Page 65 of David's Chase

“Do you think I’m keeping some old girlfriend’s stuff in my house? Like a souvenir?” he jokes.

“Yes. Why not?”

He tilts his head back against the headrest and studies me, amused.

“This place has always been my refuge. I wouldn’t keep someone’s clothes at my place.”

“You said you might have something for me.”

His smile fades a little.

“I bought something for someone a long time ago. This story is so ancient that it no longer bears any relevance. A gift that––as it turned out––had never been supposed to get to that person.”

My heart trips over itself before racing like crazy while the voice inside my head gets ready to give me her take on it. I signal to her to keep her mouth shut and listen to my intuition.

This is where I need to pay maximum attention.

‘This thing is important,’my intuition says.

“How did that gift get to the house?”

He stares at me, a secret glint in his eyes, and I feel like he’s right on the edge of confessing, weighing his options.

My curiosity is alight.

If someone keeps a gift in their house which is otherwise off limits to any female friend, that gift might have a significance that transcends every other consideration.

Who does that?

Someone who holds on to a beautiful idea.

Something meaningful to them.

“How ancient is this story?” I ask as he doesn’t seem to want to share more information.

“It’s old,” he says, a twinge of nostalgia in his voice.

A thousand questions trample over each other in my head, yet none of them make it to my lips.

“I removed a few boxes from a storage unit when I bought the house. And that’s how I found it. I had completely forgotten about it.”

Oh, so it’s not as important as I thought.

“I couldn’t make myself toss it out. So… I don’t know what I had in mind.”

For sure it wasn’t me.

“I didn’t think I’d even talk about it again.”

I bite my lip to prevent myself from talking.

I want him to continue.

I want him to tell me why he’d kept that gift. What had made it so hard to part ways with it?

He says nothing, and I speak, afraid that our conversation would otherwise go stale.

“Do you think it’s my size?”

---