Page 28 of One Golden Ring
But my iron handle on my desires is slipping these last few days. So instead, I comfort myself with the idea that she’s still holding my hand.
Too soon I’m having to let go to open her door for her.
She smiles a funny little smile, like she often does when I open doors or pull out chairs for her. I guess old-fashioned manners are uncommon enough to be funny to girls these days.
But I learned it from my grandfather, and he’s never steered me wrong, so I won’t be stopping anytime soon.
I get into the driver’s side and turn on the engine. It’s still freezing, but the heat should kick in quickly. Giving the engine a second to warm up, I glance over at Darcy.
She’s gazing at the ring on her finger, and when she looks up and catches me watching her she blushes.
The ring.
Maybe this is why she’s gone thoughtful. My grandma’s ring is priceless as far as I’m concerned. But for Darcy’s purposes it probably feels like some kind of bait and switch.
“Hey, listen,” I say, digging the other ring out of my pocket. “Take this. It’s still yours. The one on your finger isn’t worth much, but it was my grandmother’s ring. Michael wanted you to have it.”
I wanted you to have it.
“Oh,” she says softly. “I’ll give it back to you when we’re done then.”
The sadness in her eyes makes me realize that she reallylikesmy grandmother’s ring. I want to tell her to keep it. There’s no one else I’ll ever give it to. And it looks just right on her finger.
But it’s not mine to give away, at least not under false pretenses.
Instead, I hand her the other ring box.
“Thanks,” she tells me as she tucks it in her bag. “This is very generous of you.”
“It’s nothing,” I tell her, not because it’snothing. It very much isn’t. But because it’s nothingto me. And it’s nothing in the context of the send-off she’s helping me give to my grandfather.
I get the car moving and we start down the mountain. I drive slowly, sort of wanting to enjoy this time with her.
But she’s still so quiet.
“Are you okay?” I hear myself ask her.
“When are we going to tell J.B. the truth?” she asks.
I’m not really sure how to answer that. I never thought J.B. would be privy to any of this. And I’ve mostly been concerning myself with whatever trouble she got herself into that got her sent home in the first place.
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “I’m not sure how well she can keep a secret like this one. She’s not exactly a good liar.”
That’s probably the understatement of the year. J.B. might be the most honest kid I’ve ever met, and she doesn’t exactly have a filter between what she thinks and what she says. This little act won’t last ten minutes if we let her in on it, and Darcy knows that.
“Then we need to get our stories straight,” she says after a moment.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We barely dodged a pretty important question at lunch,” she points out. “We don’t even know when we’re supposed to have started dating. We need to come up with some details that we can mention later if we have to.”
“You don’t like the lying,” I say. It’s not a question, not really. I know she’s an honest person, to a fault. She reminds me of Judi-Bloom in that way, though Darcy always tries to be polite and gracious.
“Do you?” she asks.
It’s a fair question, and I normally don’t. But the truth is that I’m starting to feel more and more like I’m not lying when I say that I care about her. It’s becoming a little too easy for me to pretend to be her man.
“We’re doing this for Michael,” I growl.
