Five Stolen Rings

Chapter 20

JACK

When Stella and I were kids, we tried to make a blood pact to be friends forever.

It didn’t work. We both started crying. But I’ll remember that evening forever, because of how I felt—a buzzing excitement like something monumental was about to happen, and the feeling that nothing would be the same after.

Everything was exactly the same after. I don’t know why I felt that way.

But I do know that I feel the same way right now, and it’s throwing me off. Every muscle in my body is tightened, adrenaline is pumping through my veins, and I’m not even doing anything; I’m just standing here, watching Stella drift aimlessly around my living room.

Focus, I tell myself, and get this woman out of your apartment before you do something insane like tell her all your secrets and then ask her to love you ? —

“Whoa,” I say, startled, my eyes popping wide.

Stella hears me; she turns around and raises her brows at me. “Sorry, what?” she says.

My fingers curl around the edge of the countertop so tightly my knuckles are probably white. “Nothing,” I say, even as my eyes are glued to her, drinking her in, cataloging everything I see—the way she moves, the way she tilts her head as she looks at the bookcase, the way her clothes hug her curves.

She looks much better in my space than a pet cat ever could?—

Good grief.

“All right,” I say loudly, and I’m talking as much to myself as I am to her. “Time to go.”

I wave at the front door, none too politely, and Stella nods, sighing.

“Yeah,” she says, running one hand through her hair. “I should probably go feed Maude’s animals anyway.”

“I’ll come with you,” I say—and I swear, the words are out of my mouth before I even have time to think. I clap my hand over my mouth so hard it hurts, but of course it doesn’t work; my offer still hangs in the air between us.

“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat in the most dignified way possible. “I spoke without thinking.” My voice is gruff, and I think my face is probably turning red, but I go on. “I will not be coming with you.”

Stella’s brows quirk as she ambles slowly toward me. “Okay,” she says slowly, giving me a strange look. “That’s fine. You should get some good sleep anyway. Do you work tomorrow? Doctors probably don’t get time off for the holidays, right?”

“I work tomorrow,” I say with a sharp nod while I mentally kick myself. The Stella Effect is particularly strong this evening, or maybe I’m particularly susceptible, weakened by prolonged exposure and the memory of her halfway out my window, legs flailing like an upside-down turtle?—

“Are you getting enough sleep?” she says, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her gaze is critical as it sweeps over me, taking me in. “Do you get enough to eat?”

Definitely not. “Of course,” I say.

She narrows her eyes, and it couldn’t be clearer that she doesn’t believe me. “Go to bed,” she says. “I’ll see myself out.”

I gesture tiredly to the front door, but she doesn’t budge.

“Go to bed first,” she says.

I sigh. “I know myself to be incapable of sleeping while you’re in my apartment,” I say, and it’s the truth. I would toss and turn and wonder what she was doing until it drove me so crazy I got out of bed again.

But Stella isn’t buying it. She points down the hallway toward my bedroom. “Go. Now,” she says in a stern voice.

“Not until you leave,” I say.

“No,” she says, folding her arms over her chest. “I’ll leave when you’re in bed.”

I find my eyes narrowing on her, because while she’s always stubborn, she’s being abnormally insistent. And as soon as she averts her gaze, I know I’m right; she’s up to something, and she doesn’t want me to see.

“What are you trying to do?” I say, my voice flat.

“Nothing,” she answers—far too quickly to be true.

“Stella,” I say.

“I—it’s not— fine. ” The word bursts out of her as she throws her hands up in the air. “I just want to make you some food, okay? I want to make you some sandwiches to stick in the fridge. But it’s embarrassing to say that to your face, so go”—she closes the distance between us in several long strides—“to”—now she grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around—“your room ”—and down the hall she begins pushing me, step by step by step toward my bedroom—“so that I can?—”

She breaks off with an oomph as I whirl around, out of her grip, and then she stumbles forward. Her body collides with mine, and my arms close around her immediately without asking my permission.

Her sweater is soft, but her curves are softer. She’s warm, too, and even though the hallway is dark, I can see a flush rising rapidly up her neck as she catches her breath; it will find her cheeks soon.

“You should go,” I breathe, even as my arms tighten further around her. I can’t seem to find the oxygen I need, and electricity is dancing in my veins, vivid and bright and alive. And my heartbeat—it pounds in my ears as she tilts her face up toward me.

Her gaze when it clashes with mine is full of the same fire that’s burning in my chest, growing by the second. “You said I wasn’t handsome enough to tempt you,” she says as her hands find my upper arms, twisting into the fabric of my sleeves.

“I’m tempted.” It’s the only truth I can give her. Her lips part, drawing my eye, and I can’t quite look away as I go on, “So leave.” My voice is hoarse in a way that reveals far too much, but it’s the only sound I seem to be capable of making. “Go home,” I continue, “and don’t try to take care of me. Don’t try to make me food or monitor my sleep.”

“I wouldn’t have to do those things if you would just take care of yourself,” she retorts hotly, her fingers digging into my biceps now. They dig further into my muscles when I snort with incredulous laughter.

“If anyone doesn’t take care of themselves, it’s you,” I say.

“I take care of myself?—”

“You fell out of a tree, Princess,” I scoff.

“And you didn’t catch me, I’d like to point out,” she says with an arched brow. “Thanks for that. So just let me make you a few sandwiches like a good little housewife,” she says sarcastically, “and stop being so stubbornly pigheaded. ”

“ I’m stubborn?” I say. “If I’m stubborn, you definitely are.”

She tilts her chin up defiantly. “What—does that really bother you?”

And look. I will never begrudge anyone what they value in a relationship or a partner. But for me, personally…

“You know it doesn’t,” I say hoarsely.

And then…

Then I’m kissing her.

I don’t even know how it happens. But suddenly I’m kissing her, stealing her insults away, growling with desperate relief as she responds. She’s impossible, this woman—so stupidly stubborn, so stupidly adorable. My lips slant over hers, tasting her, devouring her as I pull her closer, closer—her hands in my hair and growing panic in my soul because Benny was right, Dr. Barb was right—I am completely obsessed with this woman, a fool for her, weak for her in a way I’ve never been for anyone else?—

“ No ,” I gasp, pushing her back as I break away. I point down the hallway, toward the door. “Go,” I say, my mind reeling. “Now. Go. ”

She hesitates only briefly, her hair mussed, her chest rising and falling rapidly. When she speaks, her words are broken.

“Don’t kiss me again unless you mean it,” she says, her gaze darting away from mine. “I’m not going to be someone you regret kissing. I’m not going to be someone you like against your will or better judgment.”

“I don’t like you.” I spit the words out automatically, vehemently.

Stella’s shoulders fall, and then she nods. “My mistake.” She swallows. “Thanks for your help today.”

My heart tightens, sinks, plunges—but she’s already turning around, hurrying down the hall—and then, a few seconds later, with a quiet click, the front door opens, closes behind her?—

And she’s gone.

There are consequences for kissing someone. There are definitely consequences for kissing someone two days in a row and then handling it very, very poorly.

Stella doesn’t answer when I call her the next day. When I go over to Maude’s house after work and knock on the door, no one answers.

And when I try to enter through the living room window, I have to cut through several layers of plastic wrap before I can climb in—only for my feet to find an entire row of rolling pins.

I finally track her down at Maude’s, two days before Christmas, putting the finishing touches on a Christmas tree in one corner of the gloomy living room.

Normal, I chant to myself. Be normal. Act normal.

There doesn’t appear to be any plastic wrap in place over the window this time, but I knock on the glass anyway—quietly at first, so I don’t startle her, and then louder when she pretends not to hear. When she finally rolls her eyes and opens the window for me, I climb gratefully in, my fingers numb from the cold.

“You’re acting like a stalker,” she snaps at me, standing back to give me room.

“Believe me, I know,” I say with feeling once I’ve unfolded myself and closed the window behind me. “It’s very out of the norm for me. But you’re avoiding me, Princess.”

“Of course I’m not,” she says.

I point to her twitching jaw, and she scowls, her hand jumping to her face to cover it.

“That’s what I thought,” I say with a nod. “You’re mad at me, so you’re not taking my calls or answering my texts.” I amble slowly toward the stiff, uncomfortable couch and then settle myself there, looking up at Stella.

“Well, what do you want from me?” she asks, sighing. She slumps back over to the tree and picks up where she left off, weaving sparkly tinsel garland through the boughs. “You kiss me, but you say you don’t like me. Fine. Friendship, then?” She glances over her shoulder at me. “But friends don’t talk every day, Jack. They definitely don’t see each other every day.”

Normal, I remind myself. Do not think about the kisses.

“Some friends talk every day,” I say .

“Oh, stop it,” she says, whirling angrily on me and letting the tinsel garland fall. “I’m not going to let you demand something deep but call it shallow. You can’t do that to me. Work out your issues on your own time.”

I stare at her, stunned, but she’s not done.

“I don’t kiss my friends, Jack,” she says, sounding nothing so much as tired now. “I don’t want to kiss my friends. I don’t see them every day. I don’t even talk to them every day. So don’t get mad at me for acting like a friend when that’s what you claim to want.”

And for a second, even the birds in their atrium are silent. I wish they would squawk, screech, whatever it is that birds do—because Stella is right. She’s completely right, and it’s such an uncomfortable realization that I’m tempted to dive right back out the window I came in through.

“We reunited not even two weeks ago,” I say slowly, carefully.

“Yeah,” she says, turning back to the tree. “So?”

“So…” But I trail off, because—as I realize too late—I don’t have anything to say. Nothing, except that I can’t possibly be this stupidly crazy about her when we barely know each other. There’s no way.

But you do know her, a little voice in my mind whispers. You know she’s kind and caring; you know she makes you laugh more than anyone in the world. You know her weaknesses, and you want to hold her anyway.

“Friends,” I say, the word strangled as I force it out of my throat. “Normal friends. For real this time.”

She pauses just briefly, her hand around a gaudy glass ornament in the shape of a martini. “Apologize first.”

“I’m sorry.” I hand her the words immediately, and with no regret.

“What are you sorry for?”

I sigh. “For—” I break off, thinking. “For lashing out instead of dealing with my emotions,” I finally settle on.

“And are you sorry for kissing me?” she says.

My heart lurches in my chest, a big, stupid rodent that doesn’t know when to quit. “I…don’t know how to answer that, if we’re going to be friends.”

“Answer truthfully,” she says after a beat of silence, and I can’t help but notice that although she’s still facing the Christmas tree, she’s no longer decorating; that martini ornament is still in her hand.

“No,” I admit. “I’m not sorry for kissing you.”

“Fine,” she says airily. “Friends, then.”

I nod and stand up, feeling somehow both relieved and disappointed.

“If you ever want more,” she goes on conversationally, “or if you’re ever up for delving into our history, or—well, I guess if you ever get your issues sorted, too…let me know.” She shrugs, which is more than my suddenly frozen body is capable of. “I think I might kind of like you.”

“I—why— what? ”

I’m man enough to admit it’s not my finest moment.

She shrugs, a twitch of her shoulders in her pink fuzzy sweater. “I,” she says slowly, “like”—she draws this word out too, still facing the tree—“you,” she finishes. “Or at least…I might. I could. All that talk about never kissing you in a million years aside…” Another shrug, but now she turns to face me at last. “You are, for better or worse, exactly my type.”

“Am I?” I say faintly. Every single thought I’ve ever had is gone from my mind. I have regressed to pre-adolescent developmental milestones. Two-word sentences are all I’m currently capable of; I might soon lose the ability to speak all together.

“Mmm,” she says with a nod. “Yep. Intelligent, competent, a little too cocky, handsome, thoughtful. But,” she adds severely, “I am so uninterested in emotional games. I do not have the time or the patience. So for now, we’re friends. We don’t talk all the time, we don’t hang out every day for no reason, and we definitely don’t kiss. Got it?”

I nod slowly, even as something deep down rebels at these limitations.

“Good,” she says briskly. “Now either help me finish decorating or leave.”

I gape at her in silence until she throws me a look .

“Close your mouth,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You look like a fish.”