was close to one in the morning. I heard Chase messing with the lock outside his apartment and sat up straight, prying away the bits of hair that stuck to the dry saliva on my cheeks.
I heard his keys drop to the floor, a groan, and then a woman huffing and picking them up for him. A woman.
Déjà vu of the day Chase had walked into his apartment with a stranger slammed into me. I darted up, ready for a fight. Not that there needed to be one. We weren’t together anymore. Or ever. Yet I couldn’t help but think of him as mine.
“Hold still,” the woman murmured. He hiccuped. He was drunk. The door was pushed open. Chase came tumbling in, his black dress shirt ripped open, supported by a slender woman who clutched his shoulder to keep him upright.
“Didn’t take you long to get over me,” I said, my fingers balling into a fist beside my body. Every one of my muscles shook with anger. “Again.”
He lifted his head at the exact same time the woman did. They both stared back at me.
Katie.
It was Katie.
God, I was such an idiot. Now was a good time to put the engagement ring on his table and run for my life. Still, I was rooted to his floor.
“You’re here,” he said tonelessly.
“You’re . . . drunk,” I retorted, looking at Katie with what I hoped was an apologetic expression.
She smiled, depositing Chase against the door so she could come and give me a small squeeze. “Hey. Don’t worry. It’s not awkward between us at all. My brother felt a little worse for wear after work and decided to go drinking with some friends. I dropped by the bar he was at before I went home and found him like this. Figured he’d need a good night’s sleep before the hangover kicked in.”
“Good call.” I nodded.
“I’ll leave you two to it.”
Katie left, and then it was just Chase and me. A very drunk version of him, anyway. I felt furious with the universe for bringing Chase to me like this. Barely coherent, when there were so many things I wanted to say to him in what was going to be the last time we ever spoke.
I slid the ring off my finger. It was weird. Throughout the weeks we’d been pretend-dating, I’d been careful to remove it at work, but I’d enjoyed flaunting it practically any other time. While I was on the subway and went out with friends and took Daisy for walks. I saw other people checking out the engagement ring while I held the pole on the train or flagged a taxi or flipped a page on my Kindle while waiting for a hair appointment. I could see the wheels in their heads turning. The stories they made up for this spectacular ring. I loved this part the most. The guessing part. My wedding obsession, I realized, was also about the meet-cute. The falling-in-love story. I’d wanted to sit each of them down and tell them about Chase. About how funny and gorgeous he was. About how fiercely he loved his family, how deeply he cared for his niece.
“So I thought I’d stop by and give this to you.” I handed him the ring.
He ignored my outstretched hand, blinking as he tried to focus on my face. “Keep it.”
“Chase . . .”
“Sell it. Give it away. You earned it.”
I shook my head, my heart clenching painfully. “It’s too much.”
“I won’t return it.” He staggered to the living room, collapsing on the couch and turning on the TV. ESPN was his default channel. “I can’t even look at it.”
He looked so tired that I thought arguing with him about this was less kind than keeping the ring.
“Listen.” I sat down next to him, feeling that he was drifting away from me and wanting to anchor him. “About Nina. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, I really do, but please tell Sven to give her her job back. She needs it, and I don’t want to get into this with Sven.”
“What she needs is a lesson in manners,” he slurred, frowning at the TV boyishly. “And maybe a sugar daddy to pay for all that Prada she was parading around. I looked her up on Instagram. Is this you being Martyr Maddie again? Because I won’t stand for this kind of bullshit on your behalf.”
“We reached an understanding.” I slid the ring back onto my finger before realizing what I