Page 32 of Blitzing Emily

“Don’t. I have a splitting headache.”

Her sister rushed across the room. “What in the hell is on your hand? Oh, myGod,” she cried out.

“Please be quiet,” Emily pleaded. “My head ...”

Amy grabbed Emily’s left hand and bent over it.

“Have you been watching the shopping channels again? That is the biggest ring I’ve ever seen in my life. Itcan’tbe real. Let me see it.” It occurred to Emily to make the point that her sister was already looking at it, but she couldn’t muster the strength for snark right now.

“Go ahead.” Emily pulled the ring off and held it out to her sister.

“Don’t you have something you might want to tell me?”

“What?” Emily stalled. She watched her sister examine the inside of the band through half-opened eyes. She wondered if she should offer Amy twenty bucks to shut off that damn overhead light.

“This is from Tiffany’s. Did you find it on the street?”

“Brandon gave it to me.”

Amy’s sharp intake of breath drained half the oxygen in the room. “Get out,” she sputtered. “Why would he give you a ring the size of—of—it’shuge.Mom said she saw something about your being engaged on the news this morning. How did this happen?”

“Amy, my head’s going to explode. Please shut off that light, too.”

Amy was never, ever going to buy this. Emily had no other option than to tell her the truth.

“How can you marry someone you don’t know?” Amy said.

“Take it easy,” Emily said. “If you’ll sit down for a minute, I’ll tell you what happened.”

“Mom and Dad are going to flip out.”

“Mom already has. Didn’t you say you liked him?”

“I said he was cute. I didn’t tell you to marry him,” Amy said. She paced from the bedside to the window in the now-dimly lit room. “You can’t marry someone you’ve known for twenty-four hours. How did this happen?”

“Try the ring on,” Emily said.

Amy jammed the ring onto her finger. “This is the biggest freaking ring I have ever seen.” She moved her hand around in the light from the small lamp at Emily’s bedside. The diamonds shot prisms of blue fire onto the walls of the room. “He must have told them he wanted the biggest one they had.”

Maybe it was better Amy didn’t know that was exactly what Brandon did. Emily pushed herself up on the pillows.

“Did you know that Tiffany’s wraps the little box up in wrapping paper, but they don’t use tape? When you take the bow off, the paper springs open, and there’s a little blue suede ring box,” she said dreamily.

Amy gave her a disbelieving look as if she couldn’t believe her sister had turned into such a sap. She handed the ring back to Emily, and sat down next to her on the bed. “So, are you going to tell me how this happened?”

“Here’s the short version. When I had to go to the hospital yesterday, the nurse was joking around, and called me his fiancée in front of a large group of sports fans.”

“And they believed it.”

“He thought it was funny. I don’t know if he said anything at the time, but then he started getting calls about it early this morning.”

Emily crossed her ankles and stuffed another pillow behind her back.

“Why didn’t you tell them it wasn’t true?” Amy asked.

She fidgeted a little. “I had five booking requests this morning.”

A speculative light came into her sister’s eyes. “Really? That’s great, Em.”

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