Chapter Fifteen
The Confession
Archer
The Knights Charity Gala is a suit-and-tie event at a downtown hotel, which means I’m wearing one of my usual game day suits, and Sydney is in a dress I haven’t seen before.
It’s dark green, simple, and stops above her knees. The neckline is just low enough that when she came downstairs, I had to look at my phone because if I kept staring at her collarbone, I was going to walk into the wall.
“You look nice,” I said, which is what you say to your best friend when she walks down the stairs and your brain short-circuits. Nice. Like she’s a lamp. Or a new throw pillow.
The gala is in Midtown, and the team has several tables near the front.
Coaches and staff at one, players and their plus-ones at the others.
Sydney is my plus-one, which she pointed out is a logistical decision and not a romantic one.
I agreed because it was easier than explaining that I couldn’t imagine bringing anyone else.
Winnie and Banks are already at the table when we sit down. Tori and Zayden arrive a few minutes later. Logan shows up in a suit that fits too well and immediately starts working the room like he’s running for office.
Sydney settles into the chair next to Winnie, and within ten minutes, they’ve got their own conversation going—heads close, wine glasses in hand, laughing about something I can’t hear.
I watch them for a second and then force myself to turn to Zayden, who’s telling me about a new physical therapist the team brought in.
The dinner is fine: speeches, auction items, the usual.
I bid on a signed jersey package because I’m supposed to, and Banks bids on a wine tasting experience because Winnie elbows him until he does.
The food is standard hotel banquet fare, and the wine keeps flowing.
Sydney is on her third glass by the time they clear the entrée plates.
I know this because she announces it, probably louder than she means to, to Winnie.
Her cheeks are slightly flushed, and she leans into Winnie a little, her guard coming down in increments. The careful, private version of Sydney gives way to the warm, honest one underneath.
I excuse myself to use the restroom after dessert. The hallway outside the ballroom is quieter—muffled music, carpet that swallows footsteps. I’m heading back when I hear her voice.
She’s around the corner near the bar area. Not far. I can hear her clearly, and I can hear Winnie too. I should keep walking because this is obviously a private conversation, and I have no business listening to it.
“Fifteen years is a long time, Syd.”
“I know.”
“And there was never—?”
I stop.
Sydney is quiet for a second. I press my back against the wall, and I know I should leave. Every decent part of me is saying walk away; this isn’t for you. She’s talking to her friend in confidence, and I have no right to hear this.
I don’t move.
“He was my first,” Sydney says.
The hallway tilts.
“I was seventeen. I, uh—” She laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. It’s the sound she makes when she’s trying to keep something from hurting. “I asked him. I literally asked him to be my first. And he said no at first, and then two days later he showed up at my house and said okay, and we—yeah.”
“Syd.”
“And I thought—I really thought it would change things. I thought afterward he’d look at me differently. Like he’d finally see what I’d been feeling, you know? Because I’d been in love with him for two years at that point, and I thought if we just—if we crossed that line—he’d feel it too.”
“And he didn’t?”
Sydney makes a small noise of disagreement. “No, we just kept right on being friends.”
A sharp jolt stabs through my chest. It feels like a bone breaking. That’s not what happened, that’s not what happened at all.
“Still, I always thought we’d probably end up together,” she says, her voice smaller now.
Honest in the way people are only honest when they’ve had enough wine to stop editing.
“I spent years thinking that. And then he met Bree, and I stood at their wedding and smiled, and I held his babies, and I moved on. I moved on because I had to.”
“Did you? Move on?”
The silence is long enough that I hear the ice settle in someone’s glass at the bar.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Sydney says. “Living in his house. Taking care of his kids. Playing Go Fish and cleaning up his mess. So.” She pauses. “You tell me.”
I hear Winnie say something soft that I can’t make out, and then they’re moving, their heels clicking on the tile, heading back toward the ballroom. I stand in that hallway with my back against the wall, my hands at my sides, and I can’t move.
He was my first.
I always thought we’d probably end up together.
I go back to the table and sit down. Banks asks me something about the upcoming road trip, and I answer him, but I have no idea what I say because every word that comes out of my mouth is automated.
The rest of me is still standing in that hallway, hearing Sydney’s voice say I thought he’d feel it too and wondering how I spent fifteen years missing something this big.
The Uber ride home is quiet. Sydney is in the back seat next to me, and the wine has caught up with her. She’s past the warm, honest phase and into the drowsy, heavy-limbed phase, leaning against my arm.
Her head settles against my bicep. Her hand lands on my knee. Not gripping, just resting there, her fingers light against the fabric of my suit pants, and I can feel the warmth of her palm through the material.
The city moves past the windows. Lights, intersections, the late-night pulse of Manhattan thinning out as we cross into Brooklyn. The driver has the radio on low, a jazz station, and Sydney’s breathing slows against my arm.
I can’t help but think about what she told Winnie tonight.
I had no idea she viewed our hookup as significant.
It happened, and then it was never mentioned again.
I was eighteen and terrified of what I felt and didn’t know how to say it.
So, I said nothing. The nothing became everything, and here we are.
I don’t move. I let her sleep against me. The Uber takes a long route through Brooklyn, and I don’t care because every extra minute is a minute where she’s leaning on me, and I don’t have to face whatever mess I’ve made.
We pull up to the house. I pay the driver, and then I’m at Sydney’s door, opening it, and she blinks awake.
“We’re home,” I say.
“Mm.” She tries to stand, and her heel catches on the curb. I catch her arm, and she leans into me, her face against my chest, and laughs. “Sorry. I’m a little drunk.”
“I know.”
“Just a little.”
“It’s okay, Syd.”
I walk her inside. She’s leaning on me, her arm looped through mine. I get her upstairs and into the guest room. She sits on the edge of the bed and looks up at me with glassy, wine-dark eyes.
“I had fun tonight,” she says.
“Good.”
“Winnie’s great.”
“She is.”
“I told her—” She stops. Her face shifts, a flicker of something — caution, maybe, even through the wine. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t remember.” She waves one hand and then reaches behind her back, fumbling. “Can you, uh — I need to take my bra off. I can’t sleep in this bra.”
“Syd.”
“I’m not asking you to undress me, Archer. I just can’t reach the clasp, and my arms don’t work right now.” She turns around and pulls her hair over one shoulder. “It’s under the dress. Just unhook it, and I’ll do the rest.”
I stand there for a second. Then I step forward.
My hands find the clasp through the fabric of her dress. I can feel the warmth of her back through the material, and my fingers are steady because I am a grown man, and this is a mechanical task. I am not going to make it into something it isn’t.
I unhook it. Two small hooks. My knuckles brush her spine through the dress, and she shivers—just once, quick—and I step back.
She reaches up one sleeve, does something I can’t see, and pulls the bra strap down her shoulder and out through the armhole of her dress. Then the other side. She drops the bra on the floor, lies back on the bed, and exhales like she just finished a marathon.
“Thank you,” she mumbles.
“You need water?”
“Mm-mm.”
“I’m going to get you water.”
I go to the kitchen, fill a glass, and bring it back. She’s already half-asleep, curled on her side, still in the green dress, still on top of the covers. I set the water on the nightstand, pull the blanket from the foot of the bed, and cover her.
My hand hovers near her face. Her hair is across her cheek, dark against the white pillowcase, and I want to push it back. I want to touch her face. I want to trace the line of her jaw. Instead, I pull my hand back. She’s drunk and asleep and didn’t mean for me to hear any of that.
I close her door. I go to my room and sit on the edge of my bed in my suit, pressing my hands against my face.
The ground I’ve been standing on for fifteen years doesn’t feel solid anymore.
It hasn’t felt solid since she got here, if I’m being honest.
I’m just finally running out of ways to pretend it does.