Page 8 of For the Record

Rachel looked from me back to the oval-shaped diamond taking over her finger and looked almost disheartened. Her throat bobbed in a heavy swallow, and she let her eyes lift back up to mine. She was practically a big, blue-eyed puppy, looking as though I was taking its bone away.

Relief flooded me. She did like the ring for sure, then. I assumed she would when I purchased it, but her freak-out earlier had me second-guessing everything.

Despite wanting to smile, I groaned and avoided her stare. She wanted to keep the ring on. Of course she did. She’d always loved jewelry. A shock to me, since I hadn’t expected her to be such a pink-bowed, always-wearing-heels, nails-never-not-done kind of girl when I met her, but that was exactly Rachel. A mind full of wit and music wrapped up in the prettiest packaging. Unapologetically high maintenance, with no interest in changing that for anyone. As she should be.

For our first Christmas as friends, she forced me to do a gift swap. I didn’t understand at the time how much of a holiday nerd she was, so I had no complaints when she said we had to draw names and couldn’t tell each other who we had. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were the only two playing, so I kept quiet. She seemed really pleased about that. I got her earrings, remembering her mentioning in a text once about her losing a pair in an Uber. The ones I got her weren’t super nice or anything, but she went on about them for an absurd amount of time and still wore them to this day.

So it shouldn’t have shocked me to see Rachel looking at her ring as if she was being forced to say her hardest goodbye. I squinted down at her.

She huffed. “It’s just so pretty.”

I let myself admire the rock on her finger. Clear stone on a gold band against her tanned skin. It did look good on her. I fought the smile that threatened to break out of me.

Rachel lifted her left hand, letting the ring sparkle in the light once more. She shrugged, slowly dropping her hand back to her lap. “They won’t even notice. Luke and Layla were too clueless to see they were in love with each other for three years, and Nathan and Calla are always busy staring at each other’s butts, so they’re not an issue. Crew will probably be at the buffet the whole time, and your mom and dad…let’s say a prayer they won’t notice.”

Mom would notice. Chances were that she already knew through some kind of telepathic motherhood instincts, but I knew that was bound to scare her more, so I stayed quiet.

“You could…just leave it here,” I suggested once more, but I immediately winced as her eyes cut daggers at me.

She flashed the diamond my way, as if I hadn’t studied it before. “And risk someone stealing it? This ring is worth more than me.”

“Nothing could be worth more than you.”

Silence fell between us after I said it. The bench, the entire room, was suddenly too small for both of us.

This time she was the one to cut the silence by clearing her throat, looking from me to the ring. “Let’s go downstairs and take it a moment at a time. You go first, though. It’s more realistic for me to be fashionably late than you.”

I rose from the bench and reached for my tennis shoes, where I’d left them perfectly lined up by the door. My fingers itched to align the heels that were haphazardly thrown about, but I was working on suppressing that side of me. Pushing down the part that needed control, needed power. If I was going to somehow get her to stick around, then I would have to.

My fingers were reaching for the doorknob when her voice stopped me.

“How are you so calm right now?” she asked with this hint of awe. As if the thought of her wearing my ring on her finger was something I should have been disgusted at.

The best answer I could muster without tipping my cards too much was “When have I ever been known to freak out?”

Currently playing: Too Sweet by Hozier

***

This is ridiculous. You look like a stalker.

Granted, I wasn’t far from being one at this point.

Flashes of my night with a random blonde had been spiking in my head all week. The way her hair splayed out on my pillowcase, the clean orange scent on my sheets every time I went to bed. How Crew mentioned wanting to get new headphones, and I knew that the music-loving girl who so bravely ordered whiskey straight would have the perfect recommendations. The way she’d held long talks about different types of records for half the night. How she made it sound like she was already in a committed relationship with music itself and there was scarcely room for anything, or anyone, else.

The best part was that she understood immediately that I didn’t know how to hold a conversation. Maybe that wasn’t the best part. But it was really nice. No need to explain that I wasn’t trying to be a rude guy, but that I was a listener, not a talker. After the day she’d had, she needed a listener. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

All I wanted was her name. That was the only reason I was here. I couldn’t rest until the question was answered. I’d meant to get it before we got too preoccupied, but we’d gotten caught up in the moment, and it had slipped.

I wasn’t sure what I was thinking the other night, offering a drink to her like that. I liked my peace. I liked quiet, simple solitude. The click of her heels and the tiny skirt, mixed with her ordering straight whiskey, gave me a tip that she was anything but simple. But she sat there, muttering about not being cool enough to shoot whiskey. And between the pout in her pink-painted lips and the way her eyelashes curled when she squeezed her eyes shut in a whole body–shaking cringe at the taste of alcohol, I felt bad.

It was kind of ironic how the one time I didn’t order the same beer I got at Froggy’s every week was the time she was there. Like God was playing puppets with us, manipulating me into ordering something she would like before I even knew she was there. Going from that to holding her warm, soft skin in my hands felt like a dream I was going to wake up from any minute now.

“Just get it over with,” I muttered to myself, pulling my hood down in an attempt to not look like such a creep. The scar across my eyebrow probably didn’t help any.

It was usually the first thing someone saw when they looked at me, the tight faint-pink line that looked almost like a lightning bolt above my eye. But she didn’t. Her eyes first went to my tattoos. She shamelessly stared at them as if she was considering tracing them with her finger. I wouldn’t have stopped her if she did. It was rare I talked to a woman willingly. It was even more rare that I allowed an entire night of conversing that led to bringing her back to my apartment. The only time that happened was on the odd occasion when I was stationed out of the country and there was a sure-fire guarantee that I would never see the girl again.

I certainly would never connect with someone local at the bar I visited once a week. But yet there I was this morning, researching every record store in Philadelphia, trying to find out which one was rumored to be closing soon so I could…what? Apologize? Ask for more? Tell her that I hadn’t stopped thinking about the small freckles on her shoulders since I first saw them? I didn’t know. I hadn’t thought that far. Correction: I hadn’t thought anything. At all.

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