"West… this is beautiful."
Her voice has gone quiet—genuinely disarmed.
"Give me your wrist."
She extends her arm. I take the bracelet from the box and bring it to her skin, working the clasp with both hands. My thumbs brush the inside of her wrist and I feel her pulse—rapid, insistent, beating against my fingertips like something trying to escape.
She holds very still. Not breathing.
The clasp closes. The bracelet settles against her wrist perfectly, because the shop owner had lined up rigid bangles across the counter, and I wrapped my fingers around each one, measuring the diameter against the memory of Jane’s pulse beneath my thumb. Now, the diamonds throw tinyprismatic sparks across the wall.
"Wait." She tilts her wrist. Squints at the inside of the center band. "There's something engraved."
I watch her read it. Watch confusion arrive first, then the slow dawn of recognition.
"Jan 24, 2026. Us." she says. Looks up at me. "That's… the day we got to the island."
"No."
Her brow furrows.
"The day at the pool," I say. "When I caught you in my arms."
Understanding hits her face like sunrise—sudden, total, transforming everything it touches. Her fingertip traces the small engraving. Her mouth opens. Closes.
"You—" Her voice splinters. She tries again.
"I remember everything about that moment."
Because it wasn't the island that changed me. It wasn't the deal, or the proximity, or the paradise-tinted unreality of this week. It was her weight in my arms. The shock in her brown eyes when I caught her mid-stumble, chlorine-damp and furious and completely unprepared for the collision.
That was the fracture point. Everything after was just the wall coming down.
"West, this is too much—"
"It's not. You're keeping it." I pause.
"It was the cheapest one in the shop." I tease.
She stares at me. Then barks a laugh and smacks my biceps. "Yah, right. You're the worst."
"Noted."
She steps into me. Arms circling my waist, face pressing against my chest, just holding on. I wrap around her—one hand spanning her lower back, the other cupping the base of her skull. She breathes against my sternum and I feel it everywhere.
The words are right there. Three of them.
This bracelet says it for me. For now.
When she pulls back, her eyes are bright but dry. She looks at the bracelet again. Touches one of the diamonds with her index finger.
"Thank you." Quiet. Sincere. Stripped of every defense she carries.
I nod. Don't trust my voice.
Her phone buzzes on the counter. Wedding timeline reminder.
"We should get ready," she says.
