Chapter 6

Jamie's POV

I know what she'd love?

No. I knew what Sophia would love because I had spent years quietly finding out, digging through her friends for information so I could hand Ethan the perfect gift every single time.

I had pushed him into another woman's arms and then handed him a map to her heart.

"Okay."

The next afternoon. The most prestigious custom jewelry boutique in Manhattan.

The consultant spread tray after velvet tray across the counter. Diamonds caught the light from every angle.

Ethan studied each one with the focus he rarely applied to anything else. More serious than when he reviewed a billion-dollar contract.

"Too small. Not for her."

"Too fussy. Sophia likes clean lines."

"This one..." He picked up a pink diamond ring and turned to me. "Jamie. Give me your hand."

I instinctively pulled my hand back. "For what?"

"To try it on." He said it like it was obvious. "Your fingers are about the same size as hers. Your hands are rougher, she takes better care of hers, but the bone structure is the same. Come on."

I looked at him.

The boy who had taken up every corner of my youth. Standing here now, holding a ring he had chosen for someone else, asking to use my hand as a stand-in.

And noting, while he was at it, that my hands weren't as soft as hers.

Of course they weren't. Sophia's hands were made for piano keys and oil paintings. Mine were made for sorting his files, managing his crises, and once, to make a project deadline, hauling equipment on a construction site.

"Ethan." My voice wavered.

"Come on, hurry up." He was already impatient, completely unaware. "What are you waiting for?"

I held out my left hand.

He slid the pink diamond onto my ring finger.

A perfect fit.

The stone caught the light against my pale skin. The whole thing felt like a punchline I'd been building toward for twenty-two years.

"Beautiful!" Ethan's face lit up. "Yeah, you really do have to see a ring on a hand to know. Your hands aren't exactly model material, but the diamond's flashy enough to carry it. It's going to look even better on Sophia."

He handed the ring to the consultant, satisfied, and asked her to box it up.

I looked at my bare finger.

Then at Ethan, beaming as he took the small white box, completely at peace with the world.

I smiled. Faint. Sad.

"Ethan." I said it to his back, quiet as a sigh. "The divorce papers are signed. I left them on your desk."

He stopped. Turned.

And smiled, the wide, easy smile of a man whose life is suddenly coming together. "Jamie, seriously, thank you. Dinner tonight, on me. We can celebrate finally being single again!"

I didn't respond.

I was thinking about the winter of junior year in high school.

Sophia had been obsessed with a burger place near campus, but the lines were always impossible. So Ethan dragged me out of class to go stand in it for her. It was freezing, the wind cutting right through everything.

My hands were so cold they cracked and blistered. Ethan pulled off his scarf, and for one second I thought he was going to wrap it around me.

Instead, he bundled it around the bag of burgers, tucked the whole thing against his chest. "This way they'll still be warm when Sophia gets them."

I came down with a fever that afternoon. Ethan patted me on the back. "Your immune system is terrible. You need to toughen up."

The memory wrapped around my chest like a thorned vine and squeezed.