The States

I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None On My Fingers

It takes two days for Brooke to realize she's not wearing her rings. 

Brooke usually takes off her rings when she paints. It's too much trouble to clean the paint off of them if she leaves them on. 

Problem is, she took them off when she was painting two days ago and hasn't seen them since.

She tears through the entire loft looking for them. (Will would be happy. The loft is the neatest it's been in a decade.)

After she's gone through the whole loft and put it back together, she still doesn't have her rings.

And then she panics.

And then she calls Nicky.

⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰

Nicky raises his eyebrows when he sees the loft. "There aren't any stacks of books on the floor." He seems vaguely disappointed. Brooke understands. Her and Nicky are both fans of the messy apartment aesthetic, though Nicky's idea of messy involves potted plants and CDs and comics where Brooke's is art supplies and books.

Personally, Brooke feels that the stacks of books made it homier.

"I can't find my rings." Brooke blurts out after a minute.

Nicky's eyes dart down to her left hand to check. "Oh, that's not good."

Brooke rolls her eyes at him. "Understatement."

⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰

Nicky helps her check the places she hadn't thought to check in her panic- like the vents in the floor and the sinks and her coat pockets.

They still don't find them.

They sit on the window seat- which, hey, they can actually do since Brooke moved all the canvases and books off of it in her search for her rings.

"When's Will coming back over again?" Nicky asks.

Brooke bites into her apple and chews miserably. "This weekend."

"How are you going to tell Will you lost your wedding ring and your engagement ring?"

Brooke shrugs. She doesn't think Will is going to be mad at her, but she's mad enough at herself for both of them. How can she remember every insignificant thing she'd read or heard in her life but not remember where she put her rings?

"It'll be like that time you lost your keys and then found them right after you replaced them," Nicky predicts. Brooke punches him in the arm.

"You're awful."

Delta, who had gone to hide in the closet the second they started moving furniture, finally comes out again.

Brooke watches her for a few seconds and then goes back to her apple.

And then she's struck by a truly awful what-if.

Her and Nicky exchange looks.

Brooke exhales. "I'll call the vet."

⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰

An x-ray and a very unhappy Delta later, Brooke still doesn't have her rings.

Nicky slings his arm around her shoulders on the walk to central park so Brooke can get back on Delta's good side. "Hey, at least she didn't eat your wedding ring."

"You aren't helping."

⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰⸰

She doesn't find them, and on Saturday she accepts that she has well and truly lost her ring and sits down to wait for Will.