“You know how I said I thought Adam was cheating?” She was doing a little dance on her tiptoes, squishing the unicorn faces into the carpeted hallway. Her hands were cupped in front of her.
Hell, I couldn’t leave her now. “Yes. What happened?” I shoved my key into the door. A clear sign to cut to the chase for any normal person.
She glanced around at the completely empty hallway and leaned in close. “I went snooping.” From the way she was beaming she hadn’t stumbled into a treasure trove of kinky clown porn, a burner phone, and weeks’ worth of text messages from another woman. “And I found this.” She thrusted her hands toward me and opened them, revealing a black velvet box. Her eyes dropped to the box and snapped back to mine.
“Can you believe it?”
“Awesome. Earrings? I told you he was a keeper.” I turned the key in the doorknob.
“Oh my god, no. It’s not earrings.” Opening the box, Stella’s eyes got wider as the angle of the box’s opening did. And standing in the empty hallway, I was suddenly afraid guys in ski masks would show up, taze us both, and run off with the ring.
I was happy the landlord kept the hallway lighting to night-club dim. The sparkle on that thing in the light of day would’ve surely blinded me.
Taking a breath, I set down my portfolio and gave her a hug. Yes, I was in a rush. Yes, my future hung in the balance, and yes, Stella always cornered me, but this was great news. For once, I completely got why she couldn’t keep it to herself a moment longer. They were great together and they’d get their happily ever after. At least someone should. “I’m so happy for you two. See, I told you, you didn’t have anything to worry about.”
She ducked her head, cradling the ring box in her hands. “I know, but he’s so sweet and so good to me, I was waiting for the eventual let down.” She squashed one unicorn head with the other slipper.
“You two were made for one another. It’s a gorgeous ring.” It really was. If I weren’t on the verge of a heart attack, I’d probably feel self-pity I’d never find someone who got me like Adam got Stella. Relationships were a no-go zone for me. I wasn’t going to fall into the same trap my parents had. Being alone was so much easier than depending on someone else for your own happiness.
She lifted her head with wide smile. “Isn’t it? I’ve been staring at it, imagining what it’ll look like on my hand.” Cupping it to her chest, she gazed down at it like she was holding a day-old kitten.
“You haven’t tried it on yet?” I turned my doorknob still needing to get the hell out of here.
“What? No, I couldn’t. I want the first time I wear it to be when he puts it on me when I accept!” Her eyes lit up and she took a step closer, thrusting the box in my direction. “But you could try it on.”
I had to open my big mouth, didn’t I? “No. Absolutely not. You’re playing the part of the wacky neighbor across the hall perfectly right now, but I’m so late, Stella.”
“Please. Pretty please.” She bounced up and down, pressing her hands together around the open box. “Just let me see what it looks like on, maybe take a picture, and then when I’m tempted to take the ring out and look, I can look at the picture instead.”
“That’s the worst idea ever. And makes no sense. Wait until he asks you!”
She slipped the ring out of the box, walking it toward me like she wanted me to join her on her quest to Mordor. “It could be months before he proposes, and what if he moves the box between now and then?”
I backed up until my back hit my door. “Then it’ll be an even bigger surprise.”
“I’ll lose my mind, Zara. This ring is the proof he loves me. Proof there’s no other shoe waiting to drop.”
The poor thing. I squeezed her forearm reassuringly. “I know, but you shouldn’t need the proof of a photo now. You—”
She grabbed my hand and shoved the ring on, using some Hulk strength I’d never seen her display before.
“Ow. You don’t know your own strength, woman.” I snatched my hand back and shook it, wincing.
“A few pictures and then you can take it off.”
The foreign weight of it made me acutely aware of every part of my hand. I set my hand into Stella’s outstretched on and let her finish the world’s weirdest hand modeling session. I’d never known there were so many angles you could snap a picture of your fingers.
My phone buzzed in my open purse. Leo’s name flashed up on the screen.
“Stella, as much as I want to stand here for another hour having every crease and fold of my fingers documented for posterity. I have to go.” I wrapped my fingers around the ring and twisted, trying to pull it off. All I managed to do was smoosh all the skin against my knuckle and send shooting pain through my finger.
Oblivious to my growing unease, Stella swirled in a circle staring at her phone, flipping through the pictures.
“Ugh, Stella?” The space behind my knuckle where the ring rested throbbed to my increasing heartbeat.
“Yeah?” She held her phone up in front of her hand, staring at it adoringly.
I licked my entire-sleeve-of-saltines dry lips. “It’s stuck.” I bent over, twisting and twirling the symbol of her commitment around my ring finger, only managing to redden the area more. The thump was like a telltale heart under the metal band.
“Oh my god.” She dragged me into her apartment finger first, and squirted soap on my hand like I was being deloused at a prison. My finger was now spotless, wrinkly, and still sporting a sparkler worth more than the GDP of a small island nation.
The clock over her stove flashed its bright and angry numbers at me. I had—
“Shit, eighteen minutes. We can figure this out later.” I tried to pull away, but her grip on my hand was iron strong.
“You can’t go!” Her shrill shriek rang in my ear.
“I have to. I have what might be the most important meeting of my life going on in—”
“Adam is coming back in two days.”
“Exactly.” I grabbed both her arms, trying to break the hysterical trance. “We have plenty of time to get this off. But if I don’t go now, I could lose my job. I promise, I won’t let my hand out of my sight. I promise.” Backing out of her apartment, I didn’t give her a chance to respond. The door slammed shut behind me and I threw the door open to my apartment.
Inside, I scanned the room for my old portfolio. Diving for it, I whacked my knee on the stupidest chair to ever exist and rushed back out into the hallway, grabbing everything I’d dumped there and took the stairs. My phone buzzed in my open bag, adding another tally to the five missed calls from Leo.
My day had started so well and here I was stealing someone’s engagement ring on my way to a presentation with man-sized pit stains on my shirt. A bead of sweat rolled down my nose at the curb as I flung my hand in the air for a taxi.
Miracle of miracles one actually stopped for me. Maneuvering the unwieldy portfolios in the backseat of the taxi, I swapped the oversized boards to the new one.
Falling out of my taxi, I scrambled up the stairs to the hotel and asked at the front desk for the meeting rooms. The pointed me in the right direction and I took off, my heels squeaking and clacking on the marble floors. Rounding the corner, I took deep breaths to compose myself. My shirt clung to my body with sweat running down my back.