Page 31 of Knights Like These
Logan gets there first because he treats every social event like a race he needs to win. He’s in a blazer over a t-shirt, holding a bottle of bourbon.
“Lockwood.” He hands me the bottle, and then his eyes land on Sydney standing behind me in the hallway, and I watch his whole face rearrange.
I get it. I do. Sydney is wearing jeans and a black sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder, and her dark hair is down. Her earrings catch the light when she moves, and she’s got this body—the dancer’s body, compact and curved in places that don’t match how small she is. She’s five-two and built like she was engineered to make men forget what they were saying mid-sentence.
I’ve had fifteen years to get used to it. Logan has had about four seconds, and he’s already failing.
“And you must be Sydney,” he manages.
“That’s me.” She steps forward and shakes his hand, and I can see Logan register the same things I register every morning when she walks into the kitchen—the brown eyes, the full mouth, the collarbone visible above the neckline of the sweater, the way she stands with her weight on one hip like a girl who grew up at a ballet barre and never lost the posture.
The difference is that I’ve trained myself not to stare. Logan hasn’t.
“Archer has told us a lot about you,” he says, still holding her hand.
“Scary thought.”
“All good things. Mostly about how you’ve completely saved his life with the twins.”
“He’s exaggerating. I just make sure everyone wears pants and nobody flushes anything weird down the toilet.”
Logan laughs too hard at this, his eyes dropping to her mouth for a fraction of a second that I catch because I’m a goalie and I catch everything. I take the bourbon to the kitchen before I say something I can’t take back.
Zayden and Tori arrive next. Tori comes through the door, and I hug her before she turns to Sydney and puts both hands out.
“I’m Tori. I’ve been dying to meet you. Zayden talks about Archer’s mystery roommate all the time, and I told him I needed to see for myself who was brave enough to take on those twins.”
Sydney laughs and takes her hands, and within thirty seconds, they’re in the kitchen together, with Tori asking about the senior center and Sydney telling her about Dolores. It’s like they’ve known each other for months instead of minutes. Tori does that—she walks into a room and collects people, draws them in, makes them feel seen. I’ve watched her do it with Zayden, with Maisie, with every person she meets.
Zayden claps me on the shoulder and looks around the house.
“Place looks good,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“You look better too.”
“Uh, thanks,” I manage.
Banks and Winnie show up last. Banks gives me the nod that counts as a full emotional exchange between us—chin up, slight eye contact, we’re good—and Winnie walks straight to Sydney and hugs her like they’ve been friends for years.
The food arrives in aluminum trays from an Italian place Zayden recommended—lasagna, garlic bread, caprese salad, and a roasted vegetable spread that Sydney arranged on a platter because the catering trays “looked sad.” Her words. She reorganized my catered dinner in twelve minutes and made it look like a magazine spread, and I stood at the counter watchingher do it, trying to remember a time when this kitchen felt this alive.
I couldn’t.
We eat in the dining room, which I haven’t used since Bree left. Seven place settings, some candles Sydney found in a drawer, and cloth napkins that she folded into some shape I don’t have a name for because I’m a man who uses paper towels.
Logan sits across from Sydney and immediately launches into his campaign. “So, Sydney. Winnie tells me you’re a dancer.”
“Was a dancer. Now I teach hip-hop to senior citizens.”
“That’s incredible. I love that. What kind of music do you use?”
“All kinds of things. Missy Elliott. Some Snoop. 50 Cent when Dolores is feeling adventurous.”
“Who’s Dolores?”
“She’s seventy-six, has two titanium hips, and better rhythm than anyone at this table.”
