Page 22 of Hot Shot

She says it like a joke, but the feral feeling that overcomes me is almost too strong to keep in check. Because yeah, thiswouldhave been her house. I’m instantly fucking positive we would have stayed together.

I take a sip of my beer and shrug, not trusting myself to speak.

“Did you know I still have my ring?” she asks dangerously, lightly, heavenly.

My head shakes.

She laughs again, an easy sound. My heart is caught in a rock tumbler. “Yeah, it’s in my old bedroom in my jewelry box. It was so crazy to see it again after all these years. I found it when I was staying there before the wedding. Still fits!”

I swallow hard. “You tried it on?”

“Of course.” Her smile falters. “Wait, is that weird?”

One of my eyebrows rises. “That days before your wedding, you took off your fiancé’s engagement ring to put on the one you were married to me in?”

Color flares brighter in her cheeks. “I mean, when you say it like that…”

“Is there another way to say it?” I tease.

Cass ignores me. “Do you still have yours?”

I pause, but end up nodding.

“Will you show me?” She’s already hopping off the counter.

My beer clicks against the countertop when I set it down. My major organs are playing checkers.

“Sure.”

I do not want to show her. I don’t want to take her back to my bedroom, to the little tray of shit on my dresser top. I don’t want her to spot it or reach for it or hold it in her slim, pale fingers. But she does anyway. She slips it on her thumb and points the digit at the ceiling, wiggling her hand so the ring spins around it. Her eyes are all full of wonder and nostalgia.

My guts are on the floor.

“I remember the Austin Power Fembots helping us pick this out,” she says. “I still think you should have gone with that tacky onyx pinky ring thing, but I get it. You have your pride.”

I can’t laugh. I’m too busy staring at her thumb and the ring I only got to wear for a night.

“God, we were seriously so crazy.” She starts to laugh. Something in me twists.

“Were we?”

She rolls her eyes, but her face is pinched with that look she gets when she’s busted. “I just mean, like, who gets married for a night? Looking back at it as anadult, or whatever, it’s nuts.”

“The only crazy part was when we said we’d end it.”

The awkward look melts into something softer, unsure. She turns her attention back to her thumb where the ring wiggles around some more. “Well, it didn’t make any sense to stay together.”

“No. But it didn’t make sense that it ended either.”

For a second, she doesn't say anything. “Well, we ended it.”

“I don’t remember us breaking up.”

She laughs nervously, rolling her eyes again. “But we?—”

“Left, sure. But we didn’t break up. The last time we were really alone together, you were my wife.”

The word does something to both of us. A shiver rolls through her.

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