Page 63 of Heart So Hollow

Accepting his response for the time being, I return to my vanity and open the fourth drawer on the right. But when I look inside, I give pause.

“Bowen, have you seen my—” I stop myself, knowing he wouldn’t recognize anything in these drawers, so why am I asking?

I open and close each drawer, searching, but knowing the earrings I’m looking for won’t be there because I never put them anywhere else. Studs go in the second drawer down, hoops go in the third, and dangly ones go in the fourth. There are three pairs of dangly earrings, and now there are only two.

Bowen appears behind me, “Seen your what?”

I stare into the drawer, unable to make sense of it, “A pair of my earrings are gone.”

“Which ones?”

“The little gold hoops with the stars hanging off them.”

“Were they here after you moved in?”

“Yes, they were here,” I pause, “and now they’re not.”

“You could’ve put them somewhere else.”

I shoot him a side-eye, “Bowen, I only have nine pairs of earrings.”

I’m not excessive when it comes to accessories. I find what works and stick with it.

“Fair,” he smiles and then shakes his head, “I don’t know, babe.”

I let out a groan and shut the drawer. Maybe they fell out in a bag or suitcase. I’ll have to check all of them later to make sure. Meantime, I open the third drawer and take out a pair of thin gold hoops. I fasten them into my earlobes and step in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of the bedroom.

This’ll have to do.

???

The teal sapphire on my engagement ring is the perfect size to spin around my finger with my thumb. That’s what I do, continuously, from the time we sit down at a coveted table in the middle of the bar until I finally shoot a look at Bowen. I cover my mouth with the side of my hand, when do we tell them? I mouth to him.

Everyone else at the table—Hildy, Jay, Hannah, and four other friends of Hildy’s—are blithely unaware of what lays in my lap beneath the lacquered wooden table gouged with years of intoxicated pummeling. Bowen glances around the table, the muscles in his cheeks twitching with amusement.

“Hildy!” Bowen suddenly calls across the table.

“What?” she shouts back obnoxiously, mimicking him.

“Brett and I are getting married!” he hollers back over the roar of the crowded bar.

That’ll do it.

Hildy jerks her head up. Her smile is gone and her mouth agape. Jay is still talking to the couple sitting next to him. Hannah, however, is staring at Bowen. Her mouth is half open and she’s so still that I can see each breath she takes as her chest rises and falls between the plunging neckline of her blue blouse.

Hildy slams her palm down and leans across the table, a wild look in her eyes, “What?”

I clasp my hands over my mouth as I stifle a laugh. Hildy studies my face for a moment before something catches her eye. Her jaw drops as she zeroes in on the teal sapphire with the gold band.

She smacks Jay in the arm, “She has a ring!” Hildy shouts at him.

Jay flinches and shoots her an annoyed look.

“She has a ring!” Hildy repeats, pointing across the table at me.

Jay follows her direction and slowly raises his eyebrows when he sees it.

“Oh my god!” Hildy shrieks and leaps from her seat. She runs around the table and throws her arms around me, collapsing onto my lap, “Let me see!”

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