“Wow,” he says, impressed. I leave him to have a poke about as I watch him admiring my belongings. He falls upon the Fabergé egg almost instantly and holds it up. “This one?”
“Yes.”
“It’s gorgeous. Why don’t you have it displayed somewhere?”
“It belongs in here, with everything else,” I say simply.
He nods and moves on, poking through all the drawers until he happens upon those that I knew he would. He stops and stares. “Your wedding rings. Yours and Frasers,” he says as he continues to just stare at them.
“Yes,” I say again. He breathes in deeply, accepting it.
“What went here?” he taps the small empty space next to them.
I step closer and take his left hand. I twirl his ring and he grins. “This. This was here, waiting for you,” I say quietly. He drops a light kiss to my lips and continues his perusal.
“What’s this?” he asks, picking up a small fist-sized rock and turning it around.
“A rock,” I say with a serious face.
“So I can see. What of?”
“A bell tower.”
“Where?”
“London.”
“Liv. Why are you being evasive? You said anything I wanted to know about you would tell me.”
“It is from the bell tower where CK and I first used to meet. He gave it to me after I woke up.”
“Oh,” he says.
“It’s a part of my history.”
“I know. I wish that I’d known you then.”
“You know me now.” I take his hand and lead him over to a set of drawers on the opposite wall. I gesture for him to open it and he does. He stares into the drawer and laughs. “Hardly seems to fit in with the general theme of the room.”
“The general theme of the room is items that mean enough to me for me to keep.”
He picks up the receipt from our first dinner date and fingers it. “I like that you kept it. I still have something you gave me,” he says and pulls out his wallet. He hands me the business card I gave him all those months ago. I giggle and place it next to the receipt.
He smiles. “Perfect,” he murmurs.
“You know. I wasn’t planning on attending that night. Devon dragged me at the last minute.”
“Remind me to thank him tomorrow,” Cole says with a laugh but then sobers. “God. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I hadn’t met you. I can’t think of not being with you. Not being a part of your world.”
“Our world,” I correct him. “But me either. If I hadn’t met you, things would have turned out so differently.”
“No kidding,” he says. “Sometimes I wonder if you would have been better off.”
“What?” I say incredulously. “Cole. Don’t say that. Yes, things have been mad since we got together but I would never, ever change any of it.”
He picks up the silver circlet that I wore to our wedding and he twirls it. “This is in the wrong place,” he says absently.
“No, it is where it should be.”