Page 34 of The Clinch
I know I’m going to be the reason she stops.
8
GUARD UP (LIZ)
Brooklyn Hospital is about thirty minutes from Leo’s place in Williamsburg—still shorter than my usual commute from the Upper East Side. By six-fifteen, I’m showered, in scrubs, and ready to bolt.
When I step into the kitchen, I find Leo holding a glass. Something green. Opaque. Ominous.
“Drink,” he says, pressing it into my hand.
I eye it suspiciously. “Thanks?” Then take a cautious sip.
It’s... better than it looks.
Leo watches me with quiet focus, tracking every reaction. “It’s pea protein. Figured you wouldn’t want whey.”
“Oh.” I blink, thrown that he’d even thought about it.
He hands me a travel coffee cup. “Blue Mountain. Splash of oat milk. Let’s go.”
Wait, what?
“I can’t go anywhere. My shift starts at seven.”
He heads for the door, which is an answer.
“Leo.” I follow him. “I need to go to work.”
He pauses, one brow lifting, like the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Exactly.”
Outside, he steers me toward a black Range Rover and opens the door.
“I was going to take the L train.”
But the protest dies quickly, and I get in.
We drive through a city still waking up, a Huberman Lab episode playing about dopamine cycles, as if this were routine. As if I hadn’t spent four years making sure no man drove me anywhere.
At the curb, he leans across the console. “Text me when you’re inside.”
“I’m not?—”
His gaze catches mine.
“Pick you up at five?”
I laugh despite myself. “Thank you for driving me.”
The second the sliding doors swallow me, I text him. Annoyed at my own compliance. More annoyed that he’d been right to expect it.
My shift isten hours of controlled chaos.
A car accident comes in at nine—driver with a steering wheel to the chest, passenger with glass embedded in her face. I’m on the passenger.
“Vitals stable,” I call out, already assessing. “Get me a tray. I need to irrigate before we can see how deep this goes.”
