Chapter 31
RINGSIDE (LIZ)
My eyes snap open to light slipping around the edges of blackout curtains I still don’t know how to work properly, to sheets that smell faintly of detergent and Leo’s skin, to silence so complete it feels staged.
Then I remember. He’s at camp.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, my brain reaching for the shape of the day and finding nothing solid enough to grab.
No shift.
No exam yet.
No emergency.
No Leo in the kitchen making coffee before I’m fully conscious.
The apartment is cool under my bare feet when I walk out of the bedroom.
The fridge stops me cold.
It’s absurdly full. Labeled containers. Dates. His name on some. Mine on others.
Of course Leo’s answer to camp is to build a system that keeps running even when he’s not here.
There’s a yellow sticky note on the shelf.
Eat breakfast.
The green smoothie is for you.
—L
“Bossy,” I mutter, but the word lands softer than I want it to.
Even absent, he’s still here. In the food. In the coffee beans. In the fact that I open the fridge and know exactly what belongs to me.
It should feel comforting. Instead it makes me restless.
I drink half a cup of coffee standing at the counter and listen to the apartment press its silence against me. Then I reach for my phone because apparently I don’t know how to sit still in a life that isn’t actively on fire.
MARCO
First day without you on shift with me
Sucks
Happy for you though
And one from Eden.
EDEN
I’m picking you up at eleven
You need new clothes and a manicure before school starts
LIZ
Since when are we shopping in Brooklyn?
Do they even have real stores here?
Her reply comes immediately.
EDEN
Don’t be a bougie bitch
Be ready
A second later:
EDEN
They have boutiques in Brooklyn, you psychopath
Then she sends three nail polish emojis, a syringe, and a crown.
I laugh under my breath, set my coffee down, and get up to dress.
Apparently today, I’m doing Brooklyn.
At eleven on the dot, Eden picks me up looking luminous in a green dress and oversized sunglasses.
“Nate let you out by yourself looking like that?” I tease, pulling her into a hug. “Also, thank you for picking me up. We could’ve just met on Smith Street, you know.”
“Meh.” She waves me off. “The Uber’s here.”
Then she lifts her phone, angles us both into frame, and snaps a picture.
“What are you doing?”
“Nate left for morning skate before I was even up. Didn’t get a proper look.”
She catches my hand and tugs me toward the car, checking the license plate against her phone before sliding in. “And now he gets to be extra motivated.”
“Cruel.” I laugh.
“I do what I can.”
Brooklyn rolls past in polished little flashes—brownstones, strollers, café tables, the curated version of the borough.
Eden drags me through a manicure, two boutiques, and just enough unsolicited opinion about what I should wear to med school.
By lunch my nails are deep red, I have three bags I didn’t plan to buy, and Eden has informed me that I need at least one outfit that says ‘competent future doctor’ and at least one that says ‘dangerous to men with poor judgment.’
“Those are the same outfit on me,” I protest.
“That,” she says, “is exactly the problem.”
Over lunch, she finally asks the question she’s been saving.
“How are you?”
I almost give her the usual lie. Fine. Good. Normal.
Instead I look down at the ring and tell the truth.
“It’s all new. Med school. Leo. All of it. My life changed shape overnight, and I’m still pretending I know how to keep up.”
“That makes sense.”
I lift my hand between us. “And what the fuck is this, Eden? I haven’t taken the ring off. I don’t want to take it off.”
She looks at it, then back at me. “Leo is very into you,” she says carefully. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, cooling my face with a sip of iced tea. “No pressure.”
“It’s a good thing, Liz.”
I hate that she’s right. I hate more that part of me likes hearing it.
I look down at my plate. “He’s… amazing.”
Eden’s smile softens. “Yeah. He is. And he doesn’t do this lightly.”
I stare out at the hot Brooklyn afternoon. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say finally. “He makes things feel solid. Which sounds nice, except sometimes it scares the shit out of me.”
“I can see that,” Eden says quietly.
There’s no judgment in it. That almost makes it worse.
“I know he’d never…” I stop.
The rest jams where it always does.
Trap me. Hurt me. Decide for me and call it love.
Eden reaches across the table and taps the back of my hand once. “I know. And I know you know.”
When we finish eating, Eden wipes her mouth, too casual. “Come on. Let’s go see Leo.”
I look up. “Really?”
“He should be in afternoon sparring by now.” She’s already reaching for her bag. “And yes, I absolutely planned this.”
“You’re sneaky.”
“I’m a visionary,” she says. Then, over her shoulder, “Also, you need a refresher that your boyfriend is built like a Roman warrior.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
She waves me off, stepping into the sunny afternoon. “Tell yourself a better story.”
By the time the Uber cuts deeper into Red Hook, Brooklyn has dropped the polished act. Fewer strollers. More trucks. Brick warehouses. Chain-link. Roll-up steel. The city stripped back to bone and grit.
Even the air has more attitude. Salt off the harbor. Hot concrete. Machine oil cooked into old metal.
The gym doesn’t announce itself. It sits low and broad against the street, more warehouse than storefront, with a corrugated garage door, a side entrance, and no interest in charm. The kind of place you only find if somebody brings you.
I grab my shopping bags from the trunk, eyeing the building. “Will he mind?”
“Leo?” Eden asks. “No. Ray? Absolutely.” She hooks a few bags over her arm and grins. “Come on. Let’s go watch men tear themselves up so we can stay employed.”
The moment we step inside, the smell hits—sweat, old canvas, leather, disinfectant, and something metallic woven so deep into the place it feels structural. Not blood exactly. Just impact. Hard contact ground into walls, mats, ropes, and air.
The room is both louder and quieter than I expected. Gloves slamming into pads. Shoes scuffing over mats. Breath forced through effort. No music. No pointless chatter. No wasted softness.
This isn’t a place built to impress anyone. It’s built for work. For damage. For the kind of discipline that leaves bruises.
For Leo.
His camp. His ring. His people. The whole place arranged around sharpening him into something dangerous.
Eden walks in like she belongs here, which, annoyingly, she probably does. She drops the shopping bags near the entrance and lifts a hand to one of the trainers before he can look alarmed.
“We’re not staying long.”
He acknowledges me, then nods to the ring. “Ray’s in a mood.”
“When is he not?” Eden asks.
There’s an almost smile tugging at his mouth. “Fair.”
We move farther in. And then I see him.
Leo is in the ring, gloves up, headgear on, stripped down to black shorts and a gray sleeveless training top gone dark with sweat. The ropes frame him, and then he moves, and the picture stops being a man and turns into speed.
I’ve seen him shirtless. Naked. In bed. In the shower. Leaning in a doorway with that lazy, dangerous stillness he wears when he’s relaxed.
This is not that man. This one is harder. Sharper. Burned down to essentials. Nothing about him reads domestic.
He looks forged.
Watching him like this, I understand all over again that I never stood the slightest chance.
A big man in his fifties spots us and tips his chin at Eden. Then he gives me one quick, assessing look before going back to Leo.
“That’s Ray,” Eden murmurs. “Though I’m sure the judgment gave him away.”
Leo’s sparring partner comes in fast with a three-punch combination, and I know exactly what I’m looking at. I spent too many hours watching Travis train not to. I know the shapes. The rhythm. The language of it. But Travis’s camps never felt like this—never this stripped down, this precise.
Leo slips the first shot, catches the second on his glove, pivots before the third can land, then answers with a short, vicious hook to the body that does something immediate and deeply unhelpful to me.
He’s a walking lapse in judgment.
Beside me, Eden makes a soft, smug noise. “I told you. You can thank me tomorrow.”
“Shut up.”
She folds her arms, visibly delighted. “This is porn for you.”
I keep my eyes on the ring. “I’m trying to be respectful.”
“Sure you are.”
Leo moves again, fast enough that my brain tracks the shape before it tracks the details. Jab. Slip. Shoulder turn. Reset. Everything controlled. Everything brutal. Even his restraint looks violent.
And Eden knows exactly what she’s done.
“You’re drooling,” she murmurs.
“Can you blame me?”
Eden glances sideways at me. “You need some water?”
“You should bill me for this.”
She grins and hands me a bottle. “I absolutely should.”
The bell sounds. The round ends. Leo backs off immediately. One hard breath, and then another as he ducks through the ropes.
Ray is already there with a timer in one hand and a towel in the other. He says something low and clipped. Leo drinks water, spits into the bucket, and resets as if even rest here comes with orders attached.
That might be the most unsettling part. Not the violence. The obedience.
Lukas is near the far side of the ring, already wrapped, headgear hanging loose around his neck, talking to one of the trainers while he rolls out his shoulders. He looks up, spots us, and his whole face shifts—easy recognition, no hesitation. He lifts a hand in greeting.
There’s something instantly comfortable about him. The kind of presence that makes a room feel less serious.
I glance at Eden. “How did you never date him?”
She shrugs. “He’s hot, charming, emotionally available, and entirely too pleased with himself. Great guy. Not my guy.”
I laugh under my breath, but the bell rings before I can say more.
Leo is back in before the sound finishes fading.