Chapter 16 #2
In actuality, all it had really done was make the craving worse.
Hubris, clearly.
Leaning forward, I spotted a row of emeralds all cushioned perfectly in a straight line. They ranged from the sizes I needed to varying shades of color. All of them beautiful to look at and take in, especially under the professional lighting.
“How about any of these?” she asked, the whisper of a sigh clinging to the end of her sentence.
Fed up with me, apparently.
Oh well.
I ran my gaze carefully over the stones, and one in particular caught my eye.
Snagging the tongs off of the counter, I used them to pick up the stone and hold it up closer to my eye.
The brilliant cut was certainly refracting quite a bit of light, as was how well it was cut.
But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
It was the exact same shade as Terran’s eyes.
Pine needles. The grass in an evergreen forest. Reeds in a freshwater reservoir.
Perfect.
“This one,” I murmured.
“A-Are you sure?” she asked.
My gaze shot to her. “Are you willing to move on and show me something else to start this process all over again?”
She shook her head quickly, eyes widening from the unspoken threat. “No, sir. I’ll get those ordered for you right away. All the cuts in that color?”
I set the gem back onto the velvet cushion. “You still have my list, I presume.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Then you already know the answer to that question.”
Despite my dry words, she practically beamed back at me. “I’ll get those ordered and rung up for you right away. You’ve made a good choice.”
Yes, for your wallet.
I sunk back in the chair the second she disappeared around the curtain, a significant amount of chatter exploding on the other side of it with her coworkers no doubt congratulating her on finally landing the sale.
To be fair, even if I found nothing today, I wasn’t going to let her leave empty-handed. Going through the trouble of dealing with my pickiness deserved some kind of compensation. Contrary to what most people thought, I was well aware of my flaws and annoying personality quirks.
I simply chose not to care how they colored other people’s opinion of me.
“Wow, after all that,” Avery mused, snagging his champagne off the counter. He swirled it a few times in the glass. “You went with something so basic.”
I popped a brow. “Is emerald basic? Diamond is more common.”
“Yeah, but if you’re buying it for someone, that’s usually what most people go with.”
He sipped his champagne while I remained silent, unsure of how to pivot from that comment. While it wasn’t a stretch to assume this purchase wasn’t for me, I didn’t like the implications that it was obvious. Almost like we’d walked in here and he’d expected that to be the case.
See, that was the problem with having friends with big mouths.
“Marlow called you.”
Avery shrugged. “What about it?”
Good lord.
“Cut it.”
He snorted and reached for the chilled bottle, retrieving it out of the bucket. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what was with the sleepover?”
Unintentional. But Avery wasn’t about to believe that any more than Marlow did. All of that had been an honest mistake, an oversight on my part, to not account for getting riled up that much that it exhausted us both into falling asleep after finally relaxing.
“It wasn’t like that,” I replied.
“Uh huh.”
Typically, I was over it by the time both parties came and the condom was ripped off. Clean up was annoying with another person hanging around, their gaze searching for the answer to whatever silent question they were too afraid to ask while I stripped the bed and tossed them their clothes.
Callous?
Sure. I’d own that.
Except that’s not at all what happened with Terran.
In the entire thirty-four years I’d been alive on this planet, not once had I ever felt comfortable enough sharing a bed with someone to the point of actually falling asleep next to them.
Sleepovers when I was younger were torture, sleep deprivation a very real thing I experienced when at boarding school with Marlow’s insistence on not leaving me alone for the first month of us living there.
A breakdown later had revealed a certain penchant, or rather distaste, for sharing such a personal and intimate space with someone while in the most vulnerable state possible.
After that, Marlow had happily moved along to his own bed and space, no longer feeling the need to crawl into mine in the middle of the night when he’d convinced himself our dorm was haunted.
But it had given me an interesting insight into my own psyche. One I tended to chalk up to being an only child and raised by parents who were on the older side and favored teaching staunch independence rather than nurturing the opposite.
So, why was Terran different?
He wasn’t. That was the bottom line. That night had been a fluke, never able to be recreated again.
My body wouldn’t allow for it to happen twice in a row.
Eventually, my instincts were going to kick in and spiral into some massive freak out Terran didn’t need to be a part of.
Kicking him out before that would save us both the embarrassment and the trouble.
Once Rebecca made her way back to us, she had a tablet in her hand and a large grin on her face.
Her eyes sparkled while I signed all of the paperwork and handed over the information for the delivery address—sending it to the artisan directly rather than middle-manning it myself and risk losing gemstones along the way.
While I had disposable income that would make Terran shit himself if he saw it, I wasn’t frivolous with my spending habits.
Having to buy things twice because someone at the distribution center got a little too curious about the origin of my package was absolutely not something I had the patience to deal with.
“Thank you so much for your business, Mr. Montgomery.” She grabbed my hand as I stood, squeezing it in hers.
I snatched it back from her, a shudder rolling up my spine.
Avery slung an arm over my shoulder, successfully redirecting the snide comment poised on the tip of my tongue. “Thank you for all your help.”
“Any time! You gentlemen come back soon.”
Avery gave my shoulder a firm pat before spinning us both around and marching us out of the jewelers. Once out in the fresh air, he dropped his arm from around me, taking in a deep lungful of air while tilting his head up toward the sun.
“Nice day out.”
Glancing up at the blue sky, I had to agree. “You have any plans other than going home to your man?”
He threw me a wry smile. “What is with you?”
“What...”
What did I say this time?
He shook his head. “You’re going to have to get used to them, eventually. Neither of them are going anywhere.”
I had half a mind to play dumb and ask him what the fuck he was talking about, but we both knew I was smarter than that. Lying about caring whether or not my friends stayed coupled up was only going to result in some lecture Avery seemed geared up to give me.
Whatever conversations he and Marlow were having privately without me around clearly went in the direction of being annoyed I didn’t like their significant others.
Which wasn’t that case. I was simply indifferent.
Wasn’t that better than hating them?
Avery watched me while I remained silent, choosing to exercise the 5th instead of egging him on.
What was the point in arguing when the disagreement was never going to resolve itself?
If one could even call it that.
Those two seemed to think that’s what it was while I was choosing to believe I was on the other side of the fence, watering my own damn gardening and not worrying what the hell anyone else was doing.
“What were the gemstones for?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Were they for your boytoy?”
All right. Deflection time.
“Why in the world would I be buying him over a hundred grand worth of gemstones?”
He laughed a little. “I don’t know. You’ve been acting weird lately.”
“I don’t like change.” Annoyance began to leak into my tone. “I don’t know how many times I have to say that to the both of you. That quirky little trait you used to find so endearing back when we were kids didn’t go anywhere the moment I turned thirty.”
His hands shot up in the air in a defensive pose. “All right. Enough. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
You should be.
I managed to hold back the retort from leaving the inside of my head.
As tempting as it was to lay into Avery, he didn’t deserve it.
Out of the three of us, he had the softest heart.
He was coming from a good place, even if it annoyed me to death.
It was obvious that the both of them were worried about me isolating myself and were lost on how to navigate things from here.
I had no answers for them other than to tell them to go back to the way things were a year ago. Things were fine then—the status quo.
Clearly, that kind of advice was out of the question, though, even if it was the easiest solution.
I didn’t like being at odds with my friends, despite what they both may think. I liked having them around and how close and tight-knit we all were. Getting along with them was what I strived for. This weird dissonance wasn’t fun to deal with, let alone continue to live through.
Fixing things started on my end. Being the odd man out, they always would. Bridging the gap, extending the olive branch, I needed to take the first step forward.
Running my tongue on the backs of my teeth, I hesitated before saying, “I bought them because I owed someone.”
His brow rose slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re in some kind of financial trouble. Just tell me how much you need, no questions asked.”
Leave it to Avery to go to the worst case scenario. “Thank you, your royal billionaire. But I’m good on the money front.”
“Someone threatening you?”
“No.”
He groaned. “Silas.”
I really hated talking about personal shit. “One of my patients was wearing a few very expensive pieces of jewelry that we ended up having to trash during surgery. They were worth a lot and had real stones, so I’m simply replacing them.”
His stare was both confused and fascinated. “Since when do you care about personal property? Aren’t you the first to say that whatever needs to get done in the OR gets done, no questions asked?”
Throwing my own words back at me. Wonderful.
“Yes.”
He waved his hand. “So, then... why?”
I shrugged again.
Truthfully, I had no right answer. At the time when I’d told Terran I’d buy him a new set of waist chains, I’d meant it in a replacement sense—getting him the same exact one, or at least similar enough, with an equal value.
What I never accounted for when researching said chains in order to repurchase them was how many others I found that would look infinitely better wrapped around him than the one he’d bought for himself.
The beauty of being a trust fund baby, along with having a high salary job, was I had enough funds to blow on something as ridiculous as a two hundred thousand dollar set of chains I was going to happily dress him up in.
And he’d remain none the wiser the second I had the metal soldered in place.
Avery sighed at me. “Fine. Keep it to yourself. But listen, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. All right? I don’t like you not talking to us for weeks on end.”
Guilt wasn’t an emotion I experienced often. However, both Avery and Marlow were experts in coaxing it out of the deep depths I’d shoved it down into many years ago.
His words were a subtle nudge to come back to the friendship. They’d allowed me to remain on the outskirts for a while but now it was time to come home. I dreaded having to integrate myself in their new lives. But if that was what it took to make them happy, I’d try.
My voice was quiet when I spoke again. Hardly a murmur. “Okay.”
He smiled. “Good. Call me when you can.”
Waving him off, we both parted for our cars and climbed in.
The second the door to mine was closed, I leaned forward to rest my head against the steering wheel and sighed.
I really hated change.