Chapter 13
THE RING WEARS IN (LIZ)
The ring sits on my finger like it belongs there.
Yesterday Leo slid it on with steady hands and a face blank enough to pass for calm. My body has been inconveniently loyal to that moment ever since.
I could take it off. Slip it into my pocket. I’m going to work, not a photo shoot.
But taking it off feels wrong.
I don’t know when that shifted.
He pulls up to the ER entrance like always. I point across the street.
“I’m grabbing coffee first.”
“Hold on.” He parks and we get out.
I huff. “You know I can buy coffee without supervision, right?”
“Or,” he says mildly, holding out his hand, “maybe I just like spending time with you, Flash.”
I roll my eyes and take his hand.
The coffee shop is packed. Leo hangs back while I order—large iced coffee with oat milk for me, black for him.
The barista’s eyes catch on my hand as I reach for my wallet. Her smile softens.
“Congratulations.” She draws hearts on both cups.
Deeply unnecessary.
When I turn, he checks my hand first. Not my face. Long enough to show he caught it too. He doesn’t comment.
Outside, the heat is already climbing, thick and impatient. We cross back toward the hospital, my coffee sweating through the sleeve.
He stops beside his car. “See you at five, Flash.”
“You’re not my handler, Brooklyn.”
“Good. I’d be terrible at it.”
I shake my head and go inside, glancing back once.
He’s still there. Waiting until I disappear.
Like it’s his job now.
I make it halfway through triage before Marco catches my wrist, firm enough to stop me beside the desk while a monitor chirps somewhere down the hall.
He clocks the ring before I can angle my hand away.
“Well,” he drawls. “That answers that.”
I pull my chart closer against my chest. “Answers what?”
Marco gives me a look. “Whether the internet finally got something right.”
Great. Now I’m blushing.
“You read page six now?”
“Please. My sister does.” He lets go of my wrist and leans a hip against the counter. “Also, a six-foot-something hottie in a black Rover keeps dropping you at the curb like clockwork. We’re an ER, Liz. Pattern recognition is kind of our thing.”
“It’s not—”
Not what?
Fake? Temporary? Damage control?
None of those words feel usable with the ring on my hand.
Marco’s expression changes, less teasing now. “Hey. You don’t have to give me the press release.”
The band sits there—thin, pale, exactly where Leo put it.
“Good. Because I don’t have one.”
He chuckles, straightening. “For what it’s worth, the guy looks at you like he means it.”
“Marco—”
“I’m going back to work.” He waves me off, walking away. “Congratulations, or not. I’ll let you pick later.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me with my chart, my coffee, and the insistent drag of the ring against my skin.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Unknown number. Louisiana area code.
I stare at it until it stops.
No voicemail. No text. Just the number sitting in my recent calls like a stone dropped into still water.
I should tell Leo. I know I should tell Leo.
I lock the screen and go back to work.
By the time we reach Park Slope that evening, the heat has softened into a slower kind of pressure.
Leo parks a few doors down from a brownstone—deep stoop, tall windows, brick darkened by decades. Old Brooklyn money that doesn’t announce itself.
I knew Eden’s family was comfortable. I knew they’d lived in Park Slope before stroller convoys and celebrity restaurants took over.
I just didn’t realize they came from this version of it.
The door opens before we knock.
His mother stands there with reading glasses pushed into her hair and a book in one hand. Linen pants. Soft sweater. The kind of understated that costs more than it seems.
Her gaze catches on my hand and then comes back to my face.
“Liz.” She smiles, like we’ve already met. “Come in.” She takes my elbow and steers me inside.
The house smells of bread. Books line the hallway. Not arranged. Just there. Used.
His father appears from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel—silver hair, broad shoulders, a calm blue-eyed focus that makes you feel seen without being handled. This is Leo’s future. Same bones. Same steadiness. Just time-softened.
He greets Leo first with a quick embrace and a hand to his shoulder. Then he turns to me.
“Welcome. We’ve been hearing about you.”
“All good things, I hope.”
“He doesn’t talk much. Which tells us plenty.” His father laughs.
Leo doesn’t argue.
Someone takes my bag. Water appears in my hand. His mother adjusts my sleeve as she passes, smoothing fabric.
Twenty minutes later, the front door opens behind us. Voices are drifting in from the stoop, too many, too coordinated, and the house shifts.
The first woman enters, moving with quiet, contained efficiency, her sharp gaze sweeping the perimeter. Jessica follows a half-step behind her, phone already in hand, eyes moving, assessing flow. Behind them, two men follow with cameras slung low, lenses capped, movements careful.
“Sorry, we’re early,” the woman says.
“You’re right on time,” his mother replies.
Leo’s hand finds the small of my back.
Not guiding. Claiming position.
“This is Liz Adler,” his father says. “Leo’s fiancée.”
He says it like a fact already filed.
No one asks how we met, or when.
They position us near the windows—brick and books and history no stylist could fake.
The reporter asks about my work. I give her the tidy version—ER, the hours, NYU in the fall. A polite smile, a quick note filed away.
“That’s impressive,” she says. “Your parents must be proud.”
A gentle and safe question. The kind that assumes there’s a simple answer.
“They are,” I say, and mean it.
My parents were always there for me, even when I refused to listen. They warned me, back then. Told me I was young. Told me I was rushing. Told me charm wasn’t the same thing as character.
When my marriage ended, they were there again. Helped me stand back up, then let me walk back into my own life without making me pay for the lesson twice. Now they split their time between Germany and Jamaica, enjoying retirement and pretending not to worry.
But that part stays off the record.
The moment passes without friction. The conversation rolls on. No one presses. No one goes looking for the cracks. The version of me they’re seeing slides into the story so neatly it makes me want to fight it on principle.
Jessica checks her watch, catches Leo’s eye, tilts her head. One more minute. Then done.
That’s when the floor shifts. Not fear, more like vertigo.
Because this isn’t scrutiny.
It’s confirmation.
Leo’s hand stays at the small of my back, where it naturally lands when we’re standing this close. The contact is constant, unavoidable, the way gravity is.
The ring turns suddenly, stupidly conspicuous.
The cameras are nearly ready to leave half an hour later.
A Men’s Health profile. Leo’s career, his discipline, what comes next.
October’s title defense spoken about as if it’s already on the calendar.
A unification bout overseas after that, if he keeps winning.
All of it delivered as inevitability, not spectacle.
Jessica steps in to gently redirect the last question, checks her watch, signals that they’re done. We hear the soft click of the front door closing behind them as they depart.
The house exhales.
Dinner unfolds without ceremony. The four of us and the quiet logistics of a house that’s been feeding people for decades. Plates land on the table with practiced ease. A bottle of wine appears. Bread in a basket. Someone refills water without asking.
I end up beside Leo without discussion. Just the most natural arrangement in a room that assumes we have a future.
His mother asks about my schedule the way people do when they’ve already filed you under “ongoing.” Long shifts, night rotations, whether I’m getting enough sleep. Her tone is light, but she listens closely, like details matter because I matter.
His father asks about NYU—what drew me to medicine, whether I’ve thought about specialties. He waits for my answers instead of preparing his next point.
No one interrogates.
No one tries to be delicate.
No one tests the ring.
At one point Leo’s mother reaches across to pass me the bread. Her fingers brush the band as the basket transfers from her hand to mine. She pauses—half a second, no expression—then keeps talking about the crust.
Leo eats like he always does—controlled, efficient, not rushed. He answers his father’s questions about training in short sentences.
His father asks about the October defense, then the travel around it. Leo answers the way he has all evening, in short, even lines that give nothing away.
Then his father says, “And after that?”
Leo looks up. “After the fight?”
“Further out than that,” his father clarifies, his tone easy.
Leo sets his fork down with more care than the motion requires. “We’ll see.” The answer is even. His face isn’t.
“You don’t need to solve it over dinner,” his father adds quickly.
His mother reaches for the wine bottle and tops off the glasses, and the moment folds back into the meal.
When Leo shifts, his knee brushes mine under the table. The contact is brief, but brief doesn’t mean harmless.
At the end of the meal, plates are cleared. Espresso appears. Dessert is mentioned but not immediately produced. The table loosens in that post-dinner way, conversation drifting without effort.
Fire Island comes up the way weather does. Not as a plan to be made, but as a continuation.
“We’ll head out two weeks after the Fourth,” his father says, reaching for the sugar bowl. “Stay a few weeks with the Russos. Same as always.”
Leo makes an amused sound, looking at his mother. “And now that Nate finally locked it down, Mama Carver and Mama Russo are going to start planning the nursery.”
His mother laughs. “We’ll try to restrain ourselves,” she says, clearly lying. “Eden and Nate will be out there a couple of days with us before they head back to the city. Janice and I will have time to figure out a plan.”
“I can already hear it.” Leo laughs.
No one looks at me. No one asks where I’ll be sleeping. Which means, in this house, the answer was assigned before anyone thought to ask me.
Fire Island. Leo’s room. The space beside him. Everyone acting like the details are already settled.
I take a sip of my espresso. It’s too hot, but I don’t set it down.
The ring catches me again, exactly where Leo put it yesterday. Where, apparently, it’s going to stay.