Chapter 28
GUARD DOWN (LIZ)
The Brooklyn waterfront at five a.m. in August is annoyingly busy. Hazy dawn filters through the humid air. Young professionals burn off cortisol before their nine-to-fives. New moms reclaim their lungs and legs. A few familiar faces treat this path as their church.
A man in a Mets cap, someone we see every morning, lifts two fingers at us as we pass. One of the stroller moms gives me a quick smile—routine recognition, nothing personal. Then a scrawny guy does a double take at Leo and quickly looks away, suddenly engrossed in his own pace.
And then there’s me.
Former Olympic hopeful, now chasing the one thing that still hits clean—the burst. Breath. Speed. Air splitting open.
Leo runs at my shoulder, a wall of a man in motion. He’s been my bodyguard, my boyfriend, my fiancé.
The ring has settled on my finger, steady and stubborn. He gave it to me as a prop, back when we were still pretending. Now it carries a weight it didn’t have before.
We still haven’t named what we are. Every label feels wrong. Lover. Friend. Roommate. Fiancé. None of them fit right. All of them get close enough to make me nervous.
Jessica, naturally, doesn’t care about nervous. She summoned us to her office on my day off to discuss ‘the way forward,’ and gave us a time that feels less like a meeting and more like a verdict: two fifteen. Fifteen minutes.
His camp starts in a week. My last full stretch of ER shifts ends in a few days. The days I’d carved out for Ulm are still sitting on my calendar, untouched. I already told my parents I’m not coming.
We jog at an easy pace, just enough to warm the joints and settle my head. The skyline is still half lit. The river smells sharp. My muscles start to wake.
I widen my stance and drop into a few squats, spring-loading my legs for the first interval.
“Here we go.” His voice is amused. “See you in a minute, Flash.”
I glance at him and let my lips curve before I launch. “Try to keep up, Brooklyn.”
Feet strike clean. Arms tight. There’s nothing but the line in front of me, the burn turning bright.
For a moment, it’s only me and the air parting, my hair a curtain behind me.
Then I hear him push off behind me. His breathing turns rough. He doesn’t catch me on the sprint, but he holds the gap anyway, constant as a metronome, and eats it back on the recovery.
When he draws even, I give him a quick look. “Getting faster.”
He exhales, almost a laugh. “Don’t get bratty, Flash.”
We find the rhythm: burst, recover, burst again.
He runs it the way he does everything—deliberate, stubborn, present—just there, close enough that I’m not alone.
We hit another empty stretch, and my body makes the decision it always makes when the feelings get too big.
I sprint.
When I slow, he’s there, matching my pace, matching my silence. He stays at my shoulder for the next few intervals. We head back in comfortable silence, the sticky air pressing around us as the city wakes. By the time we reach Leo’s building, my pulse has settled into something low.
I reach the door first. He follows me inside without a word in that post-run calm that never looks soft on him.
The doorman barely acknowledges us. The elevator waits.
Leo stands a few feet away, his back to me, facing the doors. Sweat dries along his neck. His shirt clings to his collarbone.
He hooks his fingers under the hem and pulls it over his head in one smooth motion.
Well, damn.
I go hot all at once, and I don’t have the same freedom a man does. I tell myself to stand down.
When he catches me staring, he lifts an eyebrow. He just waits, because he knows he’s gravity, and I’ll come on my own.
The doors slide shut, the space tightening.
Leo steps into the pocket of air beside me, close enough to register, not close enough to trap. His hand settles at my waist, broad and warm, callused palm splayed on my skin.
He dips his head. His mouth brushes the back of my ear, barely there. More suggestion than contact. Enough to make heat roll through me low and immediate.
“You good?” he asks, and I hate that he can feel the shudder he caused.
“Mm-hm.” The sound slips out before I can shape it. Then, because I can’t help myself, “You?”
“Not really.” His voice stays even. His body doesn’t.
The elevator moves, the numbers climb. His hand hasn’t moved from my waist.
It’s not doing anything. Just resting there, warm and certain, like it has every right. Like he booked the spot in advance and has been patient about it.
The number ticks up. Four. Five.
I can feel his pulse where his wrist rests against my hip. Faster than his voice sounds. Fast enough to tell me the steadiness is costing him.
That’s the part that gets me.
Not the hands. Not the mouth at my ear. The fact that he’s holding himself this still and his heart is going that fast, and he’s waiting for me to decide.
Six.
I turn toward him and set my palm on his chest—solid muscle, warm skin. I slide it up to his jaw, to his cheek.
He holds my gaze and says nothing, leaving the choice with me. I know his tells now. The spark caught fast.
“I’m sweaty,” I murmur, like that should matter.
His mouth tilts. “Good.”
Want pulls low through me. My brain scrambles for an explanation—adrenaline, endorphins, post-run stupidity—anything except the truth:
That I want him.
That I’m in deep.
That his care is becoming a habit my body expects.
The word love hovers at the edge of my mind. But I don’t let it land.
My fingers drift down his throat, over his chest, slowly, feeling every ridge, every warm inch.
“We’ll shower,” he says, low. “Together.”
His thumb drags once along my knuckles, and that tiny touch gets through everywhere.
I step closer and press my lips to his shoulder, tasting him: salt and heat.
Leo sucks in a sharp breath, his arms sliding around my waist. He turns me with quiet control until my back meets the elevator wall. Then his mouth takes mine.
A kiss that wipes the air out of the space. He makes a quiet sound, raw and private, holding me at my waist as if he means to keep me steady.
I don’t.
I can’t.
Instead, I grip the front of his shorts, grazing his firm length, and pull him closer.
The elevator chimes.
We break apart on instinct, breathing hard, foreheads nearly touching. The doors slide open.
I lace my fingers through his and lead him into the hall, my lips swollen and my pulse sprinting. He walks into the apartment behind me and shuts the door with his foot.
Inside, the cool air hits my overheated skin, and I gasp at the relief. August in New York is thick and wet, a steam bath by seven a.m. But Leo’s place is crisp, quiet, and calm.
His chest is bare, sweat catching the light across hard planes of muscle. His damp shirt is already on the floor. He doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Good run,” he says, voice rough at the edges.
“Yeah.” I’m still catching my breath, sports bra sticking to my skin. “The heat is brutal.”
A crooked grin. “I kept up.”
He moves toward me with the same contained focus he wears in the ring. A hand sliding into my damp hair, he backs me to the wall, holding me there because he knows I’m staying. The other grips my waist, firm enough to feel, gentle enough to leave it my choice.
Need runs up my spine as he kisses me slowly, tasting. “Fuck,” he breathes, forehead pressing to mine. “You’re undoing me.”
His lips are salt-warm, urgent, like he’s not going to let this moment slip away. He smells of cedar, clean sweat, and something underneath that is just him.
My palms press to his chest, feeling the hard definition, the rapid beat of his heart. Want gathers low as I grip his face, feeling the rasp of his scruff under my fingers.
“Shower,” I murmur against his mouth.
“Mm-hm.” He doesn’t pull back. His hand slides down my spine and presses me closer.
His tongue brushes my lower lip before he deepens the kiss, slow at first, and then hungry. Heat builds between us, separate from the summer and the run still cooling on my skin. His body is solid against mine, all that strength turned toward me.
When he finally breaks away, his gaze is dark and certain. He leads me through the apartment without a word.
I follow as though this is new. As if I haven’t been doing this for weeks.
It started small. One sleepover after the Cherokee. A toothbrush beside his. A spare T-shirt on the chair. My textbooks stacked on his nightstand because carrying them back and forth got stupid.
Now the bed feels like it belongs to both of us, even though no one has said it out loud.
His bedroom is cool and dim, blackout shades drawn against the morning sun. The low platform bed is made tight, sheets pulled smooth, corners sharp.
Of course he made it before we ran. He can’t stand leaving anything undone. Not his routine. Not his space. Not the things he’s started building me into.
Leo turns to face me. He hooks his thumbs under the band of my sports bra and lifts. I raise my arms, and he peels it off with the same careful control he brings to everything, then tosses it behind him without looking.
Cool air rushes over my skin, and I shiver.
His attention moves down my body without apology—my arms and shoulders, the curve of my waist, the ink climbing my thigh.
“You’re staring.”
“I am.”
He covers my chest, palms warm and rough. He holds, claiming the weight of my breasts. My back arches into him before I can stop it.
Leo bends his head and kisses down my throat, then lower, lips lingering on me. Heat blooms fast, urgent and impatient, and my brain stumbles for distance it can’t find.
“Leo—”
He straightens and reaches for my compression shorts, peeling them down my thighs. I step out of them and stand there bare, the air cool, my pulse too loud.
His attention sweeps over me again, slower this time. Neither greedy nor casual. Focused in a way that makes me feel seen and exposed at once.
He steps out of his own shorts, and my body gives me away immediately. I’ve been here with him before. I know what comes next.