“I don’t hate you.”

“No?” He asked as I shook my head. “Okay,” he reached over and placed his hand on top of mine. The warmth of his touch sent a zing through me that I didn’t want to acknowledge, but the question he asked threw me for such a loop that the feeling was soon forgotten. “What does your wedding ring look like?”

“That’s kind of a crazy, random question,” I deflected.

“Maybe, but I’d still like to know what you think of it.”

“It’s fine and fits well,” I explained rather diplomatically.

“Yeah, but what does it look like? Do you need something different? Are you comfortable with the inscriptions? Is it something you ever saw yourself wearing?” Shit, his questions were starting to worry me. I still hadn’t taken a look at the ring. I know it seems almost impossible, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it before.

“What does any of that matter?”

“It matters to me. I can get you a new set, one more to your liking, if you want. I Just need to know what you think of it.” I sighed and glanced down, but of course his hand was in the way. “Why haven’t you looked at your ring yet, Mina? Any other woman would have been all over it the moment I said we had rings during the ceremony.”

“I already told you that I’m not like other women.”

“I know that much, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

“If I look at it, all of this is real, and I haven’t been ready to face that yet. Are you happy?”

“No, but hopefully we will be,” he said as if the question I’d asked meant more than the surface level happiness over my answering him about the ring. He removed his hand from mine and there was no stopping my eyes as they finally glanced down and saw the ring that rested on my finger. I already knew it was more than a simple band because I’d caught light glinting off of it when I moved different ways in the sun.

What I saw actually shocked me. “What is this?” I asked while staring at the piece of art sitting on my finger. There were three distinct colors to the band, that twisted underneath of a jewel in the center. On the left side of the jewel was a black band with another one next to it that was a gorgeous blue-green color. It looked like blue fire opal, then the third band, closest to my body was, what Tucker would later confirm to be platinum. On the right side of the stunning sapphire that sat in the center of the bands, the order was reversed. The platinum band was furthest away from my body while the black band was closest. It was simply stunning and something I would have chosen for myself if given the choice between anything else and what currently sat upon my finger. The blue fire opal matched my eyes perfectly. The sapphire, which happened to be my favorite gemstone, was also surrounded in a halo of tiny, glimmering diamonds.