Chapter Six
Accidental Cuddle Sesh
Sydney
Archer has been home for two hours, and we’ve already argued about pizza toppings and whether Lily needs a bath tonight. She doesn’t think she does, and he’s not sure. I pointed out that she has yogurt in her hair, and that settled it, though Lily disagreed loudly from the hallway.
It’s Wednesday. I’ve been here five days.
I know where the grocery store is, which gas station is closest, that the Lexus drinks premium fuel, and that Luke needs extra cuddles before bedtime.
I know that Lily sings to herself in the bath and that Archer drinks his coffee standing at the kitchen window, watching the street like he’s expecting someone.
I don’t ask who.
The house is quiet now. The twins are down, the dishes are done, and we’ve settled on the couch—him on one end, me on the other, leaving a careful two feet of cushion between us.
He’s poured wine without asking, red from the built-in wine fridge, which is better than anything I’d ever buy for myself. The couch is deep and soft, one of those L-shaped sectionals you could disappear into. The TV is off, the house is still, and it’s just us.
“Can I ask you a question?” he says.
“Go ahead.”
He turns his wine glass in his hands. “The studio. You always talked about opening your own place someday. Is that still the plan?”
I take a sip. Then another. “I’m not sure.” I pull my feet up onto the couch and hug my knees. “The more I think about it, the more I realize that running a studio would take me further from the part I actually love. I’d be dealing with payroll, leases, and scheduling.”
“And the part you love is dance?”
I nod. “I saw what my boss dealt with—the staffing, the politics, the mom who threatened to leave a one-star review over something that was nonsense.” I shake my head.
“Meanwhile, I’m in the studio with these kids who just want to dance, and I’m thinking, this part is incredible.
This is the only part that matters. Everything around it is slowly killing my love for it. ”
“So opening your own place would be more of that.”
“Times ten. I’d be running a business. I wouldn’t be dancing or even really teaching much. I’d be managing.” I stare at my wine.
He’s quiet. Archer quiet, which means he’s listening hard and thinking harder. “When did you figure this out?” he asks.
“I think I’ve known for a while. I just didn’t want to admit it because the studio was the plan.
It was the whole plan. Open my own place, build a program, teach on my own terms. I’ve been telling people that’s what I wanted since I was twenty-two.
” I look at him. “It’s hard to let go of a dream you’ve been carrying that long, even when you realize it’s not the right one anymore. ”
“Yeah.” He says it like he knows what that feels like. “Yeah, it is.”
“So when you called, and you needed help, I just—” I wave my hand. “It was easy to walk away. Probably too easy. Lauren thinks I used you as an excuse to quit.”
“Did you?”
“Maybe a little. But I also, uh—” I swallow. “I wanted to be here. For you. For the twins.”
He holds my gaze for a beat. “I’m glad you are.
” He’s quiet for a second, then he leans his head back against the couch.
“Some days, I stand in the crease, the puck drops, and I’m locked in.
I’m reading everything, I’m reacting, I’m doing the thing I’ve done since I was six years old.
And it still works. The body still knows.
” He pauses. “But then I drive home after a game, the twins are asleep, and I’m standing in the kitchen at midnight, eating cold pasta out of a container, and I think—is this it? Hockey and pasta and silence?”
“Arch.”
“I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I am. I have two healthy kids and a house with a wine fridge.” He almost smiles. “But I thought by now I’d have figured out the rest. The part that isn’t hockey. And I haven’t.”
“So we’re both a mess,” I say.
“We’re both a mess,” he agrees.
“A matching set.”
“Paper airplanes and everything.”
I laugh, and he turns his head to look at me, still leaned back against the cushion. I can see the stubble on his jaw, the tired lines around his eyes, and the scar from the puck he took sophomore year. His eyes are gray and warm, looking right at me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says again, and this time it sounds different than when he said it the other morning in the kitchen. Less formal. Less grateful. More like a confession.
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it in ways I can’t let myself examine.
We drink our wine. He tells me about a plumber he had to call last week because Lily flushed a sock down the toilet—not accidentally, but deliberately, because she wanted to see if it would fit.
It did. Then it didn’t. The plumber charged three hundred dollars, and Lily asked him if he wanted to stay for lunch.
I tell him about Lauren’s latest dating disaster—a guy who brought his mother to a third date, and the mother ordered for both of them.
“She ordered for him?”
“Appetizer, entrée, and dessert. And then she asked Lauren what her five-year plan was.”
“On the third date?”
“On the third date.”
He shakes his head, laughing, and I’m laughing too. Our knees are closer than they were ten minutes ago, and I didn’t notice when that happened.
He’s telling me about a prank Ollie pulled at training camp last year—something involving a water bottle, a locker room, and an industrial fan—and I’m laughing, the wine warming my blood, his voice low and steady, and I realize I’m getting sleepy.
My head gets heavy. My eyes get heavy. His shoulder is right there—solid, warm, reliable, the same shoulder I’ve leaned on since I was fifteen.
I close my eyes for one second.
I wake up, and the first thing I’m aware of is that I’m warm. Really warm. Something is solid under my cheek, and my hand is resting on fabric that isn’t a pillow and isn’t a blanket and—
Oh.
Oh no.
My head is on Archer’s shoulder. My body is curled toward him, my right side pressed against his left, and my hand—my hand is on his thigh. My palm flat against his quad, fingers curled slightly into the fabric of his sweatpants, as if I reached for him in my sleep and held on.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I keep my eyes half-closed and try to assess the situation without alerting him to the fact that I’m awake.
He’s still. Completely, unnervingly still. His head is leaned back against the couch, his right arm is along the back of the cushion behind me—not touching me, but close, inches from my shoulder—and his left hand is resting on his own knee. He’s not moving. He’s barely breathing.
The TV is off. The wine glasses are on the coffee table, both empty.
The house is dark except for the light over the stove in the kitchen, which he always leaves on.
I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve been asleep, but judging by the stiffness in his neck and the careful way he’s holding himself, it’s been a while.
I pull away. Slowly. I peel my hand off his thigh, sit up, and blink as if I’m just waking up, which I am.
“Sorry,” I say. My voice is rough with sleep. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re fine.” His voice is rougher. Lower. Like he’s been sitting in silence for forty-five minutes and his throat has forgotten how to work.
“How long was I out?”
“A while.”
“You should have woken me up.”
“I didn’t mind.”
I look at him. He’s studying the coffee table. His jaw is tight, his hands are on his knees now, and he’s sitting very straight.
“Arch.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He stands, picks up the wine glasses, and takes them to the kitchen. I hear the water run, hear the clink of glass against the sink, and I sit on the couch with my hand still tingling where it pressed against his thigh, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Goodnight, Syd,” he calls from the kitchen.
“Night.”
I hear his footsteps on the stairs and his bedroom door closing.
I go to the guest room, close the door, and call Lauren.
She picks up on the second ring, her voice groggy. “Someone better be dead.”
“I fell asleep on his shoulder.”
Silence. Sheets rustling. She’s sitting up. “Go on.”
“We were on the couch, drinking wine, talking. I fell asleep, and my head was on his shoulder, and my hand was on his—” I press my face into the pillow. “His thigh.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. A while. Like twenty minutes, maybe?”
“And he just sat there?”
“He just sat there. He didn’t move. He didn’t wake me up. He just sat there.”
Lauren is quiet long enough that I pull the phone away to check if the call dropped.
“Lauren.”
“I’m here. I’m just—” Another pause. “Syd, a man who sits perfectly still for twenty minutes because he doesn’t want to wake you up is not a man who thinks of you as a friend.”
“He was being polite.”
“Polite is waking you up and saying ‘hey, you fell asleep.’ Polite is not letting a woman drool on your shoulder without moving a muscle.”
“I wasn’t drooling. And this is not helpful.”
“It’s the most helpful thing I’ve said in weeks. He sat there, still and unmoving so you could sleep on him. That’s not friendship. That’s a man who’d rather lose feeling in his entire left side than risk you pulling away.”
I press my face deeper into the pillow. “Goodnight, Lauren.”
“You know I’m right.”
“Goodnight.”
“Call me tomorrow. I want a full report on the situation.”
I hang up and lie there in the dark, phone against my chest, staring at the ceiling fan going in slow circles above me.
I can still feel his shoulder under my cheek. The warmth of it, the cotton of his t-shirt, the way he smelled—like body wash and laundry soap. I can still feel his thigh under my palm, the muscle and the warmth and the way he didn’t flinch, didn’t shift, didn’t do anything to try to wake me.
It didn’t mean anything. Except Lauren thought maybe it did.
And the problem is, Lauren is always right. The thought I keep trying to bury keeps clawing its way back up: he stayed still because he wanted me there. He sat in the dark holding his breath because my hand was on his leg and he didn’t want me to take it back.
I roll onto my side, pull the blanket up, and close my eyes.
I’m going to overthink this. Analyze it to death most likely.
Fantastic.