Chapter 27
IN THE CORNER (LIZ)
Nate’s Tarrytown house gleams in late-afternoon sunlight. Glass, straight lines, expensive quiet.
I used to call Brooklyn “over there” like it was exile. Now I live there. With a ring on my finger that started as a prop, but doesn’t feel like one anymore.
Standing here with Leo, I can’t stop the thought from forming, this is how it starts.
One boyfriend, one ring, and you get moved out of Manhattan in stages.
First the occasional Tarrytown excursion.
Then you’re in Brooklyn with your fake, not-so-fake fiancé.
Then you’re sleeping in his bed every night, even though you still have your own room down the hall.
And boom. You are a couple.
Next thing you know I’ll own a Vitamix and have opinions about school districts.
I stop myself before I build a whole life out of one afternoon
Leo’s hand is in mine. His posture says this is normal. My brain takes the hint.
I hate that it works.
The front door is open. Music is low. Someone laughs inside.
“Carver,” Finn calls, “you gonna spar with me this week, or are you saving all your time for Liz now?”
Leo doesn’t flinch. His palm settles at the small of my back, holding the line.
Finn appears in the doorway with a nonalcoholic beer in one hand and that slow, lethal grin that makes half of New York forget its own name. He looks sun-browned and relaxed, but sharp underneath. He glances at my left hand, then back to my face. “Hey, Liz.”
“Finn,” I say, and manage something close to a smile.
He tips his beer at Leo. “You got room for me this week? I need a couple more sessions before preseason. My hands are getting soft.”
“Your hands are not soft,” Leo says. “Come once this week. Lukas can work with you after camp starts.”
Finn’s grin widens. “Eden’s sparring buddy? I thought he just lets her choke him for fun.”
Leo’s mouth lifts, barely. “He does that too.”
Finn moves aside and waves us in. “Come on. Everyone’s in the back.”
Nate looks up from the grill when we step onto the patio.
“Good. You made it,” he says, like we’re already accounted for. “If camp doesn’t wreck your schedule, I’m claiming you both for Labor Day.”
The sentence lands so cleanly it takes me a second to realize what just happened.
Not if Leo can make it.
Not if I’m around.
You both.
I know too quickly where those words would fit, and that’s exactly what’s wrong with them.
Leo doesn’t react. Just takes a beer from the cooler and passes me a seltzer like this is a normal assumption to make.
Maybe for him it is.
For me, it hits low and strange, another quiet piece of future sliding into place before I agreed to it.
Eden finds me the second I set foot on the lawn, as if she’s been waiting.
“Hey,” she says carefully, running a quick inventory of my face. “Haven’t seen you for weeks.”
She means since my toothbrush moved from the guest bath to Leo’s. Since “temporary” started turning into routine. I haven’t told her. I’m sure he hasn’t either.
Eden’s expression doesn’t change much, but her voice softens. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, too fast.
Her hug is brief and tight. A check-in I can’t dodge. “Good,” she says. “If you need to talk it out, I’m here.”
Over her shoulder, Leo is a few steps behind me, watching without hovering. Eden doesn’t look at him, but I can feel the message travel through the room anyway: I see you. I see this.
Nate is on the patio in a fitted tee, tongs in one hand, a cutting board in the other. Chicken, steak, and vegetables lined up in neat rows. He’s staging a photo shoot for protein.
Then Finn’s voice cuts across the patio. “Doc!” He grins and points to a double stroller parked in the shade. “Come say hi to my favorite tiny terrorists.”
Eden groans. “Oh my God. You’re doing it again.”
Finn’s grin goes wider. “Someone has to be Doc.” He points at me. “She’s starting med school in a few weeks. Completely legit.”
I laugh and lean in to peek.
His son Aidan is passed out with his mouth open, one chubby fist clenched around a battered stuffed animal, twin sister Maeve curled on her side, lashes on her cheeks, thumb tucked under her chin. She has decided the party can happen without her.
The noise doesn’t touch either of them. My brain does the math anyway.
If I’d kept that pregnancy, my baby would be almost four.
I step back before the thought can turn into anything else.
Leo comes in behind me, close enough that I can feel his heat. His hand settles at my waist through my shirt, broad and steady.
“What?” he murmurs, following my gaze.
“Nothing,” I lie, because it’s reflex.
His hand stays. He waits.
I taste metal before I can get the words out. “The stroller.”
“O’Reilly kids,” he says, low.
It takes strength to say it out loud. “I was pregnant once.”
Leo absorbs it without a word, the air beside me hardening.
“And you lost it.” For a second, I have to fight my own face. His hand tightens at my waist. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t say anything. Neither does he. He doesn’t reach for language. Doesn’t offer a lesson, a plan, a brighter angle. He just stays there, taking the hit with me.
I keep staring at the stroller because if I look at him, I’ll crack. We stay there a moment, his shoulder near mine, giving me something to brace against.
Then Adam’s voice breaks through from the patio.
“I brought zero-proof beer, seltzer, and a morally responsible amount of orange juice.”
Matthias follows, calm and expressionless, holding a small digital kitchen scale as if it belongs at a party.
Nate squints at it, then goes right back to the grill without comment.
Matthias shrugs, compelled to explain. “I’m in a cut.” He sets the scale on the counter and aligns it with the edge using two fingers. “Precision is easier than regret.”
Finn leans close to me and stage-whispers, “This is why we love him. He’s insane, but rational about it.”
Off to the side, Sloane, the Defenders’ new communications director, perches near the patio doors with her phone in hand and sunglasses shoved into her hair, talking to Jessica. Black romper. Gold hoops. The posture of a girl boss who can end a career with two taps.
She listens with focused patience. Jessica stands half turned toward the conversation, half turned toward Aidan and Maeve, tracking both without blinking.
They carry the same kind of calm that makes men either straighten up or step back.
Then the back gate clicks.
“Sorry!” a deep male voice calls. “Traffic was a crime.”
Heads turn as Lukas steps in, big frame, relaxed posture. A presence that makes space without asking for it.
I know him. Everyone does, eventually. Lukas is Eden’s sparring partner—the one who used to ask her out with a grin that made the no land soft. When Eden chose Nate, he stepped back without a fuss and kept sparring with her anyway.
Eden’s face lights up. “You made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Lukas’s smile is pure trouble.
Finn drifts toward him immediately, drawn in. Leo follows at an unhurried pace.
“Lukas,” Leo says. “This is Finn.”
Finn’s charm snaps into place automatically. “I’ve heard about you. Eden’s a generous storyteller.”
Lukas laughs. “She’s an animal.”
Leo points at Finn, assigning him. “Finn needs a few rounds before preseason. Keep his hands whole.”
“Sure,” Lukas says. “Come to my gym downtown. We’ll keep it clean. Pressure without damage.”
Leo’s mouth twitches. “He means he’ll make you miserable without bruising your ego.”
Finn beams. “Exactly what I need.”
Sloane steps closer with Jessica at her shoulder, phone finally in her pocket.
“Sloane,” Leo says. “Meet Lukas.”
Sloane looks up and pauses. Lukas’s smile doesn’t disappear, but it changes, as if he’s bracing for impact. The pause runs just a shade past polite.
Sloane’s expression stays professional, but her thumb taps once against her thigh. Fast. Involuntary.
“Lukas.” Her voice is level and polished. It’s not a long look. It’s just too long. Even from across the patio, I recognize when two people are trying not to show that something in the room has already shifted.
“Sloane,” he answers, just as controlled.
Finn steps in and starts talking over everyone. Lukas shifts with the flow, but not before one last quick look back.
“People like the Carver story.” Sloane turns back to Jessica, voice light, as if nothing happened. “Champion. Fiancée. Park Slope parents. It reads stable.”
Not a relationship. A read.
She takes a sip of her drink. “Which helps, because the Defenders side is already noisy enough.”
I glance over. “Noisy how?”
“League noise,” Jessica says before Sloane can answer. Her tone stays casual, but her eyes sharpen. “Ownership chatter. Nothing official.”
Sloane shrugs. “Official is never the interesting part. The interesting part is everybody acting as if the floor might move.”
Matthias looks up from the scale for one beat. “It usually does.”
Across the patio, Leo laughs at something Nate says. Low, brief, real. I can almost see it—the two of them as kids, all elbows and energy, Leo already built like a wall, Nate already fearless enough to crash into it.
Watching them together gets to me more than I want it to, so I look away before anyone can clock it. But Leo catches me watching and comes up behind me. His fingers settle on my shoulder, warm and certain.
“What?” he murmurs. Not a demand. A check-in.
“Nothing,” I lie. Then, quieter, because the truth wants out. “You’re just…”
He doesn’t push. He never does.
“A lot.” I try to make it sound like a joke.
Leo’s breath brushes my hair. “I can step back.”
Choice, not pressure. A door left open instead of closed around me.
I shake my head once. “Don’t. I like it.”
He stays. Steady. I resent how much I trust it.
Jessica watches us without looking as if she’s watching. She’s too good at that. Her attention doesn’t linger on my ring. It lingers on how Leo moves around me now. How automatic it is.
The performance is gone.
A little later, when the plates have been cleared and Finn has started arguing with Adam about whether karaoke counts as cardio, Jessica appears at my side.
“Liz,” she says softly. Her smile is polite. Her tone is not. “Friday next week. Two fifteen. Both of you. Fifteen minutes.”
The patio noise goes sharp around me.
“Okay,” I manage, as if it’s nothing.
She doesn’t wait for me to hedge. She steps away and slides back into the flow.
The can sweats in my palm. The patio noise keeps rolling. Leo appears at my side. His hand slips into mine, easy and familiar.
“What did she say?” he asks softly.
“We need to check in with her next week.”
“Okay,” he says, like it’s nothing. His certainty should comfort me. Instead it makes the future feel too close.
Because the people around us aren’t treating this like a temporary arrangement anymore.
They’re planning around it.
Then I look toward the stroller again. Aidan’s fist is still wrapped around the stuffed animal.
I’ve thought about it before. The math of it. Just never standing next to a man who makes the future feel less like punishment and more like possibility.
I tighten my grip on the can and file it under things to survive later, when he isn’t standing right there being exactly what I want.