Page 219 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

The gold locket looked like an antique with delicate engraving around the edges and a tiny green stone set near the clasp. The front had been worked into a subtle pattern of vines and scales, not obvious unless you knew what to look for.

My thumb brushed the edge, and the locket opened.

Inside was a miniature portrait of Max and me.

Not a photograph, exactly. Painted from one, maybe, but softened into something that felt like a memory. Max sat beside me, solemn and handsome, his face full of the particular patience he saved for me. I was laughing in the image, one hand on his shoulder, my hair windblown, my green scarf caught at my throat.

Avery had taken it at the park months ago. Before Rafe. Before my life had cracked open and let in dragons and a kind of love I hadn’t budgeted for.

“Oh,” I whispered.

He said nothing, which was wise. I was one kind word away from bursting into tears.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, but the words couldn’t convey what I meant.

“I wanted you to have something that was yours,” he said. “Not borrowed from my family’s past. Not taken from anyone. Yours.”

I touched the portrait again, my eyes burning. “This is a lot for a first date.”

“It’s not our first anything.”

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I immediately pointed at him. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

“My face is concerned.”

“Your face is making it worse.”

He reached across the table and brushed the tear away with his thumb, gentle enough that I almost lost the fight entirely.

“If I could, I would do it differently,” he murmured. “The day we met. I would still want the necklace. But I would ask instead of demanding. I wouldn’t make you feel small because I was afraid of what not getting it back meant.” His thumb lingered at my cheek. “But I can’t regret the meeting. I can’t regret anything that led me to you.”

The music kept playing.

The candles kept glowing.

I sat there with a locket in my hand and a dragon looking at me like love had become the simplest truth in the room.

“I’m really trying not to cry on the chocolate,” I said.

“I can buy more chocolate.”

“It looks expensive.”

His mouth curved. “It was twelve dollars.”

I closed the locket carefully and lifted it from the case. The chain slipped over my fingers, cool and fine.

“Will you help me put it on?”

Rafe’s face changed. Just the smallest stillness, as if I had offered him something more intimate than jewelry.

“Yes.”

I turned my chair until my back faced him and gathered my hair over one shoulder.