Page 36 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“So you don’t want to tell me?”

“Eleven.”It’s just a number, she told herself, but it felt very damning, as though it marked her in some way. If someone had truly wanted her, she would have had a home for more than a year and two hundred and fourteen days, which was her record for her longest stay anywhere.

If she could have, she would have sat up, but she was stuck in this position, tied by his hands buried in her hair, unable to get away from his tender touch or relentless curiosity.

“From the time you were how old?”

“Four.”

His fingers stopped, then restarted.

“At least my mother lived with me until I was six. I still saw her a couple of times a year and talked to her often. What happened to your parents?”

“Boating accident. My grandmother was babysitting me when it happened.” She rushed through the details. “She couldn’t raise me. She was really old. I saw her sometimes, at first. Then she died.”

“There was no other family?”

“None that wanted me.”

He swore under his breath. “I’m sorry, Quinn. That’s really rough.”

“It is what it is.” She had had to accept that. “Sometimes my birthday wish was to stay in the house I was in, sometimes it was to leave. Eventually, I realized it didn’t matter what I wanted. Things happened the way they happened regardless.”

That’s why she was so obsessed with having her own say over her life. That’s why she wanted to fix systems that continued to push children around like objects rather than people.

Micah didn’t say anything as he rinsed her hair squeaky-clean. He dabbed the droplets of water from her cheeks and forehead, then wrapped her hair in a towel before he helped her sit up.

“Stay there,” he said when she started to stand. “I’ll comb it out.”

“You don’t have to.” She was feeling very weak and shaky despite only lying there, passive.

“I want to.”

She would struggle to do it herself, but she was feeling very exposed. No one had ever wanted her. That was her real, deep dark painful secret.

She made a joke to deflect from how raw she was. “You really do have fantasies about being at a girls’ pajama party, don’t you?”

“Every heterosexual male does, I assure you,” he drawled, settling behind her on the bench, splayed knees bracketing her hips.

As he set the comb against her hairline, she said, “Pro tip, start at the bottom. Otherwise, I’ll have a rat’s nest here.” She chopped into the back of her neck.

He did and she watched him in the mirror. His expression was intent as he carefully picked the tangles from the tails of her hair.

“Do you know what I keep thinking about?” he asked as the comb climbed higher.

“I think we’ve established it’s pajama parties.”

“Besides that.” His expression was very solemn. “I keep thinking about when you said yesterday that I was so rich I could afford to throw away one sister and get another.” His gaze crashed into hers in their reflection. “How much do you hate me for having two when you don’t have any?”

“I don’t.” She dropped her lashes, throat cinching tight. “I’m just jealous.”

“Don’t be.” He squeezed her good shoulder and set his forehead against the back of her damp hair, as though hiding from his own reflection. From his conscience. “I still don’t know what to think of it. Her. I think about you, wishing you had even one sister, and I know I should welcome this news, but I’m deeply ambivalent. And embarrassed that I feel this way.”

“Oh, Micah.” She cupped his jaw, urging him to lift his face as she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “You’re allowed to have feelings. And they don’t all have to be neatly organized and pretty.”

His mouth twisted. “Are you sure? I thought it was our thing that we didn’t allow those messy, unpleasant things.”

“It’smything to refuse to do that. You can.”

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