VERSUS (Second Chances 2)

I stare down at the reminder of the worst night of my life.

“I found it at a party. You must have dropped it.” She chuckles. “I picked it up, and it ended up in a box of my things. I brought it back from Buffalo for you.”

I swallow hard, finally looking up at her.

“Can you believe you have it back?”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

Her hand darts out, palm outstretched. “A deal is a deal, so give me back my earring.”

I open my fisted hand and drop the earring into her palm.

“Hey.” She playfully punches my bicep. “We just negotiated something and kept our clothes on.”

I look back down at the ring. I never thought I’d see this again. It feels like she just handed me a key that opens the door to my past.

All I have to do is use it to start a discussion about the night we graduated.

There’s no chance for a future with her, if I don’t set the past straight.

Chapter 40

Eden

I can’t tell if he’s happy to see the ring or not.

The expression on his face is unreadable. That’s a must for a skilled attorney inside a courtroom. Dylan has mastered it outside as well.

“Try it on,” I suggest because I’ll do anything to get a smile out of him.

I’ve held onto that ring for more than fifteen years. When he walked out of the party that we were at on the night we graduated, I saw it on a table.

I knew it was his before I touched it.

I scooped it up, shoving it into the front pocket of the jean cut-offs I was wearing.

The doctors in the ER that night had to cut the shorts off of my body, but they put the ring in a small plastic zippered bag along with my house key.

A nurse handed it to me once I was conscious again.

I waited for Dylan to visit me in the hospital, but he never came.

Once I was discharged, I kept it in my jewelry box, and eventually, that ended up in a cardboard box in the corner of my closet in Buffalo.

“It won’t fit.” He looks down at it. “My hands are bigger now.”

I take the comment and run with it. “You’re a perfect example of that saying about men with big hands having big…”

“Cocks,” he interrupts me.

“Egos,” I say flippantly. “That’s bigger now than it was in high school too.”

He sets the ring on the coffee table. “You like the size of my ego.”

Glancing down at the earring in my hand, I sigh. “I admit I like it. I like a lot of things about you.”

“Like what?”