Something she rarely did.Nothing good came from developing feelings for another person.They always left in the end.At least, that was her experience.She’d convinced herself that lifelong lovers were myths meant to sell greeting cards on Valentine’s Day.Not to mention the wedding industry.That was a money-making machine.
All of it was a sham.
Lowering her gaze to the cooler in her lap, she sighed.
Was it, though?
Just because she hadn’t stumbled upon love didn’t mean other people couldn’t.Then again, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t become intimately attached before.She’d experienced the emotion.It hadn’t done her very well, but it had happened a time a two.
Hadn’t it?
What she’d felt in the past didn’t compare to now.This was far more intense.Her feelings for Fink made it hard to breathe sometimes.What she’d felt for others before wasn’t like this.To call it the same thing was an insult.With anyone else she’d experienced mere fondness.With Fink, she’d say it was more akin to obsession.If this was love, damn.She was not prepared for it but never wanted to let it go.
Running her hand over the lid of the plastic box in her lap, she considered the contents—a damaged heart.Fink’s gift to her.Was it his method of saying goodbye?
If so, shouldn’t she refuse it?Would that force him to come up with another one?
She snorted.Right?If she said no to this, that was it.He wasn’t going to hit the local mall to find her something else.
Honestly, Burke’s heart was perfect.Few people had such sentimental mementos.
“What are we going to do with it?”she asked.
“Just outside of Brooklyn, there’s a drop-off,” he said as he switched lanes on the interstate.
What?
She furrowed her brows.
Had she misheard him and misinterpreted everything?
No way.He gave a whole-ass speech.There was no misconstruing that.Though was it possible he could’ve been lying?Why he would do that was beyond her, but maybe she should check her understanding of the organ in her lap.
“I thought I was supposed to keep it?”
Peering at her quickly before bringing his focus back to the road proved his confusion.That made two of them.
She patted the cooler in her hand.“This one.The heart.”
His expression brightened.He smiled and nodded.“Ah.Yes, that.”He shifted in his seat a bit.“I probably should’ve thought it out a bit more before I suggested we take it.”
“We” came off his tongue so easily, it made her heart skip a beat and her butterflies flutter in her stomach.Unfortunately, she’d grown accustomed to them being a “we.”
“I don’t want to stick it into some jar with whatever that embalming fluid is.”He wrinkled his nose.
She pursed her lips.“That seems like the exact way someone would get caught.”
“Definitely seen it in a movie or two,” he agreed.
“Can we seal it in resin?”she pondered aloud.
He tapped the buttons on the radio to switch the station.That was the thing about tuning into FM radio like peasants; the signal went out when they got too far away from the station.There had to be a method to listen to satellite.
Maybe they could make a playlist.That would be better than static.
“We can Google it when we get home,” he suggested.
Again, her heart did somersaults in her chest.Not only did he use the magicWword again, but he called her apartment “home.”
