Page 45 of Knights Like These
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.
