Page 181 of Wicked Dreams

Riley and Eli get out. I’m not sure why I’m nervous, but my heart rate has spiked.

I flip it open, and it feels like Ian’s kicking me in the stomach all over again.

There’s no oxygen in here.

Sitting on a bed of foam is a bracelet. The hand-woven strip is encased in a cage of sterling silver. I lean closer to get a better look at the work, because it’s familiar. Like a dream or a long-lost memory.

It’s blue with a single thread of gold. In the fading light, it’s hard to make it out, but the gold glitters.

“I… I made this,” I whisper. “A version of it anyway.”

“You did.” He lifts the bracelet. It’s been lengthened by chain. Altered. There’s no way it’ll fall off now, not unless the metal clasp breaks. “Do you remember when?”

“I made two.” Itisa memory. One I’ve dreamed about recently. Still, it seems to be coming at me from a long way off.

We’re married until these fall off.

He shows me his wrist. There’s the other one, also fortified with metal. Half gold and half blue. I remember—I remember making those. Presenting them.

Kissing him in a flower girl dress, while he wore his father’s suit jacket.

I wasn’t wrong when I said he was my first kiss… but I was wrong about when. It wasn’t this year; it was when we were eight.

“I remember.” His eyes are dark. “Do you?”

God, I used to hate him. And now—I’m pretty sure I just fell in love with him.

Again.

I nod. There’s a lump in my throat I can’t swallow around.

“You fixed them?” My voice trembles.

He fastens it to my wrist. Surprisingly—or maybe not, since this seemed to be his color scheme all along—it matches everything. The dress, the masks, my shoes.

He meets my gaze. “I didn’t want them to fall off.”

There goes my heart.

“Let’s have fun, yeah?”

I exhale. “And then sneak away early?”

His eyes dance. “If you’re persuasive enough.”

“Oh, I see how it is.”

He opens the door, taking my thin clutch from my hands and tucking it into a pocket in his jacket. He helps me down and carefully ties on my mask. He lets me do the same for him.

Once we’re ready, he offers his arm.

I take a deep breath. The bracelet is all I can concentrate on. That, and what it might mean.

Does Caleb love me, too?

Chapter 39

Margo

---