Chapter 12
The church parking lot on 16th Street was empty except for the early evening light hanging low over the asphalt. I’d parked under the oak at the far edge, away from the main doors, because Graham had said neutral ground and I needed the neutrality to mean something. His truck was already there, idling, and when he saw my car he cut the engine. He didn’t get out right away. He sat there with both hands on the wheel, and I could see the gold of his watch catching the sun through the windshield.
I got out first. The heat hadn’t broken yet. The air smelled like cut grass and hot pavement.
He walked over and stopped a full three feet away from me. That distance felt intentional. He wore a plain gray t-shirt, not the dark blazer from the nightclub, and his tattooed arm was bare to the elbow. The watch was there, as always.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
I nodded. “You said you wanted to talk alone.”
He looked at the brick wall of the fellowship hall instead of at me, and his hands went into his pockets and came right back out. “I haven’t been straight about why I did that at the booth,” he said. “Not really.”
We stood there while a woman pushed a stroller across the lot toward the sidewalk. Neither of us moved until she’d passed.
“It wasn’t just about you saying you were with the girls,” he said. “When you keep that ring on, and I saw my band sitting there—I just—” He swallowed. “My grandmother died last May. I don’t think I ever told you how that hit me.”
I felt my hand go instinctively to my left hand. The diamond was still there. His band was still on his finger. We’d both kept them on since I’d left for Maya’s.
“I remember,” I said. “You flew to Tampa for the service. You didn’t want me to come.”
“She gave me this,” he said, and lifted his left wrist. The watch. I’d always assumed it was something he bought himself, something expensive and sharp. The leather band was worn soft at the edges, the face a little scratched. “For my twenty-first birthday. She saved for it. She told me if I ever married someone right, I should give her ring to them. That it had survived a lot and it should keep surviving.”
His voice went flat when he tried to keep it steady. He looked down at the watch as if he was surprised to see it.
“After she died, my mom started calling,” he went on. “Once a month at first. Then every week. She said that ring belonged in the family. That if things weren’t solid between us, I shouldn’t let it walk away. She said I was being weak for not asking for it back when we started fighting. That night at the club, she’d texted me that afternoon. She’d seen your Instagram story from the restaurant Maya tagged. She told me to handle it.”
That landed hard. I thought of his phone on the kitchen counter that week, of him checking it and then going quiet. I hadn’t realized someone else had been in the booth with us before we ever got there.
“So you brought the band and put it on the table,” I said.
He nodded, his jaw tight. “I thought if I made it physical, you’d see I was serious. That I was losing her. Not just her. The whole line of it. The watch, the ring. I was scared if you left and took it, there’d be nothing left of her I could touch.”
The late light cut across his face. For the first time since Central Avenue, he didn’t look stern or in control. He looked tired.
“I’m not telling you that to make it okay,” he said quickly. “Tracking your location, showing up like that in front of Landon and Maya—that wasn’t grief. That was me trying to corner you so I wouldn’t have to feel small about it. It wasn’t right.”
I let the silence sit. A cicada started up loud in the oak above us.
He finally looked straight at me. “I don’t want to demand anything anymore,” he said. “So I’m asking. What would make you feel safe? Not watched. Not tested. If we’re going to keep talking—what boundary do you need from me so you don’t feel surveilled in your own marriage?”
The question was so different from Take it off that I didn’t have an answer ready. My chest tightened, not from fear this time, but from having to think.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. My voice was quiet. “I need location sharing off. Completely. And I need you to tell your mom the ring isn’t hers to call about. That it was given to me, and what happens to it is between us.”
He didn’t argue. He just nodded once, slowly.
“And I need you not to use her memory to pressure me,” I added. “I respected what that ring meant. I still do. But I can’t wear it feeling like it’s on loan until you decide I’ve earned it.”
May you like
He slipped his hands back in his pockets. “Okay,” he said. “No location sharing. I’ll talk to my mom tonight. And I won’t bring the ring up like that again.”
We stood there as the church lights flickered on inside, one window at a time. I hadn’t forgiven him. The weight of the parking lot, the booth, the car ride home was still between us. But for the first time the watch and the ring weren’t weapons. They were just old things that had belonged to someone who’d loved him, and he’d been trying not to lose her the wrong way.
