Chapter 10
PRESSURE (LEO)
My gym sits on a side street in Red Hook, tucked between a shuttered warehouse and a loading dock. It’s quiet this early, the neighborhood not quite awake yet.
Inside, it smells the same as it always has—bleach, leather, metal that’s been hit too many times to care.
I start with the rope. Slow, measured. The rhythm you fall into when you’re pacing yourself. Footwork along the taped lines on the concrete.
Last night still hasn’t let go of me. One kiss on the Met steps shouldn’t still be sitting this high under my skin. The way she looked at me after. The way her hand smoothed over my lapel like she had every right.
None of that belongs in a gym.
It shows up anyway.
Ray watches from the corner, arms folded, stopwatch idle. He lets me work.
“Recovery week,” he says eventually. I keep moving. “Cleared for movement. No torque. No contact.”
We go through it together. Adjustments called low and precise. Shorter steps. Don’t chase. Control the center. I listen. Correct. My breath stays even.
“You came in later than usual,” Ray says, casual.
I slow, let the rope still. “Driving someone.”
His eyes lift. Sharp without being curious. “Same girl?”
“Yeah.”
Same girl.
Nothing about her feels simple anymore. Not after watching a stranger light up at the sight of her. Not after hearing the kind of admiration people only use for someone who used to walk into a room and change it.
I knew she was fast. I knew she’d once been headed somewhere huge. I just hadn’t felt the weight of what it meant that the world had already seen her—and remembered.
“Just don’t rearrange your life around camp.”
“I won’t.”
That’s it. Conversation over. Lines drawn.
I go back to movement. Shadowboxing now. Every punch pulled short. Restraint sits in my shoulders like a live wire.
The door bangs open behind me.
“Ain’t this a cheerful little dungeon.” Finn’s voice carries before he appears. Hoodie, gym bag slung over one shoulder.
Ray doesn’t even turn around. He checks his watch, clicks the stopwatch, and nods once in Finn’s direction.
“Play spar. I see you loading up, you’re done.” Then he’s gone, disappearing into the office without another word. He trusts me to know the line.
Finn grins. “See? Even your coach likes me.”
“He tolerates you,” I correct. “That’s different.”
Finn drops his bag and rolls his shoulders. “Lord, so this is recovery, huh? You look like you’re fixin’ to die of boredom.”
I face him. “You here to move or talk?”
“Oh, I’m here to talk,” he says. “Movin’s optional.”
We square up anyway. Light. Hands only. He throws a lazy jab. I slip it without thinking, angle off, keep it light.
“You headin’ out East next weekend?” he asks. “Fourth of July’s already turning into a whole thing.”
“Depends,” I say.
He snorts. “That’s a yes.”
I step inside his space, stop short of contact. “You bringing the twins?”
His face softens immediately. “Jess says yes. I say God help us.” He feints. “They’ve started cryin’ in shifts.”
“Weaponized teamwork.”
“Exactly.” He backs up, grinning. “Nate’s got his place. Dmitri’s hosting too. Whole crew’s splitting up like a military operation.”
I don’t answer. Just move. Redirect. Keep it light.
“You good?” he asks lightly.
“Yeah.”
He watches me another second, gloves half off. “That’s not your face when you’re good.”
I don’t answer.
His mouth twitches. “Right. So it’s either career stuff or girl stuff.”
“Move or leave,” I say.
He laughs under his breath. “That’s girl stuff.”
My phone buzzes on the bench.
Finn clocks it. “You gonna get that, or should I keep embarrassin’ myself?”
I step back, grab the towel, wipe my hands. The screen lights up.
“Your wife.”
Finn’s already pulling his gloves off. “Go on,” he says. “Before she starts wonderin’ if I kicked you dead.”
I laugh once, then answer the phone.
“Okay,” she says without a preamble. “Here’s where we are.”
I lean back against the cinderblock wall, cool seeping through my shirt. The gym hums around me. Distant traffic. A radiator knocking somewhere behind the lockers.
“Media upgraded your relationship. They’re reporting ‘fiancée.’”
I can still feel the shape of her mouth from last night. Fiancée is not a word I should be able to connect to the taste of her mouth this fast.
“What’s Elliot saying?”
“He loves the optics.” No hesitation. “He thinks it humanizes you. Makes you look… settled.”
I huff once. “I am settled.”
“You know what I mean.”
She keeps going. “Two sponsors already asked if she’ll be at the next appearance. One of them wants a photo that’s less… nightlife. More domestic.”
The idea pulls tight inside me.
“They’re building a narrative,” I say.
“They’re reinforcing one,” Jessica corrects. “Subtle difference.”
There’s movement near the door. Finn slings his bag over his shoulder, gives me a look that says call me later.
“Does she know?” I ask.
“I’ll talk to her today,” Jessica says. “Her phone’s off. I assume she’s at work.”
“Good.”
A pause. Then, lighter, “Also, for the record, you two look good together.”
I don’t respond.
Not because she’s wrong. Because she isn’t.
That’s the problem.
“That silence?” she says. “That’s the tell. You’re already thinking about consequences.”
“I’m thinking about walking it back.”
Jessica exhales. “If you do it now, it looks like you used her. Or that something went wrong behind closed doors. That’s the version people will invent.”
“If I don’t?”
“Then it stabilizes. For everyone.”
Everyone. Not just me.
After the call ends, I stay there for a moment, phone in my hand, the gym suddenly too quiet.
The lie worked. Too well.
I stand, sling my bag over my shoulder, and head for the door. Outside, Red Hook air is thick with heat. Trucks idle at the corner. Somewhere down the block, metal clatters against metal.
When I step onto the sidewalk, Travis Drake is leaning against a parked sedan, arms crossed, watching the gym. The kind of handsome that comes from knowing his body can do damage—and liking that it can.
His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
I stop a few feet short of him. Close enough to register posture and balance. The way his weight favors one leg like he’s ready to move if he needs to.
“Carver,” he says, like we’re old buddies. We’re not.
“Drake.”
His smile widens. “I figured this was where you trained. Men like you always have a place like this.” His eyes move over the brick, the roll-up doors, the quiet block. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one asks questions.”
I glance past him, down the street. A delivery truck idling at the corner. A man unloading crates two buildings down. No one looking at us. No one obviously listening.
He chose the timing right.
“You waiting for someone,” I ask, “or just enjoying the neighborhood?”
He chuckles under his breath. “Funny.” Then his gaze hardens. “I’m waiting for my wife.”
I don’t react. If I touch him first, I lose. If I make him show himself, he loses. This isn’t the ring. Out here, the win is proof.
My calm irritates him. I see it in the tiny changes he can’t quite hide.
“Lillian,” he adds, like I need clarification. “You seem to have met her.”
“I know exactly who she is.” I can still taste her from last night, which makes hearing her name out of his mouth land even uglier.
His eyes move over me again. Slower this time. Measuring. Not my face—my shoulders, my stance, the way I’m planted.
“Yeah. She’s hard to miss. Always was.” He says it to get a reaction.
“You here to talk, or did you just come to hear yourself say her name?”
He pushes off the car, takes one step closer. Still outside my space, still careful.
“I’m here because I saw the coverage. And because two days ago, I watched my wife try to walk out of a bar on your arm.”
“She’s not married.”
“That’s not what our certificate says.”
I don’t bite.
“There’s no version of this,” I say evenly, “where this conversation goes where you want it to.”
“Oh, I think there is. You just don’t like the terms.”
I feel it then—the confidence. The calculation.
“You’ve got a lot riding on this,” he continues, gesturing vaguely. “Title. Sponsors. Image. You can’t afford the wrong kind of attention.”
I hold his gaze. “And you can?”
His smile returns. Smaller now. Meaner. “I’ve already lost what matters.”
That’s the truth of him. The dangerous part.
“This isn’t between us,” I say.
“It is now. Man-to-man.”
“There’s no man-to-man here. There’s a woman who left. And two men who need to respect that.”
His eyes darken. “She didn’t leave. She wandered.”
I step closer. “She chose. You don’t get to rewrite that.”
For a split second, I think he might swing.
Instead, he exhales slowly, like someone who’s confirmed what he came to confirm.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he says. “Men like you burn bright. The crowd loves you. Women love you.”
He steps back, opening the space himself.
“But don’t confuse attention with permanence,” he adds. “Lillian always comes back.”
I don’t answer.
He opens the driver’s door, pauses.
“Oh,” he says, glancing at me. “Tell her I’m not mad.”
The engine turns over. The sedan pulls away, disappearing down the block.
I stand there, the morning noise creeping back in. Forklifts. Engines. The city pretending nothing happened.
Pressure doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up where you’re weakest and starts pricing things out.
And right now, my weakest point has coconut in her hair and works the ER at Brooklyn Hospital.
Drake knows it too.