Oh no. Please don’t do it. Please don’t ask.

  “Since you’re here, would you be willing to sing the national anthem for us? It would be such an honor for us and mean so much to the organization and the fans.”

  Fuck. Fuckety fuck fuckers. I can practically hear my agent and manager screaming NO! in my head.

  I smile sweetly and say, “I’d love to help, but I’m not prepared for that. I haven’t practiced the song.”

  “We have thirty minutes until the anthem. I’m sure that’s enough time to run through it a few times. I remember you sang it at the Super Bowl two years ago and brought the house down. With your talent, I have no doubt you’ll be able to do it again with a standing ovation.”

  I don’t mention how the fans will already be standing since it’s the national freaking anthem, but is he kidding me? That’s one of the most difficult songs for an artist to sing. The vocal changes alone are a nightmare, and most people who do these gigs practice for weeks leading up to it.

  “It’s a nationally televised game,” he exalts with a hopeful smile as if that’ll sweeten the deal for me. Only I’m not looking for extra airtime right now, so it makes it worse.

  “I have nothing to wear.”

  “You look beautiful as always and very Boston Rebels in your gold dress and red boots, but if you feel the need to change into something else, we have many options you can choose from.”

  “Uh. Well, um, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think⁠—”

  “Everyone is so happy you’re back home in Boston. And engaged to one of our Fritzes. We simply love you here. You have so many fans in the stadium, not to mention the large number of armed service members and children in attendance.”

  Goddamn him, he’s good. A pussy he is not. All I wanted to do was unwind, have a few drinks, and possibly bitch to Wren and anyone else who would listen about the ring Stone gave me. Oh, and the condoms. I’d love to bitch about those too. Not sure I would have in the end because it’s not a good look that I went through his house in search of them, but the option would have been nice.

  “Do you need someone to sing the anthem? Can’t the game start without it?”

  “It’s what’s always done here in this stadium, and it would be unpatriotic if we didn’t sing it.”

  I shift, my heart starting to beat faster. “What if you just drag out a few school-aged children onto the field to do it?”

  “There are too many protocols to go through for that, especially when dealing with minors.”

  “Just play the music for it. You don’t need an artist to sing it.”

  “It’s how we do things in this stadium. Ownership is very firm on that. You truly are our only and best option. We need you, Miss Monroe.”

  I’m one hundred percent going to regret this. “Fine. Let’s go,” I grumble, not even caring if I sound begrudging about it because I am.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Immediately, he ushers me along, moving me back into the employee-only part of the stadium.

  “If I squeak or crack or say the wrong damn word, I’ll… well, I don’t do diva or threats especially well, but I’ll seriously be unhappy.”

  He smirks but quickly clears it. “Understood, miss. You just have to sing it. We have the music for you to listen to and practice with, and I have a sheet with the lyrics.”

  “You should tell your boss you deserve a raise, Albert. That was masterful manipulation and dealing. Now show me to the room where I can practice.”

  The moment I step onto the field, the natural grass crunching beneath my boots, and my name is announced through the stadium speakers, is when my nerves hit me in the chest. Before they had been chilling in my stomach, fluttering around, but mostly held at bay. Now they’re in full force, making my hands shake and my knees wobble with panic attack quality anxiety.

  The crowd cheers and whistles, and I force a smile on my face. I didn’t let anyone know what I was doing. Loomis, Vander, Katy, Bennett, baby Willow, Sorel, Serena, Owen, Estlin, Rory, and others are up in the booth watching me walk out toward the center of the field, waving like I’m Mrs. America walking across the stage.

  “Are you kidding me?!” I hear Mason’s hoot from the sidelines, and I look over at him to find him laughing, with his hands on the top of his head, shaking in disbelief.

  I give him a simple shrug and a wave because we’re not only being watched but broadcast around the country. After that, I get myself mentally in the game—pun intended. I stand in the spot they tell me to, and when the instrumentals start through the earpiece in my ear and across the stadium, I close my eyes and picture the lyrics sheet in my head. My lips part and sound pushes past my lungs, and with it, my nerves dissipate as they always do when I get to this point, and I sing my heart out.

  It isn’t until I’m finished and walk off to hand the guy the microphone that I realize I was holding it with my left hand. The hand sporting the ring. The hand I held up by my mouth the entire time I sang.

  God, what did I do?

  As if echoing my thoughts, my phone starts going off like a series of grenades.

  My manager calls me at the same time as Stone texts.

  “Hey,” I answer but quickly rush out, “Before you say anything, I know. But they cornered me, and the guy had a return strike for my every parry. Or however fencing metaphors go.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to yell at you,” Carol says into the phone with a hearty chuckle. “You just put yourself out in the spotlight wearing your ring to sing the national anthem. Your album sales have already skyrocketed since your engagement was announced, but I bet my next paycheck they double after that move.”

  Ugh.

  She continues talking, and I half listen as I check my message from Stone.

  Stone: We have the game on in an empty patient room, and I just saw your impromptu performance. You were incredible.

  Me: Thank you.

  Stone: At least now I can tell people that my favorite attributes about my fiancée are her spontaneity and unpredictability instead of that she’s a sexy pain in the ass. I’d say it has a better ring to it, don’t you?

  Fucking bastard.

  “Carol, I’m sorry to cut you off, but can we catch up about this tomorrow?”

  “Sure, doll. No worries. Go enjoy the rest of the game.”

  I disconnect the call, deciding that verbally eviscerating my fiancé is more important than sales and marketing strategies at the moment.

  Me: I hate you. It’s official. And I hate your ring too.

  Stone: Glad you’re wearing it, though. It looked beautiful on national television, future Mrs. Stone Fritz.

  Me: I wish it would fit on my middle finger. Then you’d know how I feel about wearing it.

  Stone: Nah, you obviously love it since you showed it off so much. The announcers loved it too. All the nurses and patients here as well. I told them my nickname for you and they all swooned.

  Me: I’m sure it’ll help you get laid.

  Stone: My fiancée told me her legs were closed to me, so I doubt it unless she’s willing to change that decree.

  Me: I don’t fuck players.

  Stone: Good thing for me since you’re at a football game surrounded by them. What’s with the thorns, little rose? You’re the one who went primetime with our engagement and the ring. Not me.

  I sigh. He’s right on that. We went from website photos to nationally televised.

  Before I can respond, my parents call. I talk to them as I head upstairs, some of my anger about Stone waning. I have no right to it. He is free to fuck whomever he wants, just as I am. We’re not in a relationship and never were.

  Just before I enter the suite and the madness and uproar I’m about to face in there, I text him back.

  Me: I’m sorry. I didn’t think about the ring when I went out there. I shouldn’t have done that.

  Stone: I’m not mad, baby girl. I like my ring on my fiancée’s hand where everyone can see it. I like everyone thinking you’re mine. The only people who know it’s fake are us. And I’m not planning to tell anyone.

  24

  Forest lost his absolute mind on me for about the hundredth time in a span of forty-eight hours. First with what our grandmother said about the engagement and his relationship with Tinsley, again when he learned about her stalker and that she’s living with me, and the last time after she sang the National Anthem with my ring front and center.

  “What’s with the ring? Why the real fucking diamond, Stone?”

  “Because I’m a Fritz and I can’t have any fiancée of mine walking around with a cheap, fake diamond. It wouldn’t pass, and right now, that’s what she needs to stay safe.”

  It wasn’t a total lie, even if it felt partially like one.

  “Why are you even part of this? The only way you knew Tinsley was through me. None of this makes any sense, and I don’t get it. It should be me she’s living with, me as her fiancé. Not you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that because guilt sucks, so I said nothing, and it only angered him more until I told him point blank that the reason we were doing all this was for her safety. He couldn’t argue with me after that, though he did try, and it did little to ebb his anger with me. I don’t blame him for being upset. I’d kill me if I were him, and he’s right to question me.

  So I told him the truth. Tinsley isn’t mine, and she doesn’t want to be, and anything he’s seeing is fake. I wanted to ask him why he’s still holding on after all these years. Is he expecting her to come crawling back to him? Tinsley and I never talked much about Forest. He always felt like an out-of-bounds topic for both of us. But I have to wonder, does he still love her, or is his fixation with her something else?

  My grandmother won’t answer or return my calls. All I get when I text her, asking why she won’t pick up the phone, is a smiley emoji. The woman is up to something. She never does anything off-the-cuff or without intention. This keeps up, I’m going to drive out to the compound and demand answers.

  It was a media storm but containable until Tinsley went on national television with my ring on her hand front and center. Now it’s a Category 5 cyclone. We have vans parked out front of the building and in the back too. Paparazzi littering the sidewalks. News outlets reaching out to us personally, as well as our “people” asking for statements and wedding dates and plans. There is a bump watch on Tinsley’s fucking stomach, which inwardly makes me postal.

  Watching a woman’s body for physical changes is one of the most fucked-up things I can think of.

  Add to that fun, Tinsley and I haven’t seen much of each other in the few days since all this hit. She’s avoided me for the most part, and I’ve worked long hours this week. She spends her days with Loomis and her security team on set, and I spend mine at the hospital. Our nights are spent on different ends of the apartment, with no middle ground between us. I cook dinner and make extra since I usually get home before her. Sometimes she eats it, sometimes she doesn’t.

  I may or may not get a thank you text for it since texts are our main form of communication, and even then, only when necessary.

  I’ve gotten the impression she’s mad about the ring I got her.

  I had one of the family assistants take care of picking it up for her because there was no way I was going into a jewelry store to do it myself. That would have drawn too much attention. It should be fake. That’s what Maria told me. But I couldn’t do it. I shopped around online, and when I found the ring in a vintage jewelry store, I knew there was no other place for that ring than on her hand.

  I didn’t care about the cost. I would have paid anything for it. That was the ring.

  I didn’t want it to be fake or a lie like everything else between us is.

  Tinsley is leaving in less than three months. It’s a reminder that she will never be permanent in my life. This was my one shot to give her a piece of my heart, and it sure as fucking hell was going to be real. The only way I know she wears it is that she’s photographed in it and obviously sang with it on.

  It’s only making the press more rabid for a photo of us together.

  They’re relentless, their coverage is over the top, and it’s bleeding into every facet of my life. Like right now…

  “You’re Stone Fritz. I saw you on the news this morning.”

  Jesus. Not again. This makes the tenth patient or patient’s parent today. I’m not even talking about yesterday or the day before or even while she sang the anthem, and they flashed the pictures of us together outside the hospital all over the screen.

  “You’re much better looking in person,” she titters, shifting in closer to me, and I can’t even with this. “Not that you’re not gorgeous on camera, but in person, just wow.” She fans her blushing face. “I feel like I’m watching a live-action soap opera or an episode of Friends where Joey is Dr. Drake Ramoray.”

  “Except I’m an actual doctor, you’re in the emergency department of Boston Children’s Hospital, and your daughter requires abdominal surgery for appendicitis.”

  “Mom, just get the picture,” the daughter hisses under her breath, though there was no way I wasn’t going to hear that. Despite being in pain, on morphine, and having been throwing up for the last two hours, she has been trying to get to her purse. Thankfully, it, along with her phone, are on the other side of the room. Her mother’s, unfortunately, is right in her hand.

  “Oh, yes!” The mother giggles and bats her eyelashes at me. “Can you say all that again? In that same gruff, sexy voice? I want to record it. My friend Cara is going to be so jealous that I met you. She’s been obsessed with your family forever. Especially Oliver Fritz.”

  She holds up her phone, and I turn and walk out of the room before she can start recording.

  Owen is standing outside the patient room, his lips bouncing in amusement. I called him down for a consult on this patient, and as far as I’m concerned, he can have her and her mother too. “You saw all that, didn’t you?”

  “You have some fans.”

  I roll my eyes, fold my arms, and sag against the wall. “How am I supposed to treat patients if they only see me as the future Mr. Tinsley Monroe?”

  Owen snickers. “Actually, I believe the press have dubbed you Stoneley.”

  I groan. I didn’t know that, and I wish I still didn’t. “Remind me why I’m doing this again?”

  “Because you’re in love with a woman you shouldn’t be who happens to be in danger and you’re in a position to help keep her safe. Even if said woman is giving you the cold shoulder at the moment.”

  I grunt. For everything Owen just said and the fact that Tinsley is still in danger. The FBI took the envelope, but the only prints on it were Tinsley’s from when she opened it. They didn’t have much more than we did with the video from the warehouse and were able to confirm that Terrance Howard wasn’t behind the letter. All things we already knew.

  “Thanks for keeping it real.”

  “You mean because you’re not.”

  “Ha! Funny. I think I liked you better when you were miserable and grumpy.”

  “Blame Estlin for making me happy and reminding me I have a sense of humor.” He grins. “How’s this? I’ll take the super fan and her kid off your hands, and one day, hopefully, you’ll either tell Tinsley how you feel or find someone to fall in love with?”

  I smack his arm and push away from the wall, ignoring the second half of all that bullshit as I say, “They’re all yours.”

  “Are you playing this weekend?”

  By playing, Owen means in our hockey league that he, Vander, and I play in. I’m usually pretty regular when my schedule allows it, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve missed our games.

  “Hope so. Catch you later, man.”

  I meander back toward the nurses’ station, grateful my shift is over. I sign out my patients and head out. For a few minutes, I sit in my car, debating if I should go home or figure something else out on this Friday night. The heat is blasting because it’s unseasonably cold for the end of October. Halloween is next week, and the trees have all but shed their multicolored leaves. Fall is shifting into winter early this year, and I won’t complain about it.

  It's my favorite time of year in the city, but once January hits, I’m going to want to take a trip somewhere south. Somewhere warm. Maybe on Benthesicyme because it’s been too long. I wonder if I can talk Tinsley into—nope! Not even gonna think it.

  By January, this will all be over, and she’ll be gone.

  Maybe I should just sell the boat. I don’t see how I can ever go back on her when⁠—

  My phone rings through my sound system and Tinsley’s name along with a picture of her singing the anthem with my ring on her hand pops up on the screen. It’s as if my mind conjured her.

  I smirk and answer, “First-time caller, long-time listener.”

  “Huh?” she replies, and I chuckle.

  “Clearly, you’re not a Boston’s sports radio listener.”

  “Clearly,” she deadpans.

  “What brings you to my world, little rose? You haven’t called me in… well, I don’t think ever.”

  “Probably because I haven’t, but this wasn’t something I could easily text. Is now a bad time?”

  “Not even a little. Now is perfect.”

  “Okay good.” She blows out what sounds like a relieved breath, and I hate how uncertain and shaky her voice is with me. How cold and detached. We both said we’d keep our distance, and we have, but that distance is starting to get to me. She’s right here, but she’s also not. “We’re on set, and I slipped, and, um, got hurt.”

  I shift, sitting upright as alarm flitters through me. “Hurt? Are you okay?”

  “Uh, I think so.”

  “You think so? How did you get hurt? What’s the injury? Do you need the emergency room? Are you bleeding? Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?”

  “Stop with the fifty questions, Doctor.”

  “I’m worried.”

  “You are?” she asks incredulously.

  I roll my eyes though she can’t see it. “Of course I am. You called me. It has to be pretty bad for that once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon to happen.”

 

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