Page 29 of One Golden Ring
“Right,” she says, nodding. “So, when did we start dating?”
“How about the office Fourth of July celebration?” I offer.
“Oh,” she says softly.
I sneak a glance over at her and her eyes are shining.
There’s a reason I chose that party. I remember how much she loved the picnic lunch and the fireworks over the park. I can still see her now, legs curled under her as she sat with one of the women from HR and a couple of the other assistants.
She was laughing and eating an ice cream cone that melted down her chin at one point.
I wanted to curl up on a picnic blanket with her so badly, and lick that sticky strawberry ice cream right off her chin.
“We were sitting on a blanket in the grass,” I tell her. “And your ice cream melted and I reached over and swiped it off with my thumb, and our eyes met, and everything changed.”
“Wow,” she murmurs. “That’s so romantic.”
You have no idea.
“Thank you,” I chuckle.
“What color was the blanket?” she asks.
“It was more like a quilt,” I remember. “Blue.”
“Okay,” she says. “Who else was there?”
“Let’s say it was just us,” I suggest. “That way no one else can confirm or deny.”
“There were so many people,” she says. “Why would it have just been us?”
“We were planning a super important meeting for the next day,” I decide. “We had to strategize even though it was a party.”
“That does sound like us,” she says, nodding.
I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but when I look over at her she’s smiling.
“What did we do on our first date?” she asks me.
The rest of the ride goes by in a pleasant blur as we make up a million backstories for our pretend relationship. The sad thing is that I can picture it all like it was real—breakfast-for-lunch at a diner, roller-skating in the park, gorging ourselves on popcorn at the movies, dancing under the stars. It all sounds like a lot of fun, the kind of fun I haven’t really let myself have in years.
By the time I pull up in the village, we’re both laughing. And I noticed that she didn’t seem as scared going down the mountain as she did on the way up. Maybe she just knew what to expect this time. But I tell myself that our conversation was a good distraction for her.
“So, what’s on our list?” she asks when I open her door for her.
I take her hand to help her down and keep hold of it, like last time. It would be a very easy habit to get used to.
“Well, I wanted to grab some extra bedding and maybe some books for J.B.,” I say. “But first I think my grandfather might need some things too, if you don’t mind.”
“He needs pajamas,” Darcy suggests right away. “He should be as comfortable as possible.”
“I was thinking the same thing, but I don’t think he would agree to that just yet,” I tell her, voicing my own worry. “Not if he’s going to have guests in his room.”
“What if they were like fancy silk pajamas?” she suggests. “And maybe we could find him a smoking jacket or something super-gentlemanly like that.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” I say, chuckling as I picture it.
“Where would we even look for something like that?” she asks.
