Chapter Four
Stretching
Archer
A little while later, Sydney goes for a run.
I know this because I hear the front door close at seven, and then I watch her from the kitchen window like a psychopath as she stretches on the porch steps and heads down the sidewalk. Ponytail swinging. Tiny shorts. Those lean dancer’s legs eating up the pavement.
I look away. Make the twins breakfast. Lily wants waffles. Luke wants toast, triangles, light butter. I can do this. I’ve been doing this for months. I don’t need to stand at the window like I’ve never seen a woman run before.
The twins are fed and parked in front of a cartoon when Sydney comes back. I hear the front door, hear her kick off her shoes, and then I walk into the living room to grab Luke’s water cup and—
I stop.
She’s in the doorframe between the living room and the hallway.
One leg up. Straight up, heel resting against the frame above her head, her body folded forward over her standing leg, hands gripping the doorframe.
Her running shorts have ridden up, and her tank top has shifted, and she is bent in half in my doorway with a flexibility that should be illegal, and I just look at her, like my brain has left my body.
She glances over her shoulder. “Oh, hey. Good run. Your neighborhood is really nice.”
“Great,” I say. My voice sounds like I swallowed sandpaper.
She switches legs. The other one goes up.
Same position. Same devastating geometry.
Her back arches slightly as she deepens the stretch, and her tank top pulls tight across her chest, and I can see the line of her sports bra through the fabric and the curve of her waist and the muscles in her thigh—
I turn around and walk into the kitchen.
I open the fridge. I don’t need anything from the fridge.
I stand there with the cold air hitting my face, and I grip the shelf until my knuckles go white, and I think about hockey.
I think about defensive formations. I think about the penalty kill and shot trajectories and the specific angle of a glove save and definitely not about Sydney’s leg above her head in my doorframe.
She’s been stretching in front of me since she was fourteen years old. I’ve seen her stretch a thousand times. It’s never once been a problem.
It’s a problem now.
I close the fridge. Pick up a glass of water I already poured and drink the whole thing standing at the sink, staring out the window at my backyard, willing my pulse to return to a normal human rate.
From the living room, Lily yells, “Syd, can you do the splits?”
“Sure can.”
“SHOW ME.”
I leave the kitchen, go upstairs, and take a cold shower.
By evening, I’m at Callahan’s, a bar three blocks from the arena that the team has been coming to since before I got here. It’s Tuesday, which means it’s dead, which means it’s just me and Ollie at the bar with two beers and a baseball game neither of us cares about.
Ollie is talking. Ollie is always talking. This is both the best and worst thing about Oliver St. Brown—he fills every silence, which means I never have to, which means I can sit here and drink my beer and process the fact that I’m probably being weird around Sydney.
“—so she says, ‘I just want honesty,’ and I said, ‘Okay, honestly, I’m not looking for anything serious,’ and she threw her drink at me. The whole drink. A full margarita. I smelled like tequila for two days.” He takes a swig of his beer. “Anyway, how’s the roommate situation?”
“It’s not a roommate situation.”
“What is it then?”
“She’s helping with the kids.”
“Right. Sydney.” He says her name like he’s testing it. “The childhood best friend.”
“Yeah.”
“The one from Instagram.”
I look at him. “What about Instagram?”
“You posted a photo of her last Christmas. At your parents’ house. She was wearing a red sweater and holding one of the twins, and you were looking at her like—”
“Like what?”
“Like nothing. Never mind.” He grins. “So your hot best friend is living in your house.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Is she not hot?”
I take a long pull of my beer and don’t answer, which is an answer, and Ollie knows it because he’s smiling into his glass like he just won a bet with himself.
“How’s it going?” he asks, a little more serious now.
“Fine. She’s great with the kids. Lily is obsessed with her. Luke already trusts her, which, uh—Luke doesn’t trust easily, so that’s saying a lot.”
“And how are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying fine.”
“Because I am.”
He peels the label off his beer. “Can I say something without you getting weird about it?”
“Probably not, but go ahead.”
“Has there been anyone? Since Bree?”
“Ollie.”
“I’m asking as your friend. Not as some guy being nosy.” He gives me a pointed look. “When’s the last time you, uh—I don’t know. Went on a date. Had dinner with a woman. Let someone get close?”
“I have two three-year-olds and demanding career.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
He nods. Drinks his beer. Watches the game for a minute. “You’re allowed to want things for yourself, you know. Being a good dad doesn’t mean you stop being a person.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, you wake up, you train, you go home, you take care of the kids, you go to bed, and you do it again.
Every day. And now you’ve got this woman in your house who clearly matters to you, and you’re sitting here telling me everything is fine in a voice that sounds like you’re reading a police report. ”
I don’t say anything. On the TV, someone strikes out, and the bar groans.
Ollie lets the silence sit for a while. Then he finishes his beer and signals for the check.
“I’m not trying to push,” he says. “I just think you deserve more than fine. That’s all.”
“Noted.”
“And for what it’s worth? If the Instagram photo is any indication, she’s—”
“Ollie.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Goodnight.”
“She’s very attractive and you clearly—”
“Check, please.” I lift one hand toward the bartender.
He laughs.
It’s annoying though. Sydney has only been here for two days and the people around me are doing what they always do. Assume just because she’s a woman and I’m a man that we can’t possibly be just friends.
We settle up. He claps me on the shoulder on the way out and says, “Get some sleep, Arch. You look like hell.”
He’s gone before I can respond.
I sit in my car in the parking lot for a minute before I start the engine. The bar is dark behind me, the street is quiet, and I’m gripping the steering wheel with both hands, thinking about how she looked stretching in the doorframe.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. Sydney’s never been anything but just a friend, and now I can’t watch her stretch without needing to leave the room. I have no idea what to make of that.
I drive home. The house is dark. The twins are asleep. I can see the light under the guest room door, which means she’s still up, probably reading, probably in those sleep shorts, probably—
I go straight to my room. Close the door. Get into bed… and think about things I have no business thinking about.
Her leg on the doorframe. Her body folded in half. The paper airplane on her thigh that I’ve pretended for years I don’t think about.
I think about it.
I press my face into the pillow and try to sleep.