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“Thank you so much!” Delaney has already managed to cash out at the counter in the time span I’ve been standing here dumbfounded, dissecting how much I despise that bracelet. Yet, as she slips one on over her wrist as we make our way back down the shop steps, now it’s suddenly the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen her wear.
“Perfect.” She beams down at her wrist before raising it up to me. “Don’t you think?”
I don’t care to look at the bracelet. All I see is her. It’s all I’ve seen all day long. No magnificent buildings, no architectural monuments, and no views that people would pay to see in their lifetime. It’s just Delaney.
“Perfect,” I repeat softly, my eyes not leaving hers as I speak.
Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to catch onto my dazed state. “Here.” She extends her hand out towards me. “Your turn.”
I snap myself out of it and furrow my eyebrows in confusion. “My turn?”
“Yes.” She narrows her eyes, revealing another bracelet from the shopping bag in her hand. She did end up purchasing that damn matching set. “You didn’t think you were getting off that easy, did you?”
God, I could get offsoeasy if she kept talking to me like that.
Before I can open my mouth to respond, she’s speaking again.
“You’re going to be stubborn? Fine!” She shakes her head dramatically before reaching out and grabbing my wrist, a grasp that’s as delicate as it is demanding. “You leave me with no other choice.”
While holding onto my wrist in one hand, she slips the bracelet onto mine with the other, her fingertips grazing along my skin and forcing me to take a breath inwards. She struggles for a moment, the width of the bracelet being no match to extend over the breadth of my hand.
“Ugh, it’s stuck.” She frowns in concentration, attempting to tug on it. “I can’t seem to?—”
My spare hand connects with hers, halting her in place as I help to pull the bracelet off my palm and onto my wrist. Her hand is small in mine, almost disappearing as I reach out to help her.
And just like that, this bracelet that I’d just been mentally ripping apart at the seams became the most precious thing I could possibly own.
Without pulling back, she looks up at me. We’re inches away from one another. I’d been so focused on her hands that I hadn’t realized she stepped closer to me.
She bites down on her lip as she keeps her gaze locked onto mine, an action that she has no idea holds the full power to ruin everything in me.
I want to pull her in. I want her closer. Fuck, I’ve wanted her closer for longer than I’d admit to. All it would take is a gentle tug in my direction.
But I can’t. I have to step back. I have to pretend that what she’s doing to me isn’t about to derail the magic that was today completely.
We have to end this on a high note, though. I’m positive there would be no better way then closing out this day with her lips on mine. No better taste than her.
“Better catch that train.” She’s the first to break contact, her voice just barely above a whisper. My eyes are still scanning her face, which is slightly stunned as she pulls back, leaving me to release the breath I’d been holding that entire time.
Shoot.
Was she expecting something? Should I have made a move? Was her mind racing the way mine was in that brief moment?
“C’mon, slowpoke!” Her infamous smile teases her lips as she steps ahead again, seemingly shaking off that entire encounter as she shakes her curls out. “Delaney Matthews doesn’t miss a train, remember?”
I peel my feet away from the ground they’ve become permanently embedded into. I would’ve stayed in this spot forever with her.
“I remember,” I say so softly that I can barely hear it myself. “I remember.”
“Oh, Delaney.”Mum embraces her in her arms for what must’ve been the fourth time since we’ve attempted to say goodbye. “You come by any time you’re free, you hear me? You’re always welcome here. I hope you know that.”
Delaney's smile is just as sincere as it is warm. “Aw, Helen.” She goes in for a fifth hug. “That means so much to me. Thank you for everything.”
“No, thankyoufor everything,” Mum responds back to her, gesturing down to her feet.
Delaney had insisted that as I was packing up the car with our suitcases—or, more accurately—hersuitcases, she couldn’t forget to give Mum something.
I didn’t know what she was talking about at the time, but now, as I follow her gesture, seeing those familiar pairs of slippers as they cozily rest on my mum’s feet, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming urge of tenderness flood my chest.
