my molars grind hard enough to crack a filling.
“The lasagna’s great,” Tori says brightly, redirecting with the skill of a woman who’s spent years navigating hockey egos. “Where’d you order from?”
The conversation moves on. I eat. I drink my beer. I watch Sydney talk.
She tells a story about a parent at her old ballet studio who emailed her at eleven PM to complain that her daughter’s tutu was “unflattering from the side.” Tori is horrified. Winnie chokes on her wine. Banks, who has a face designed for not laughing, actually cracks.
Then she moves to the vegetable tray on the sideboard, picking up the little tongs and selecting a piece of roasted cauliflower. She places it on her appetizer plate and turns to the table.
“Can we talk about cauliflower for a second?” she says.
Logan leans forward. Tori tilts her head. Even Banks looks mildly interested.
“Because I feel like we, as a society, are putting way too much pressure on this vegetable.” She holds up the cauliflower on her fork.
“Five years ago, cauliflower was just chilling on the veggie tray, minding its own business. Nobody expected anything from it. It was the background player. The benchwarmer of vegetables.”
“The Logan Palmer of vegetables,” Zayden says.
“Hey,” Logan protests.
“And now suddenly it’s expected to be pizza crust. And rice. And buffalo wings. And mashed potatoes.” She shakes her head. “We’re asking cauliflower to be everything, and I just think someone should check in on it. Emotionally.”
Tori laughs so hard she grips Zayden’s arm.
Winnie has tears in her eyes. Logan nods with alarming sincerity, like he genuinely agrees about the cauliflower’s emotional well-being.
Banks makes a sound that might be his version of a laugh, which means Sydney just accomplished what most people can’t do in a full season of knowing him.
I’m not laughing.
I’m watching her.
She stands at the sideboard with the little tongs in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, wearing a black sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder. She’s making a table full of professional athletes and their partners cry with laughter about a vegetable, and I can’t look away from her.
I’ve known this woman for fifteen years. I’ve watched her perform on stage. I’ve seen her talk down a screaming toddler and negotiate with a three-year-old over bedtime.
And right now, standing in my dining room holding a piece of cauliflower, she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
The thought arrives fully formed. Impossible to take back.
Zayden catches me staring. I know because I feel his eyes on the side of my face, steady and knowing, and when I finally look away from Sydney and glance at him, he just raises his beer and drinks.
He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t have to.
The night winds down around eleven. Tori and Zayden leave first—Tori hugs Sydney at the door, and I hear her say, “We should do this more often.” Banks and Winnie follow, and Winnie kisses Sydney’s cheek on the way out and whispers something in her ear that makes Sydney blush and shake her head.
Logan is the last to go, because of course he is.
“Sydney, it was an absolute pleasure.” He takes her hand, and for a horrifying second, I think he’s going to kiss it. He doesn’t. He shakes it. With both hands. “We should definitely hang out. I’ll text Archer to get your number.”
“Goodnight, Logan,” I say, and open the door wider.
“Think about the gym thing!” he calls over his shoulder as he walks down the porch steps. “I’m serious about the dance studio.”
I close the door. Sydney is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching me with an expression that’s half-amused and half-questioning.
“Is he always like that?” she asks.
“Always.”
“He’s, uh—he’s very friendly.”
“He’s a golden retriever in a blazer.”
She laughs. “He’s sweet.”
“He was hitting on you.”
The words come out before I can stop them, and the air in the hallway changes. Sydney’s eyebrows go up.
“He was not hitting on me.”
“He complimented your body, suggested a private workout, and held your hand with both hands on the way out.” I lift one eyebrow. “That’s hitting on you.”
“That’s being nice.”
“That’s Logan being Logan, and he wants your number.” He wants a lot more than that.
She stares at me. I stare back. The hallway is narrow, and we’re standing three feet apart, and I can see the question forming on her face—why do you care?—and I need to leave this conversation before she asks it because I don’t have an answer I’m willing to give.
“I’m going to clean up,” I say, and I walk to the kitchen.
She doesn’t follow me. I hear her footsteps go upstairs, and then the guest room door closes, and I stand at the sink rinsing plates and telling myself that I wasn’t jealous.
I was being protective. There’s a difference.
She’s my best friend, and Logan is a twenty-three-year-old puppy who falls in love with every woman he meets, and Sydney deserves better than being someone’s weekly crush.
That’s all it was.
I finish the dishes. I wipe the counters. I put the leftover lasagna in the fridge, blow out the candles, and stand in my dining room looking at the table where seven people sat tonight, and the house was loud and full for the first time in months.
Then I go outside.
The back patio has a firepit I’ve used exactly once—the night Bree left.
I sat out here with a glass of whiskey, watched the flames, and tried to figure out how my life had gone so sideways so quietly.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t call anyone. I just sat there and let the fire burn down, and then I went inside and made the twins’ lunches for the next day because that’s what needed to happen next.
I light it now. I sit in the same chair with a glass of whiskey—but tonight the reason I’m out here has nothing to do with Bree.
The sky is dark above the city, the kind of dark where you can’t see stars, but you know they’re there. The fire pops and settles, and I lean back, close my eyes, and let myself go to the place I never go.
Back to Sydney at seventeen. The way she asked me and the way I said no and the two nights I spent lying awake in my bed thinking about it before I showed up at her house and said yes.
The nervous walk up her porch steps. The look on her face when she opened the door and realized I’d changed my mind.
I remember everything. I’ve told myself for years that I don’t, that it was teenage fumbling.
But I remember her hands on my shoulders.
I remember the sound she made when I kissed her neck.
I remember the way she looked at me after, her hair spread across the pillow, her eyes wide and warm and full, and I remember thinking, clear as anything: don’t mess this up.
I messed it up.
I picked her up the next morning, asked about coffee, talked about school, and pretended nothing had changed because I didn’t know what else to do. I was eighteen. I didn’t have the words for what I felt, and by the time I found them, I’d already built a life on the wrong side of the door.
I married Bree. I had kids. I made every choice based on safe, steady, and sure, and not one of those choices was Sydney.
Now she’s sleeping in my guest room, making my kids laugh, and standing in my dining room doing a comedy bit about cauliflower.
And I’m sitting at a firepit alone, wondering what would have happened if I’d been braver when it mattered.
I take a sip of whiskey. The fire crackles.
I’ll never know. That’s the thing about the past—you don’t get to go back and run the play differently. You just have to live with the version you chose.
I sit with the fire until it goes out on its own and wonder what life might be like if I had chosen something different all those years ago.