Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Meet Up
Sydney
I text Bree on a Tuesday morning, which is either the bravest or the dumbest thing I’ve done since moving to New York—and the bar for both is pretty high.
Me: Can I buy you lunch this week? Just us. I think we should talk.
She doesn’t respond for three hours. I check my phone fourteen times during hip-hop class, which Dolores notices and comments on, while Gerald asks if I’m expecting a call from the president. I tell him no, and he says, “Good, because the president doesn’t dance,” before returning to his routine.
My phone buzzes during cool-down.
Bree: Thursday works. We can meet for coffee. Ten-thirty. There’s a café on Smith Street called Linden. I’ll be there.
It’s not overly friendly. There’s no emoji. No exclamation point. No “Sounds great!” Just the facts, delivered like a woman who has agreed to a meeting she doesn’t want but knows she needs.
I spend Wednesday night lying in Archer’s bed with my head on his chest, running my fingers along his forearm, tracing the paper airplane tattoo while he watches hockey highlights on his phone.
We’ve been sleeping in his room for almost a week now, and we haven’t had sex yet.
We’ve done other things—things that make my face hot in grocery stores when I think about them—but we’re taking it slow on the rest, which sounds mature and responsible, but is actually killing both of us.
I can feel how much he wants to every time his hands stop at my hips or he pulls back from a kiss, breathing hard with his forehead against mine.
But we’re still so new at this, still figuring out what we are, and neither of us wants to rush the one thing we can’t undo.
“I’m having coffee with Bree tomorrow,” I say.
His phone lowers. “You’re what?”
“I texted her. I asked if we could talk. She said yes.”
He’s quiet for a second, his hand resting on my hip. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No. But I think I need to do it.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m honestly not sure yet. I just—I owe her a conversation. Woman to woman. Without you in the middle of it.”
He puts his phone on the nightstand and pulls me closer, his chin resting on top of my head. “She might not be nice about it, Syd.”
“She has every right not to be.”
“I know. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I can handle Bree.”
“I know you can. I’m still going to worry about it.”
I tilt my face up and kiss the underside of his jaw.
Rub my cheek along the scratch of his stubble.
He makes a low sound, and his arm tightens around me.
I think about how different this is from a month ago.
A month ago, I was in the guest room, staring at the ceiling.
Now I’m in his bed, his arm around my waist, his mouth in my hair, and his heartbeat under my ear.
Last night, his hands were on my thighs, his mouth on my stomach, and the sounds he made when I touched him still echo in the back of my mind every time I close my eyes.
I need to focus. I have a coffee date to survive.
Linden is a small café with white walls and plants in the windows, featuring a menu with six-dollar oat milk and everything served in a bowl. Bree is already there when I arrive, sitting at a table by the wall, her coat draped over the chair and a coffee in front of her.
She looks good. She always looks good—put together, polished; the kind of woman who makes you feel underdressed no matter what you’re wearing.
She looks like the kind of woman who marries a professional athlete.
Her hair is blown out, she’s in a cream sweater, and she wears gold earrings.
This is the woman Archer chose when he could have chosen me.
And now I’m about to sit across from her and apologize for being the reason he probably shouldn’t have.
I’m in leggings, a cropped hoodie, and bright pink tennis shoes because I came straight from the senior center. I’m also a little sweaty.
I smooth my hoodie, which accomplishes nothing, and walk to the table.
When she sees me, her face adopts a controlled and careful expression that I recognize because I’ve been doing the same thing for months.
“Hi,” I say, sitting down.
“Hi.”
We look at each other across a small table, and I realize I have no idea how to start this conversation.
I rehearsed my words in the shower this morning and in the car on the way here.
Now, sitting across from the woman whose marriage ended partly because of the way her husband looked at me, every version I practiced sounds hollow. Inadequate.
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
“You said you wanted to talk.” She wraps her hands around her coffee. “So talk.”
I order a latte from the waiter, wait until he leaves, and then take a breath. “I think I owe you an apology.”
Bree’s expression doesn’t change. She watches me the way she always has—carefully, with that measuring quality that used to make me nervous during holidays and now makes me nervous for entirely different reasons.
“I didn’t know,” I say. “That’s not an excuse, and I know it doesn’t make things better.
But I need you to understand that I didn’t know how Archer felt.
I didn’t recognize the look on his face at the wedding.
I didn’t know any of it. Never saw any signs.
” My throat tightens. “But I knew what I felt. And I stuffed it down, buried it. I stood at your wedding, held your babies, kept showing up in your life, and told myself I was just being a good friend. That’s what I kept telling myself. ”
“And were you?” Bree asks, her tone neutral, simply seeking an answer.
“I was trying to be. I never crossed a line, Bree. I need you to believe that. I never made a move on your husband, never mentioned my feelings to him, never made a flirty comment, never tried to come between you. I never would have. But—” I press my hands flat on the table.
“I’m sorry. For whatever that’s worth, I truly am. ”
The waiter brings my latte. I wrap my hands around it and stare at the foam.
Bree is silent now, long enough for the café noise to fill the space between us—conversations, the espresso machine, a spoon clinking against a cup.
“I believe you,” she finally says.
I look up.
“I believe you didn’t know about him. And I believe you didn’t cross a line.
” She takes a sip of her coffee. “But I knew, Sydney. I knew from the beginning. The first time I met you—do you remember? That barbecue at his parents’ house the summer after we started dating?
You walked into the backyard, and he lit up.
His whole face changed. I was standing right next to him, and I thought, oh. ”
Bree takes another sip and meets my eyes. “I remember thinking, God, I wish she weren’t so pretty. I could have handled it if you were just his funny friend, or his smart friend, or his friend who lived far away. But you walked in looking like that, and I thought, uh oh. I’m in trouble.”
My chest aches. “Bree—”
“I spent six years watching my husband love me the best he could, yet never quite look at me the way he looked at you when you entered a room. It wasn’t your fault.
It wasn’t even his fault, really. I don’t think he knew he was doing it.
That’s what made it so hard—he genuinely didn’t see it.
I’d ask him about you, and he’d look at me like I was crazy.
I could tell he meant it; he really believed you were just his friend. ”
I nod. “He did. For a long time, he really did.”
“I know.” She sets her coffee down. “And that’s almost worse than if he’d been lying about it. Because at least if he’d been lying, I could have been angry at him. Instead, I was angry at something neither of you could control, and that’s, uh — that’s a lonely place to be.”
I don’t know what to say. I sit across from this woman who loved the same man I did and lost him in a way I can’t imagine — not to drama, not to betrayal, but to something quieter.
To the slow realization that your husband’s heart had a room in it you couldn’t access, and someone else already lived there.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, because there’s nothing else.
“I know you are.” She leans back in her chair. “And I’m not going to pretend this is easy for me. Watching Lily come home talking about Syd and Daddy’s date and how Logan made her popcorn—that was hard. That was really hard. Because she’s excited about it, and it’s just hard.”
I want to reach across the table. I don’t, because I’m not sure she’d want me to. “You’re a good mom, Bree. A great mom. The kids adore you.”
“I know they do. And I know that you being in their lives doesn’t take anything away from me. Logically, I know that.” She glances at me. “But logic and feelings don’t always cooperate.”
“No. They really don’t.”
We sit in silence. The café hums. My latte grows cold, and I don’t care.
“How is he?” she asks, and the question surprises me.
“He’s, uh—he’s good. Really good, actually.”
“Good.” She nods, and I can see she means it, even though it costs her something.
“He was never going to be good with me. I think I knew that before I even married him, but I thought I could be enough.” She picks up her coffee.
“I wasn’t. And it took me a long time to understand that it wasn’t about me not being enough. It was about you already being there.”
“Bree, I—”
“Let me finish.” She holds up one hand. “I’m not saying this to hurt you.
I’m saying it because I’ve been in therapy for eight months working through it, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that you can’t compete with a love story that started when someone was fifteen.
You just can’t. And I spent six years trying, and it made me miserable, and leaving was the healthiest thing I’ve ever done. ”
“It was brave.”
“It was survival.” She finishes her coffee. “So here’s what I need from you, Sydney. Take care of my kids. Love them the way I know you already do. And if Archer does something stupid—because he will, because he’s Archer—call me. We’ll handle it together.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, wet and shaky, and she almost smiles.
“And the custody stuff?” I ask.
“My lawyer wants things formalized. This isn’t about punishing you or Archer; it’s about protecting the kids. Structure is beneficial for them, and frankly, it’s good for me too.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She picks up the check before I can reach for it. “I’ve got this.”
“Bree, I asked you to coffee. Let me—”
“You can get the next one.”
I look at her. “There’s going to be a next one?”
She stands and pulls on her coat. “I have to co-parent with you for the next fourteen years, Sydney. We might as well learn to like each other.”
She walks out. I sit at the table alone, staring at my cold latte, pressing my hands over my face and breathing deeply.
That was harder than anything I’ve ever done. Harder than asking Archer to be my first at seventeen. Harder than watching him get married. Harder than packing a suitcase and flying to New York with no plan.
I sat across from the woman whose husband I’ve loved for half my life, told her the truth, and she was kinder than I had any right to expect.
My phone buzzes.
Archer: How’d it go?
I stare at the screen, recalling her words: you can’t compete with a love story that started at fifteen. I think about the fact that she picked up the check and mentioned there’d be a next one; that might be the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me.
Me: She’s a good person, Arch.
Archer: I know she is.
Me: We’re going to be okay. All of us.
Archer: Yeah?
Me: Yeah.
I walk to the car, sit in the Lexus, and look at my hands on the steering wheel.
Last night, those hands were in Archer’s hair while he kissed down my stomach. Last night, I was in his bed, his mouth on my skin as he said my name like it was the only word he knew. And this morning, I sat across from his ex-wife and apologized for loving him.
This life I’m building—this messy, complicated, beautiful life that I didn’t plan and couldn’t have predicted—is starting to feel real. Not borrowed. Not temporary.
Mine. Lauren would probably be proud.
I start the car and drive home.