Page 126 of The Clinch
Camp starts Friday. My schedule stops belonging to me. And still, my brain starts building contingencies for her before I can shut it down.
Rides. Check-ins. Protection.
Drake’s been quiet. Too quiet. But quiet doesn’t mean gone.
I kill the list before it shows on my face. The second she feels managed, she’ll run.
So I keep it light. “What are you going to do with the week?”
She carries her plate to the dishwasher. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a week with nothing to do. No shifts. No studying yet. Just time.”
“You wanted to go to Germany.”
She looks at me. “I wanted to be here.”
“Yeah?”
“With you.”
The words land low and sharp. Not because they surprise me. Because part of me has been waiting to hear them all week.
Her thumb strokes the ring once. Then she looks at me.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” she asks quietly. “The ring.”
The question is calm. Her eyes aren’t.
I push my empty plate away. “I like you wearing it. I like you here with me.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I hold her gaze. “The ring means nothing you don’t want it to mean. It’s not a lock.”
Her mouth presses tight. “What if I don’t know what I want it to mean?”
That honesty hits harder than if she’d pulled away.
“You don’t have to know yet. You can keep wearing it while you figure it out.”
“And if I take it off?”
The thought lands like losing ground I didn’t know I’d started counting.
“Then you take it off. You don’t need my permission.”
She studies my face. “Would it bother you?”
I could lie. We’re past that.
“Yeah,” I admit. “It would.”
“Okay,” she says softly. “Then I’ll keep wearing it.”
“Because I want you to?”
“Because I want to.”
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