I walk out of Pat’s office holding the paper and sit in the Lexus in the parking lot for the second time today, reading it again. Twenty hours. Benefits. Room to build something.
Mine. Not Archer’s. Not dependent on whether we work out or whether Bree’s lawyers redraw the custody agreement or whether I’m still living in his guest room—six months from now. A job with my name on it, in a city I chose, doing work I love.
Lauren’s question echoes in my head:If you and Archer broke up tomorrow, would you stay in New York?
I look at the job description one more time.
Yeah. I think I would.
I pull out my phone and call Lauren back.
“I got offered a job.”
“What?”
“At the senior center. As a part-time activities coordinator. Benefits, steady hours, I can build the whole dance program from scratch.”
“Syd.” Her voice breaks a little. “That’s amazing. Are you going to take it?”
I look at the community center through the windshield—the brick building with the fluorescent lights, the scuffed floors, andthe room where twelve seniors show up twice a week to learn hip-hop from a woman who thought she’d lost her way.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I might.”
“Good. Because that’s the answer, Syd. To the question I asked you this morning. If you take that job, you’re not borrowing his life anymore. You’re building your own. And then being with Archer is a choice, not a default.”
I sit in the car for another minute after we hang up. Then I drive home—to Archer’s house, which is starting to feel like mine too, but in a different way now. Not because I sleep there or because his kids call me Auntie Syd or because his sweatshirt is in my closet.
Because I’m choosing to be here. And starting tomorrow, I’ll have a reason to stay that has nothing to do with him.
That changes everything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Hot Tub
Archer
For once, the twins go down easy, which feels like a sign from the universe that Sydney and I deserve one good night without a crisis.
Luke falls asleep mid-sentence about whale migration patterns, his mouth still forming the word “humpback” when his eyes close. Lily negotiates for two stories, settles for one and a half, and passes out with Jeffrey wedged under her chin and one arm dangling off the bed.
I come downstairs to find Sydney standing at the back door, looking out at the patio.
“When’s the last time you used the hot tub?” she asks.
I think about it. “Maybe, uh—last winter? Before Bree moved out. Not sure.”
“That’s criminal, Archer. You have a hot tub, and you don’t use it.”
“I have a lot of things I don’t use.”
“Well, I’m using it. I turned the heater on earlier.” She’s already heading upstairs. “Give me five minutes.”
She comes back down in a bikini with one of my hoodies zipped over it. I’m standing in the kitchen holding two glasses of wine, feeling like a man who has completely lost control of hisevening, which I have. The bikini is black and simple, and it’s doing things to my brain that I need to get a handle on before we get in the water.
I change into swim trunks and meet her outside. The night is cold—November in New York, the kind of cold that bites—but the water is hot and steaming. She’s already in it, hair up, shoulders just above the waterline. She takes the wine glass from my hand, takes a sip, and leans her head back against the edge.
“This is obscene,” she says. “You’ve been sitting on this the whole time.”
