Page 64 of Five Stolen Rings

I’m going to get a migraine if my ears get too cold out here, but I don’t want to move yet.

“Indy,” I say abruptly. “I think?—”

“Hmm?” she says, her eyes on the snow she’s smoothing over with her boots as she sits in the chair next to mine.

Say it,I tell myself.Put it out in the universe and let it blossom.“I think I might like Jack.”

“I think you definitely like Jack,” she says matter-of-factly, and I look at her, stunned.

“What?”

“I think you like him,” she repeats. Then she turns to me, abandoning the snow patterns she’s been making with her feet. “I mean, look, Stell, I’m not a relationship expert,” she says, tucking a few strands of her red hair behind her ear. “But your eyes do this thing when you talk about Jack where even if your mouth is frowning or scowling, your eyes getreally big and bright and excited. So…” She shrugs. “I figured you probably had a thing for him.”

And for a moment, all I can do is gape at her, until she laughs.

“Come on,” she says. “This can’t possibly be news to you.”

“It’s notnews, but—I’m not even sure Idolike him. I just think I could. Maybe.”

And I feel like a teenager again, sitting here with my best friend, having a conversation about boys and who likes who.

“Well, does he have feelings for you?” India says. Her voice is practical, reasonable, and it’s one of my favorite things about her, especially when I’m feeling flustered or confused; she’s always level-headed and logical.

“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh.

“You’ve kissed,” India points out. “Twice. Isn’t that what you said earlier?”

“We have,” I say, and I’m suddenly grateful for the cold, because my face warms just thinking about it. “But I got the sense that he was kissing me against his better judgment or something.” It hurts to admit. “I think he likes me on some level. But I also don’t think he knows what he wants.”

India wrinkles her nose, and I nod.

“Yeah. Exactly,” I say with a snort. “I don’t want to get involved with that situation.” I pause and then speak again. “Can I tell you something, though?”

“Obviously,” India says. “Tell me anything. Everything. All the things.”

I watch the flurries around us as they fall lazily to the ground, listen to the faint sound of cars on the main road in the distance. It feels monumental, speaking these words out loud.

“I think,” I say slowly, “or at least I’m pretty sure…the phone call was Jack.”

For a second, India just blinks at me; I see the exact moment she catches on to what I’m talking about, because her eyes widen.

“Thephone call?” she says, the words rushing out of her. “The one after the earthquake?”

“That one,” I say with a nod.

Her jaw drops. “How do you know?”

I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. “Jack has a friend that went to Windsor with us—Benny. He was at the brunch I sort of crashed”—India’s nose wrinkles with dislike—“and he mentioned it. He was pretty tipsy, but he was definitely lucid. I forgot he said it at first, but I’ve remembered.”

More specifically, I remembered last night, halfway through hanging all the gaudy ornaments on Maude Ellery’s Christmas tree—and halfway through my conversation with Jack. There was a sparkly martini ornament, which made me think about my unfortunate eggnog incident, which made me think about what happened at Petit Déjeuner. It came back then, what Benny said—and I was shocked to realize I wasn’t even surprised.

I think part of me has known it was Jack, even when he said it wasn’t.

I haven’t told India what else Benny said—Jacky was obsessed with this girl—because I don’t know what to make of it yet.

What Idoknow is that something an awful lot like excitement flooded through me when those memories returned. I was excited to learn that Jack was the one who’d called me, and I think I would have been disappointed to learn it wasn’t him after all.

“Have you told him?” India says now, and I shake my head.

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