Page 49 of The Clinch
“Oh,” he says, glancing at me. “Tell her I’m not mad.”
The engine turns over. The sedan pulls away, disappearing down the block.
I stand there, the morning noise creeping back in. Forklifts. Engines. The city pretending nothing happened.
Pressure doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up where you’re weakest and starts pricing things out.
And right now, my weakest point has coconut in her hair and works the ER at Brooklyn Hospital.
Drake knows it too.
11
ON THE ROPES (LIZ)
Leo is already in the kitchen when I come out, dressed for the day, coffee poured, keys on the counter.
He looks up, takes me in, and whatever he sees makes his expression settle further into that maddeningly controlled neutrality he’s been wearing.
“Morning.” He hands me a travel mug. Blue Mountain, oat milk already in it.
I take it because not taking it would turn this into a conversation, and I don’t have the bandwidth for one before seven a.m.
We head downstairs in silence.
The city is still stretching awake when we get into the Rover. He pulls away from the curb, one hand on the wheel, the other loose on the console. The quiet in the car isn’t empty. It’s loaded.
“The story shifted,” he says finally.
I keep my eyes on the window. “What story?”
“The media’s calling you my fiancée now,” he says. “Jessica wants to leave it alone for the moment. Says correcting it gives the internet more to play with.”
The coffee goes hotter in my hand.
Fiancée.
As if girlfriend wasn’t bad enough. As if the lie didn’t already fit too well in other people’s mouths. I make myself take a sip anyway. “Convenient.”
His grip tightens once on the wheel, then loosens.
“There’s something else.”
I stare out at scaffolding, delivery trucks, men in office clothes staring at their phones.
“Drake came to see me.”
My head snaps to him.
“When?”
“Yesterday. After training.”
My fingers tighten around the cup. “At your gym?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he touch you?”
