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“How’d her vet visit go?” Scott’s voice ruffled the strands of hair by her ear that had pulled loose from her ponytail. Electricity raced up her spine as they tickled her neck.
“Not great.” She cleared her throat, swallowing through the sudden thickness roughening her voice. Scott’s easy breath on the back of her neck sent her stomach tumbling, even as frustration rose in her chest. “Our vet is on vacation, so we had to see the on-call doctor. He pulled a Cunningham.”
“A Cunningham?”
Abby turned as Scott let her go, albeit reluctantly, dragging a hand across her hip.
Following him back toward the stove, she caught her breath, then explained, “Sorry, that’s what we used to call it when a doctor wouldn’t bother to listen to the patient.”
“Ah. The name sounded familiar.”
“Dylan’s first ortho,” Abby reminded him, voice dropping.
Scott, stirring cheese into the quinoa mixture, jerked his head around to her. “Oh, that’s ‘pulling a Cunningham’.”
They locked eyes a moment longer, then Scott’s attention went back to the bowl in front of him, a slight smile playing on his lips.
The ease of sharing these tidbits of her life before had grown slowly. The night she’d called Scott and asked him to bring pizza had taught her she could, but she’d been careful, choosing only the happiest memories, the ones that still made her smile. A shared joke without someone to share it with left a wispy shadow of melancholy behind, but Scott’s smile reminded her she didn’t have to face her ghosts alone.
“Here, can you cut these, too?” Scott handed her a board full of greens.
As she sliced the long ribbons of chard, a thought occurred to her. “Hey, what does Dylan do for away games?”
“He stays home with Lauren and watches them on TV. Why?”
Abby cocked her head to the side and considered. If Scott would soon be home from camp, they’d be spending more time at his place again. Gen would have more opportunities to hang out with Dylan, but away games could be week-long commitments, depending on the location, especially if they played back-to-backs or Sunday and Thursday games on the West Coast. In those cases, the team wouldn’t even come home in between. “What if he came over to my place for the season opener?”
“It would make more sense for you to come over here; our TV is better.”
Setting the knife down, Abby leaned on the counter and studied Scott. “I meant he could stay with us. Like, the whole time you’re away. I know you have Lauren, and she knows during the season she needs to be here more, but Gen adores Dylan, and so do I, and I can get him to and from school. I have that extra room he could sleep in...” She trailed off, her voice rising as if in question.
Scott had turned toward her as she spoke, eyes locking with hers, and as she ran out of words, he took two long strides across the tile floor. She straightened up, turning to meet him, but still wasn’t prepared as his arms came around her and his lips crashed into hers.
Surprised, but not opposed, she allowed herself to be swept up in the kiss.
They broke apart, her breath stuttering in her chest. “What was that for?”
“I love you.” Abby froze, but Scott continued. “I love how much you love my son. I love how much you want to spend time with him. I love how you care as much about having a relationship with him as you do with me. I just... I love you.”
Her default reaction—to run—was too deeply ingrained in her psyche not to be her automatic response. Forcing herself to stillness, she allowed her fear to wash past, her fingers trembling with the effects of the adrenaline, the fight-or-flight response coursing through her veins. But she recognized it as an old adversary, one she knew all too well how to process. She wouldn’t let it win; she wouldn’t let it steal her future.
“I love you, too.”
She wanted to say more, but Scott crushed her to him. She breathed in the fresh scent of his soap mingled with the spice of the herbs he’d mixed into the quinoa, her nose pressed to the cool, clean cotton of his shirt.
No more words were needed.
Eighteen
“ABOUT FLIPPING TIME.” Cara smacked the table.
Gen jumped to her feet, head cocked, then slid back down to her belly when Cara scratched her under the chin, apologizing for making so much noise.
“Though you can’t blame me,” she continued. “It’s only taken, what? Six months? I swear, y’all have been slower than molasses flowing uphill in winter. New England winter. Not Charleston winter.”
Abby snorted. “It has not been six months.”
“Close enough. You know, most couples save sex for the third date, not kissing.”