And when you don’t know when death will take the person you love, you want to spend every waking moment with them—and doing it making them happy. This will make her happy.
It will also make me happy.
It may have been foolish to buy the ring so soon. We’ve had a lot of catching up to do these past days, but she’s still the girl I fell in love with all those years ago, and I think she sees that I’m still the same boy from high school.
“Here you are, sir,” the gemstone dealer says. I’m at the jewelry store in town. It’s a magical shop, where the gemstones sing high-pitched songs when you walk by them, trying to get your attention, willing you to purchase them instead of looking at any of the other rings or bracelets tucked under the glass cases. The stones remind me of a songbird holding a note on a spring morning.
The dealer looks like what you’d expect of someone who buys and sells gemstones—hawkish nose, thin fingers, thick glasses.He opens the velvet box and reveals a bloodred gemstone surrounded by diamonds set in platinum. The gemstone is clear, brilliant, and the diamonds sparkle.
“The painite that you requested,” he says.
I take out the ring and lift it to the light. “Rarest gemstone known to man. Only found in Myanmar.”
“You have excellent taste, Mr. Ross.”
“Thank you. It’s perfect.” I tuck it back into the box. “She’ll love it.”
“I do think so.”
“Please wrap it and I’ll pay.”
I’m back outside when my phone dings. I pull it from my jacket pocket and smile because it’s Blair.Are we still on for tonight?
I stop to reply.Absolutely. There’s this new restaurant in Nashville I want to try. Pick you up at six?
Yep. I get off work at five. See you then.
Hands is sitting in the car when I sink into my seat. He did not want to come inside, afraid that his appearance would draw too much attention. When people see a pair of disembodied hands, they tend to be disturbed.
We know. We’ve been through this rodeo.
Well?
I pull the box from the bag and show him. “What do you think?”
He makes the sign for whistling.She’s going to think you’ve lost your mind.
“I have lost my mind—for her. I’m going to propose in a couple of nights. There’s another ball. The last one for a while. I’m doing it then, in front of everyone.”
Hands signs,You want to claim her publicly.
I grit my teeth. “I want the people in that room who looked down on Blair to know that she’s better than them. That’s whatI want. She deserves it. It’s the least that I can do after what happened in high school, when she was humiliated.”
Will Storm be there?
“How would I know?”
Because he’s walking into the bookshop.
I look up and do a double take. “Well, son of a gun.”
Sure enough, Storm Grayson, wearing a black coat and with his hair coiffed like he spent an hour styling it, is currently striding into Castleview Books, where Blair is right now.
32
The Bookshop of Magic is in absolute chaos—or at least as close to chaos as I’ve ever seen it.
There’s a line of angry customers winding through the store, around bookcases and the counter, snaking all the way to the front door.
