Five Stolen Rings

Chapter 15

JACK

Benny shows up about ten minutes after Stella and I have claimed a stretch of wall. I was ready to sit at an actual table, but she stopped me with a tug on my sleeve.

“I’m too anxious to sit,” she whispered, biting her lower lip. “Let’s stand somewhere.”

So here we are, eating fancy food from fancy plates—and I am struggling.

“Oh,” Stella says when I’m halfway through chewing a bite of bruschetta. “That’s your friend. Benny, right?”

Relief rushes through me as I look up, my gaze jumping to the entrance. Sure enough, there’s Benny, his gym-rat self stuffed into a polo shirt and khaki pants that he probably hasn’t worn in the last decade.

A buffer—hallelujah.

I raise one hand and wave to Benny, and he nods when he sees, diverting his course in our direction. His eyes go to Stella immediately, making their way over her as a grin splits across his face. Then he looks back at me, and I swear I receive his telepathic message from here: You’re so screwed.

But he’s wrong. Stella might look incredible—like a Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped with those stupid bows on her shoes, good grief —but so what? A lot of women are beautiful. A lot of women here are beautiful, as a matter of fact.

“How much do you think he benches?” Stella says musingly, her eyes curious as Benny approaches.

“Ask him,” I say, the words dry. “He would love to tell you.”

“I went to the gym once in college, with a boyfriend?—”

Already uninterested in this story.

“And I’d never been,” Stella goes on as I force myself not to grimace at the mention of a boyfriend. “So I just did whatever he did. I was so sore the next two days that I couldn’t even go to class. When I wanted to go to the bathroom I sort of just had to crash down on the toilet seat. I could barely move.”

My sour expression—the one I should not be wearing in the first place—pulls into a smile at this. “He shouldn’t have had you do everything he was doing.”

“Jacky boy,” Benny says when he reaches us, that stupid grin still on his face. “Don’t you look handsome, all dressed up for a night out on the town. How’s our favorite lone wolf?”

I grit my teeth through my smile. “I didn’t know you owned anything other than wifebeaters.”

“Hi,” Stella says, giving him a smile that’s much more authentic than mine. “You’re Benny. ”

“Sure am,” Benny says as he turns his gaze to her. “And you’re Stella.” He holds out his hand. “Good to see you.”

“You too,” she says, eyeing him curiously as they shake hands. “How much do you bench? Do your muscles make it uncomfortable to sleep on your side?”

I roll my eyes and try not to laugh. “I’ll be back,” I say to them, handing my plate to Benny. “Hold this for me.” Don’t ask me why I don’t want to leave Stella alone, because I don’t know.

Benny takes my plate and immediately starts popping food into his mouth; I turn away before Stella can say anything.

I just—need a minute. Possibly two. So I head out of the fancy event room and down the hall, where I find a men’s restroom; I splash my face with cold water and take a few deep breaths.

Why would she think I’m out of her league? Why would she ever have thought that, when it was so clearly the other way around?

“It doesn’t matter,” I snap at myself in the mirror. “Get it together.”

All right. Moving forward, my previous plan will be implemented: avoid her, and when I can’t avoid her—like tonight—try not to look at her too much.

Maybe I should join a dating site. Meet some other women.

But into my head pops Benny’s words from the other night: You don’t want to just…like her?

“Of course I don’t,” I say, and I am very aware that I’m talking to myself like a lunatic. “Because?—”

Because why ?

Because she did stupid things in high school? Didn’t everyone do stupid things in high school? Some of us even do stupid things now—like try to break into their stepmothers’ homes to retrieve family heirlooms.

“Fine, yes,” I mutter—again, to myself, like a lunatic . “But I still don’t want to have feelings for her.”

Because my pride would take a beating—that’s why. Because falling for her would mean I have no control over my heart, and I refuse to let that happen.

We can be friends; I want to be friends with her, more than I’ll ever admit. Deep down inside me is the same kid who made that friendship pact all those years ago, after all.

But we can’t be anything else.

I startle as a toilet flushes from one of the stalls behind me; a few seconds later, a teenage guy comes out.

“Dude,” he says, looking at me with the kind of attitude only teenagers would ever use with a total stranger. “Are you talking to yourself?”

When I return to the party a few minutes later, I find Stella and Benny talking animatedly, still leaning against the wall. There’s mistletoe above them, I notice for the first time—I glance around the rest of the room and see it on every wall, placed in regular intervals above peoples’ heads.

I inhale deeply, hold it for a few seconds, and then let my breath out again. I also exhale all the emotions stirring in my chest that don’t belong—interest, curiosity about the things Stella hasn’t told me, and something darker that I absolutely will not label as jealousy.

Get it together, I think—silently this time, because I have officially learned my lesson about talking to myself. Then I stroll over to the two of them, my hands in my pockets, trying to appear casual.

“You two bonded fast,” I say. I take my plate back from Benny, tugging it out of his hands with more force than necessary.

“That’s because Stella is lovely and delightful,” Benny says, and Stella beams, looking genuinely happy. I relax a little.

“I never said otherwise,” I say, and she snorts.

“You’re not exactly my biggest champion,” she says.

I pop a minty brownie bite into my mouth to avoid answering.

A surprising number of people come talk to Benny over the next hour; it seems that outside of being my friend, he was a social butterfly. I can tell when someone is coming to talk to Stella rather than Benny or me. They’re women, mostly, with high heels and big hair and blinding smiles in varying degrees of genuineness.

The highest heels and biggest hair come from a blonde woman who click-clacks over to us when we’ve been standing around for about an hour.

“Stella,” she says with a giant fake smile that would probably shatter if you tapped it. “ So good to see you!”

“Bridget,” Stella says, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear and looking uncomfortable. “Hi. Good to see you too!”

Her jaw twitches, and I hide my smile.

“What have you been up to?” Bridget says. A wave of perfume hits me as she steps closer.

“Oh, not much,” Stella says, her voice strained. “Just working. How about you? ”

“Oh, Clancy works,” Bridget says with a wave of her hand, on which glitters a boulder-sized diamond. “He does law. I just amuse myself with charities and golf and so on.” She pauses, her eyes shrewd with interest. “But you know, I heard—” She breaks off and, after an awkward silence, titters unconvincingly.

My heart lurches. What has she heard about Stella? Something about her job? The substance abuse issues?

“Well, never mind,” she goes on. Another wide, obviously false smile spreads over her face. “I guess it’s good that your parents own a business!”

“It really is,” Stella says, and I can tell she’s trying with all her might to appear cheerful and unconcerned, but her cheeks have turned pink.

“It’s great to see you!” Bridget says with a little wave, and Stella returns it only halfheartedly, her entire body slumping with relief when Bridget and her mile-high heels shuffle away to talk to someone else. Benny meanders away too, and then it’s just Stella and me.

We eat in silence for a while, both of us propped against the wall, as Christmas music plays cheerfully in the background. When I’m done with my plate, I glance at Stella’s. She’s done too, so I hold my hand out wordlessly, and she passes hers to me.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, and I nod.

When I return from throwing our trash away, though, I find her standing up straighter, both hands clutching her little red purse.

“What?” I say.

“Graham just arrived,” she says.

I rack my brain for a moment. “Oh,” I say as it comes to me. “Yeah—the guy you went to junior prom with. I remember.” I glance around. “Is he here?”

“We actually dated after that,” she says, her expression twisting. “Yeah, he’s the one in the navy suit coat.”

I dislike him immediately, and even more so when he begins drifting toward our side of the room.

“Oh, no,” Stella groans. “I can’t talk to him.”

“Yes, you can,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Just hold onto my arm and be polite but distant. It’s what I’m planning to do if Nat comes and wants to chat.”

“No,” she says, looking miserable. “You don’t understand. He wanted to do long distance while we went to college, but I wanted to break up. Because I didn’t want anything to distract from my schooling and my career. I made such a big deal about it when we split. And now here I am, with no career—” She sneaks another peek, and I do the same; I grimace when I see that Graham is heading our direction.

Stella’s gaze darts frantically around like she’s trying to find the exit, but her eyes only freeze when they land on the mistletoe pinned to the wall a foot or two over our heads.

And that, it seems, is when she loses her mind. Despite no family history of dementia or psychosis or anything else, her entire brain apparently chooses this exact moment to malfunction.

“Kiss me,” she says, her head whipping toward me, her eyes wide.

I blink at her, my own thoughts screeching to a halt. “What?”

“Kiss me,” she repeats, her voice breathless and urgent. “Now—quick! Kiss me.” She points to her lips.

“Are you crazy? Why should I be the one to kiss you?” I say with a scoff as my pulse goes from normal to double time, my mind racing just as fast.

“Come on! ” she says, glancing quickly over her shoulder. “He’s coming!”

I fold my arms, mostly to stop myself from reaching for her, and then paste a smirk on my face—my only defense. “If you want to kiss me, Princess, you’re going to have to—” But I break off as Stella steps forward, grabs my face, and yanks me down until my lips slam into hers.

“Ow,” I manage to get out, one garbled syllable against our smashed lips and teeth and noses.

“Sorry,” she breathes, her hands releasing me as she breaks away. “Sorry—oh, that was stupid—I’m sorry?—”

But over her shoulder, as she’s apologizing, my eyes catch sight of the one person I didn’t want to see: Nat Flindowski, and she’s headed right toward us, her eyes smiling, her steps hurried.

And because Stella’s momentary insanity must be contagious, I unfold my arms and grab her by the shoulders.

“One kiss,” I say in a low, quick voice. Two very different desires are screaming at me, but self-preservation wins. “Five seconds long, no moving your lips, and I will cut off your tongue if I feel it in my mouth. It will be the least romantic kiss possible. Understand?”

Probably didn’t need to add that last part—not out loud, anyway, but my brain isn’t fully functioning. Stella’s old boyfriend is almost to us, and a little pucker is creasing Nat’s forehead as she looks at my hands on Stella’s shoulders.

“Understand?” I say again when Stella just stares up at me with wide eyes.

She startles. “Yes,” she says quickly with a little nod. “Yes. Okay. It’s fine. Let’s do it. Ready, set, go. ”

And then, once again, her lips are on mine—soft this time, less forceful. My hands tighten on her shoulders as my thoughts flee my mind, float away like a bunch of balloons into the sky, and this single point of contact is the only thing tethering me to the earth.

One.

I can hear someone choking on their food behind us—Benny returned, maybe—and I can hear footsteps approaching us, too, probably Graham. My grip on Stella’s shoulders tightens further.

Two.

And now the click-click-click of heels—Nat, probably, because they’re faster and closer, confirmed when I hear her voice for the first time in years.

“Jack Piorra?”

Nat’s arrival does something to Stella; her hands, which until now have been stiffly at her sides, jump instead to my waist and then slide around my back, warm and light.

Contain yourself, I think. Con. Tain. Your. Self.

Except Stella tilts her head, and her lips begin to move, and?—

And I snap.

I hear myself groan as I give in, a growl of frustration and longing and want, my hands dropping to her waist to pull her closer. She gasps into my mouth, but I don’t let go; she’ll tell me if she needs me to stop, if she’s uncomfortable, if she’s going to deny me what I once longed for more than life itself?—

My lips slant over hers, demanding, chasing, as her body collides with mine, warm and soft. I let my hands travel up her sides, jump to her shoulders, trail up her neck; everywhere she touches me is electric, her arms tight around me, her nails digging into my back.

My entire body is on fire, and I will kiss her forever, and she’s kissing me impossibly like she wants the same thing—her hands move, her fingers curling almost painfully into my hair, pulling as my blood spikes in my veins.

“You said no tongue,” she gasps against my lips.

“Come back,” I breathe desperately as I find her once again. “Come back?—”

Are you still obsessed with this girl? The words from the other night ring faintly in my head, and I answer with every stroke of my lips.

I’m not, I insist, lick the smile from her lips, chase the stars.

I’m not. My heartbeat— my heartbeat ? —

I’m not .

I’m not ? —

“Look, guys,” a loud, nervous voice says, cutting through the haze in my mind. “We are super happy you’re in love, but maybe could you go over in a corner or something? Or get a room?”

“Not to worry,” Benny’s voice says cheerfully, “I’ll handle it.”

And ice water crashes over me— literal ice water. I break away from Stella with a gasp as an ice cube hits the side of my head. She startles backward, her eyes wide, her lips redder than I’ve ever seen them.

I’ve taken the brunt of the water, and when my head whips toward Benny, I find him giving me a smug smirk, an empty fluted glass in his hand. People are staring, I realize, including Nat Flindowski and Stella’s old boyfriend, and mortification floods me—pure humiliation and chagrin and who knows what else, because I’m being completely inappropriate in a public space?—

I nod at the few people looking at us, forcing a small smile. “Apologies,” I say. My voice comes out gruff, raw. Then, without looking at Stella—who I might never be able to face again—I say, “I’ll be in the car.” I turn on my heel and book it toward the nearest exit, my hair dripping water, my dignity in tatters.