Adelaide
Now…
The present stared back at me, just as it had been for the last three days, ever since Adam had left it on my doorstep.
My former doorstep.
“What do you think it is?” June asked.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
The gold, rectangular box sat between us at the small café near my job. We were having lunch as a splurge since I rarely dined out these days. But it had been two months since I’d seen June in person, and this was sort of an emergency.
She gently pushed the box toward me. “You should open it. Otherwise, you won’t stop wondering.”
With a sigh, I picked up the box. There was a ribbon tied around it, and from how uneven the bow was, I was certain Adam had tied it himself. That knowledge pricked at the back of my eyes.
“This is going to tear me up, I just know it.”
June reached across the small, circular table, curling her warm fingers around my forearm. “I’m here.”
I untied the ribbon, wrapped the satiny pink fabric in a ball, then lifted the lid of the box. Inside, nestled in more pink satin, was a rose gold necklace with a quarter-size medallion. I lifted it to examine it closely.
My fingers went limp when I read what it said.
That rotten, rotten bastard. How could he?
I was over him. So over him. And then he had to come home early just for my birthday and give me this gift and act surprised that I didn’t want to see him or have anything to do with him. Why was he still hurting me?
“What is it?” June asked carefully.
I slid the necklace to her. She lifted it to examine it just as I had. Her brow pinched. She couldn’t possibly understand, but Adam did.
“Candy CrushWorld Champion?” Her eyes lifted to mine. “Is that the game you’re always playing on your phone?”
“Yeah,” I replied thickly as she handed the necklace back to me. “He made me theCandy Crushworld champion.”
The necklace was both adorable and heartbreakingly beautiful. It looked like a tiny medal with theCandy Crushlogo and a ruby in place of the heart. Underneath it proclaimed me the world champion with a tiny diamond at the very bottom.
I shoved it back in the box and slammed the lid closed. “I shouldn’t have opened it.”
“Hurts?” she asked.
“Like a kick in the teeth.” I shook it off. I had no choice. I’d spent two months moving on, changing my life drastically. I would not go back to where I’d been before. “But now it’s done, so that’s a relief.”
She smiled at me. “How are you? I mean, I know how you are, since I’ve spoken to you almost every day, but now that you’re in your new place, how are you?”
“It’s—” I puffed up my cheeks and blew out a long breath. “It’s different. This is the first time I can call something mine and only mine. I paid for it. My name is the only one on the lease. I don’t have to run any decisions by my dad before I make them. Ireallylike that part.”
“Can I admit I’m jealous?” June pressed a hand to her cheek. “My dad called me the second I got home. I barely had my shoes off. He wants me to come work for him again, and I might.”
“Babe, no. You’re free, why would you go back?”
Nothing could get me to work for my dad again. I’d rather lie down and die than allow him to sign my paycheck.
She lifted a shoulder. “I need a job. Nannying isn’t a career, so—”
“Says who? If you love it and it pays you well, why can’t you continue nannying?”