AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s you barging in to see me without my granny panties that I’m worried about,” she calls back.
She turns on the water before I can reply. I walk back to my briefcase and pull out the ring once more. Instead of opening it, I sit on the bed and look down at the box, trying to shift my attention toward this ring, toward this relationship.
But my mind is still on my conversation with Katherine.
I cared! Of course I cared!
I close my eyes. I wish . . . I wish I’d known. I wish she’d done things differently. That I had.
My thumb flicks open the ring box, and I stare down at the perfect diamond.
I shut the box again. Shutting out the intrusive thought that it’s the wrong ring.
For the wrong woman.
TWENTY-NINE
KATHERINE
December 24, 12:19 a.m.
It’s apparently a myth that you have to stay awake for a full twenty-four hours after a concussion. That’s old news. The new recommendation is “it depends.”
In my case, since I lost consciousness, I was supposed to stay awake until bedtime and then be awoken throughout the night.
And while I’m not looking forward to the being-woken-up part—especially since that particular requirement resulted in this whole adventure in the first place—I’ve still been looking forward to this moment all day.
An hour ago, I was exhausted down to my bones.
Now that I’m actually in bed? Sleep eludes me entirely.
The mattress is lumpy. The sheets are scratchy. The comforter . . . I try not to think about it. Also, I like to sleep on my back, and the injury makes that impossible.
I gingerly roll to the other side and force my eyes closed. They pop open immediately.
I forgot my retainer.
I never skip my dental straightjacket, though I suppose that if there was ever an excuse to do so, it would be tonight. And I almost do exactly that until I realize . . .
Retainers are decidedly unsexy.
I open my eyes and let them flick over Tom’s bed. Where he will be sleeping. Just a few feet from me. After his shower. Which has been going on for a good twenty minutes already because his preference for long showers hasn’t changed over the years. His showers were always more marathon than sprint.
Don’t think about it, don’t think about it . . .
Nope. Too late. I’m thinking about it. Naked Tom. In the shower.
Does he still sleep naked? He better not. He really better not.
Wearing my unsexy retainer has suddenly never felt so critical.
I force myself out of bed and shuffle over to my suitcase, which Tom lifted onto a rickety luggage rack while I was in the shower. I dig around until I come up with the purple case and shove both top and bottom retainers in my mouth.
I turn back around, and the combination of the stress of the day, the late hour, and the pain meds I’ve just taken should be kicking in full blast. I should be beelining toward the bed.
Instead, I find myself staring at Tom’s bed. Where his briefcase beckons me. The briefcase that he’s been weirdly fondling whenever he thinks I’m not looking.
I shouldn’t. I absolutely shouldn’t.
I do.
I walk over to it, and with a quick glance toward the still-shut bathroom door, where his endless shower continues, I unlatch the clasp.
Something I learned about Tom early on: he is never less cool than when he’s trying to be sneaky. You’ve never met an individual as painfully awkward and obvious as Tom the year he tried to plan a surprise birthday party for me.
And every year on our anniversary, he made a big show of not having planned anything or having time to get me a gift. Which, of course, meant that he’d gone over the top on both fronts.
The more he wants to hide something, the more obvious he becomes. And apparently that hasn’t changed at all in the intervening years since we split because the man’s antics around this briefcase over the course of today would give a clown a run for its money.
Whatever’s in here, he doesn’t want me to know about it. I’m doing the man a favor, really, by getting the whole charade out in the open so he can relax. He should be thanking me . . .
Okay, fine. This isn’t about Tom.
It’s about me. And my almost painful curiosity.
I open the bag. It has all the usual suspects. His laptop. A little tech pouch, where he keeps all his cords organized. A book about some historic baseball season. Snore.
An outdated issue of the New Yorker. I shake my head. The man was always behind on his New Yorker reading.
An iPad that I’m guessing has a dead battery because he’s always liked the idea of an iPad but never actually had a use for it.
And . . .
A little turquoise box that I’d know anywhere. It comes from a jewelry store I walk by every single day. The same store that plays the horrendous version of “Silver Bells.”
