Chapter Twenty-One
On the Road
Archer
The timing is brutal.
Two days after I kissed Sydney—two days of careful mornings and loaded eye contact in a house that feels like it’s holding its breath—I have to get on a plane and fly to Chicago for a three-game road trip.
I don’t want to go. I want to stay in this house and figure out what the hell is happening between us, because we haven’t talked about the kiss, we haven’t discussed the conversation, and we’ve been moving around each other with a charged, fragile energy that makes every accidental brush of hands feel like grabbing a live wire.
But I can’t skip a road trip just because I kissed my best friend and now don’t know how to function. I’m the starting goalie, and twenty-two guys are counting on me to be in that crease tomorrow night. My personal life can’t interfere with that. It never has.
I pack my bag early the next morning. Sydney is already up—I can hear her in the kitchen, the coffee maker going. I come downstairs with my duffel, and she’s at the counter pouring two mugs. She looks up when I walk in.
“Morning,” she says.
“Morning.”
She slides my coffee across the island. Our fingers don’t touch.
They haven’t touched since Thursday night, which is insane because that night my hands were in her hair, her mouth was on mine, and I could feel her heartbeat through her shirt.
Now we can’t manage a simple coffee handoff without treating it like a hostage negotiation.
“What time’s your flight?” she asks.
“Eight.”
“When are you back?”
“Wednesday night. We land around eleven.”
She nods, sips her coffee, and looks out the window.
I stand on the other side of the island, watching her and thinking about how she tasted, how she shivered when my hand touched her skin, and how she said I need time and I replied take whatever you need—I meant it, even though every part of me wanted to stay in that room and never leave.
“Syd.”
“Yeah?”
“Are we okay?”
She meets my eyes. “We’re okay, Arch. Go play hockey. We’ll figure this out when you get back.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” She almost smiles, and it’s small but real, and I hold on to it.
I hug the twins before I leave. Lily tells me to win every game, and Luke reminds me that the human body is sixty percent water and I should stay hydrated.
I tell them both I love them and walk out the front door.
Sydney is standing in the hallway behind me, and I turn around.
She’s leaning against the wall with her coffee mug in both hands, looking at me for a long second.
“Be safe,” she says.
“Always.”
I close the door and drive to the airport.
Ollie sits next to me on the plane because Ollie always sits next to me on the plane. He’s got his headphones around his neck, a bag of trail mix, and he’s watching me with the focus of a man who knows something is different and is going to wait exactly ninety seconds before asking about it.
He makes it about forty-five.
“So what happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Something happened. You’ve got a look.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You absolutely have a look. It’s like—” He squints at me. “You look like a guy who got punched in the face but enjoyed it.”
I stare at him for a beat and then look out the window, because that’s so accurate it’s annoying.
“I kissed her,” I say.
Ollie’s trail mix stops mid-air. He sets the bag down slowly, like he’s defusing a bomb. “You kissed Sydney.”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
“And then what?”
“And then she said she needed time to think.”
Ollie processes this, nodding slowly. “Okay. That’s—okay. That’s fair. That’s reasonable.” He picks up his trail mix again. “How long has it been since you kissed anyone?”
“What?”
“How long? Since Bree? Since anyone?”
I do the math. The last time Bree and I kissed with any intention was probably two and a half years ago, maybe longer. Before the separate bedrooms. Before the slow decay of a marriage that was already dying by the time either of us admitted it.
“A while,” I say.
“Define a while.”
“I’m not defining a while, Ollie.”
“More than a year?”
“Yes.”
“More than two?”
I don’t answer, which is an answer.
He whistles low through his teeth. “And the first person you kiss after two-plus years of nothing is the woman you’ve been in love with since high school. That’s, uh—that’s a lot, Arch.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you sure this isn’t—” He hesitates, which isn’t like Ollie. “You’re sure this is real? Not just, uh—not just because she’s there and she’s warm and you’ve been alone for a long time?”
I look at him. He’s being careful, which means he’s being serious, and Ollie being serious is rare enough that I owe him an honest answer.
“She’s not a rebound,” I say. “If anything, Bree was—” I stop. That’s not fair to Bree, and I’m not going to say it. “Sydney isn’t a rebound. This has been building for fifteen years. I just finally stopped being too scared to see it.”
“And you told her that?”
“Some of it. Not all of it. She asked for time.”
“Smart woman.”
“She is.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“There’s no plan. I play three games, I fly home, and I figure it out.”
“Figure what out exactly?”
“How to do this without screwing it up. She’s—Ollie, she’s not someone I can mess up with and try again. If I do this wrong, I lose her. Not just the relationship. The whole thing. Fifteen years of friendship, the person who moved across the country to help me raise my kids—all of it. Gone.”
Ollie chews his trail mix and thinks about this for a while. The plane levels out, and the captain turns off the seatbelt sign.
“Can I tell you what I think?” he says.
“Can I stop you?” I lift one eyebrow.
“No.” He shifts in his seat to face me. “I think you spent your whole life playing it safe with the people who matter most to you. You played it safe with Bree, and your marriage fell apart. You played it safe with Sydney for fifteen years, and you almost lost her anyway. At some point, man, the safe play is the risky one. You know what I mean? Not doing anything is what got you here.”
I don’t say anything. The clouds are thick outside the window, and somewhere below us is a whole country of people living their lives without this particular problem.
“Just don’t overthink it,” Ollie says. “You’re a goalie. You read the play and you react. Stop trying to see five moves ahead and just be in the moment with her.”
“That’s surprisingly good advice.”
“I’m full of surprises.” He puts his headphones on, then takes them back off. “Also, for the record? I called this months ago. The Instagram photo. I’m just saying.”
“Drop it, Ollie.”
“Dropped.” He grins and puts his headphones on, and I lean my head against the window, close my eyes, and think about Sydney.
Chicago is cold, the hotel is generic, and I can’t sleep.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling—different ceiling, same problem—and I think about what Ollie said: that the safe play is the risky one, that not doing anything is what got me here.
He’s right. I know he’s right. I’ve known it since the firepit, since Luke’s drawing, since the night she fell asleep on my shoulder and I sat still for forty-five minutes because moving would have meant losing the weight of her against me.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Sydney: Twins are down. Luke wanted me to tell you that sharks don’t get cancer. He says you should “think about that.”
I smile in the dark.
Me: Tell him I’m thinking about it.
Sydney: Already asleep. I’ll pass it along in the morning.
Three dots. Then another message.
Sydney: Good luck tomorrow, Arch.
Me: Thanks, Syd.
I put the phone on my chest and stare at the ceiling some more.
I’ll give her time. I’ll play these three games, fly home, walk through the door, and she’ll be there—in my kitchen, in my life, wearing my sweatshirt and making my kids laugh—and I’ll figure out the right way to do this. The way she deserves.
Not a rebound. Not a reaction. Not the safe choice.
The real one.