Page 88 of Knights Like These
“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 mystomach, 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.
