She’s watching. I can feel it. The tension. Bree is watching Sydney move through this house with the ease of someone who lives here because she does live here, and the twins orbit her without thinking about it, and Bree sees all of it.
During the first two years of our marriage, Bree asked about Sydney constantly. Are you sure there’s nothing there? Why does she call so late? Does she have to come to every holiday? And I wasn’t lying to her. I need that to be clear—I never lied to Bree about Sydney. I never crossed a line, never came close, never even let myself think about it. Sydney was my best friend, full stop, and I meant that with every part of me when I said it.
I just don’t know if I mean it anymore.
The team trickles in throughout the afternoon with wrapped gifts for each twin. Zayden and Tori are first, carrying bags so big Tori can barely see over hers. Banks and Winnie arrive next, and Banks immediately finds a corner of the living room to stand in because that’s what Banks does at social events. Logan shows up in something that could pass for business casual, grinning, carrying two wrapped boxes and heading straight for the kitchen where Sydney is setting out food.
I clock him from across the room but choose not to address it because it’s my children’s fourth birthday, and I’m not going to start something over a twenty-three-year-old handing out paper plates.
Ollie brings a six-pack and a card that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TINY HUMANS on the front. He finds me in the backyard and hands me a beer, and we stand there watching the yard fill up with teammates and noise.
“Good party,” he says.
“Yeah. It came together.”
He watches Sydney through the kitchen window for a second, laughing at something Winnie said while she arranges cupcakes. He takes a sip of his beer and doesn’t say anything else.
The party goes well. The kids eat cake and run around the backyard, and Luke opens his gifts methodically while Lily tears into hers with the enthusiasm of someone defusing a bomb. There’s music, and Tori offers to take photos. Logan teaches a group of four-year-olds a hockey cheer that involves stomping. I drink my beer and watch my kids turn four and try not to think about the way Bree’s eyes keep drifting toward Sydney.
Half an hour later, I’m coming out of the bathroom, and Bree is leaning against the wall, arms crossed. She’s been waiting for me. I can tell by the set of her jaw that whatever she’s about to say has been building since she walked through the door.
“She’s comfortable here,” she says.
I don’t pretend not to know who she means. “She’s been here for a while, Bree. She’s helping with the kids.”
“The twins run to her for everything. She knows where everything in that kitchen is.” She’s not angry—that’s the thing. There’s no venom in her voice. She sounds tired, certain, and done pretending. “I saw the way you looked at her at our wedding, Archer.”
The hallway goes quiet.
“I did,” she says. “You were standing at the altar, and she was reading that poem, and you looked at her, and your face did something you never let it do around me. Not once in six years of marriage.” She pauses. “And now she’s living in your house.Reminding your children to make birthday wishes. Sleeping twenty feet from your bedroom.”
“Bree—”
“I’m not angry. I was angry for about two years, actually, and then I realized you didn’t even know you were doing it. You genuinely had no idea, and somehow that was worse.” She straightens up from the wall. “I just needed to say it out loud. To you. Because I spent our entire marriage wondering if I was imagining it, if I was crazy, and I wasn’t.”
She walks past me back toward the party. Her shoulder brushes mine, and she doesn’t look back.
I stand in the hallway, and then I hear it behind me—a small, sharp intake of breath—and I turn around.
Sydney is at the end of the hall by the guest room door. Her face is white, and her hands are at her sides, and she heard it. All of it or enough of it. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is slightly open, and she’s looking at me like the floor just disappeared from under her feet.
“Syd.”
She shakes her head once and walks past me toward the kitchen, and I let her go because the party is still happening, and there are people in my backyard, and my children are turning four, and I cannot do this right now.
Sometime later, the party winds down. People leave in waves—Tori hugs Sydney at the door and whispers something that makes Sydney nod. Winnie squeezes her hand on the way out. Ollie claps my shoulder and says, “Call me later,” in a voice that means he knows something went wrong.
Perfect.
Bree takes the twins for the night—she’s got them this weekend anyway, and the timing works. She buckles them into her car, and Lily waves from the car seat, and Luke gives me athumbs-up, and I close the front door, and the house goes empty and quiet.
I can hear Sydney in the kitchen, cleaning up.
She’s at the sink with the water running, her back to me, scrubbing a bowl with a focus that tells me she’s not thinking about the bowl. The cupcake trays are stacked on the counter, and the leftover cake is covered in foil, and the kitchen is half-clean, and she hasn’t looked at me since the hallway.
“Syd.”
“Don’t.” She doesn’t turn around.
