I’m shaking my head and saying no thanks to the earrings as Dempsey smooths one hand along my hip. He sidles up behind me before whispering in my ear.

“The money doesn’t matter. Pick out what you want and let me buy it for you.”

I reach back and take his hand, and we study the pieces behind the glass together as I seek out what feels right. If this gift is the only thing I get to keep when we say our goodbyes, I want it to be something I’ll wear every day. Something that reminds me that what we had was real and true.

I circle back to the middle of the store and ask to see a necklace I noticed earlier. I tentatively accept the little blue cardboard backing from the salesperson, then trace one finger along the length of the impossibly thin chain. I look up to find Dempsey’s focus on me.

There’s a small diamond no bigger than a quilting needle head encased in platinum suspended on the chain. It’s unassumingly elegant.

“This one. This is what I want.”

He takes the necklace from my hand and balks at the price—only four hundred dollars.

“You’re sure?” he challenges, eyeing me skeptically to make sure I’m not just trying to pick something cheap.

I can’t explain my reasoning to him. I won’t. This is what I want because this is how I want to remember us. Years from now, when I think about this summer, I want to remember how it felt to be with this man.

“I’m sure. It’s perfect.”

He puts it on for me rather than having them bag it up, and I savor the way his fingers brush my hair aside and caress my skin as he secures the necklace in place. He pays and insists on purchasing the lifetime warranty plan, which makes tears prick behind my eyes without my permission. Damn him for caring about what happens when we’re done.

Even after we’re ancient history, I’ll still have a lifetime guarantee that I’ll never forget this summer.

I blink back tears as he takes my hand again and leads me toward the circular doors.

“It’s beautiful,” he praises before bending down to kiss me on the forehead. “Come on. We’ve got tickets to the four o’clock showing at The Paris. It’s close enough that we can walk.”

He guides me out of the store and onto the streets of New York, completely unaware that I’m mentally unraveling about the end of us.

39. Maddie

Chapter 39

Maddie

We’re pressed together in the same side of a booth at a rotating bar on the forty-eighth floor of a hotel in the middle of Times Square. The fringe of my blush pink cocktail dress tickles my thigh every time Dempsey brushes against my leg. Which is often. So often.