Page 232 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
My hand rises on its own, I let him take it. Let him turn it palm-up. Let him slide the band over my knuckle with slow, deliberate care.
It should be the simplest thing in the world.
It isn’t.
The heat of his hand around mine. The steadiness of his touch. The intimacy of him putting it back where it belongs.
It all lands at once, and I can’t stop watching his face, can’t stop waiting for the moment this becomes more than it is, for the moment he looks at me the way he used to and does something about it.
When the ring settles into place, he runs his thumb over it once, slow enough that it almost feels like a caress.
“Back where it belongs,” he murmurs.
My heart stumbles.
This is it.
This has to be it.
This has to be the moment he finally closes the distance he’s been holding between us with both hands.
I can feel it building already, the anticipation of it, the dangerous, aching hope, the way my whole body seems to tip toward him before he’s even moved.
But he doesn’t. He looks at Christian instead.
“Thank you.”
And just like that, the moment dies.
It doesn’t even fracture dramatically. It just goes out of it, all the heat draining from it at once until all that’s left is the ring on my finger and the ridiculous hollow ache opening back up in my chest.
I hate how quickly it hurts.
I hate that I let myself hope every single time.
Christian says something back to him, low and practical, and they drift immediately into logistics, into names and places andwhatever fresh movement has happened in the Vargas mess while I stand there holding Zach’s pendant in my hand and trying not to let the disappointment show too clearly on my face.
I fasten the chain around my neck myself, fingers clumsy from the way they still want to shake.
The pendant settles against my skin. Another thing back where it belongs. Another thing that somehow doesn’t fix what matters. I can’t listen to them talk about warehouses and movements and plans for one more minute.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, and I don’t wait for either of them to answer before I head down the hall to the bathroom.
The overhead light is too bright when I flip it on.
It catches me immediately in the mirror, catches the flush high in my cheeks, the tension in my mouth, the way my eyes look bright and tired all at once.
I stand there for a second just staring at myself.
Then I wash my hands even though there’s no reason to, just because I need something to do, something simple, something physical, something that belongs to me.
Water runs over my skin. Cold. Grounding.
I dry my hands and then, almost without meaning to, tug the neckline of my top lower.
The scarred line over Jackson’s tattoo is still there.
Not raw anymore. Not jagged and angry the way it was at first. It’s becoming something quieter now, something my body is trying to turn into memory rather than wound, but it is still there, a pale slash over the words and the possessive mark that had once felt untouchable.
