Page 150 of College Town

“Oh my God,” Lawson says, too loudly.

Leo freezes.

“Hush, you.” Tommy swats at Lawson’s side, then, in a low, excited rush, he asks Leo, “Are you doing it tonight?”

Leo’s blushing. It’s very cute. “Yeah, I was planning tonight. Once the party starts packing up. There’s a fountain in the courtyard off the ballroom, and fairy lights, and I thought…” He cracks the box open and shows them the ring.

Lawson doesn’t know anything about cuts or carats, but he knows that Dana’s going to adore this ring. It’s simple, an almost perfectly-round solitaire diamond on a platinum band. It’s big, bigger than he thought a professor could afford, and it catches the lobby light with a brilliant scattering of glints and winks.

“You think she’ll like it?” Leo asks, nervously.

Lawson and Tommy trade another look, Tommy’s smile soft and crooked.

“She’llloveit.”

~*~

Lawson eventually did go home and shower and catch a few hours’ sleep. Tommy wrinkled his nose, and said, “Honey, you smell.”

Laughing, pride bruised but intact, he kissed Tommy on the forehead and promised to bring back food when he returned.

He wound up sleeping five hours in his underwear on top of his covers, tugged on clean clothes, and got takeout from a healthy, trendy little hipster café, because Tommy couldn’t handle much of anything when it came to solid food right now.

Lawson walked through the hospital feeling worlds better, whistling to himself, already planning the evening’s activities – he’d brought his laptop, and an assortment of DVDs for them to watch while they ate – then he hit the waiting room and pulled up short.

Noah and Natalia sat in neighboring chairs, turned toward one another. Kissing.

They sprang apart when Lawson cleared his throat. “So,” he drawled, while Natalia dabbed at her lipstick and Noah turned crimson. “How long’sthisbeen going on?”

When he walked into Tommy’s room a few minutes later, he said, “Your brother’s out there macking on your fiancée.”

Tommy snorted. “Yeah. They do that.”

“Was he super jealous everyone thought you were gonna marry her?”

“Nah. He knew my heart wasn’t in it.”

And it wasn’t, was it? Because his heart was scrawled across the loose leaf pages of all the letters he wrote Lawson, while he was trying to get back to him.

“Will they get married, you think?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe. They can, now, I guess. Now that it’s all over.”

Frank came by the next day to say that he couldn’t stay in Eastman any longer. “They need me back at HQ, kiddo,” he told Tommy, and sounded sad to go. “They’re finally pulling me out of the field. Frank Cattaneo officially doesn’t exist anymore.”

Tommy nodded, expression thoughtful. “I don’t guess Noah and Tom Cattaneo do either.”

Lawson’s heart leaped, and his palms itched, and he wasn’t sure if he was nervous or excited.

“Well. No.” Frank eased down into the room’s second chair, and gave his nephew a serious look. “Officially? On the record? Tom Cattaneo died two-and-a-half weeks ago.”

Tommy exhaled, but nodded.

Lawson’s gut twisted unpleasantly. He almost did die.

“Tom Katz is still alive,” Frank continued, “on record as an NYPD Organized Crime detective. So what I was thinking” – here he glanced at Lawson, briefly – “is that if you still mean to quit the force–”

“I do,” Tommy said, chin lifting, jaw squaring. As serious as he’d ever been.

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