Page 23

Chapter Seven

Abby

She’d fucked up.

Yup.

She’d known it from the moment she’d seen Jordan’s face but had relaxed after their talk that night. He’d seemed to understand, had promised he wasn’t hurt.

But now, as the week had gone on, she knew he was a big old liar.

He was hurt, and he was trying to prove that he wasn’t.

The reality of what she’d said, what she was feeling, how she’d so hurt the man she loved had prompted her into action the next day.

So she had called her doctor and made an appointment.

They’d discussed her emotions and insecurities and fatigue and had agreed that if she still felt so unsettled the next week, she would try some antidepressants and meet with a therapist.

But her words had been the catalyst that yanked her out of the fog.

Well, that and the sleep. And the fact that she’d finally had enough energy to start going to the gym. With all of those things, she was finally thinking clearly and feeling better and not so caught up in her own head and insecurities to not see the rest of the world around her.

Slowly but surely, she was feeling more like herself.

Still, she’d kept the therapist’s number. Just in case she started feeling so twisted up again and needed more help.

But while she was starting to feel more like herself, he was on edge, something fragile about his emotions, even as she tried to show him that she knew he wasn’t like his father, that her freak-out had been about her and not him.

And they were both doing it without really talking to the other.

Oh, they were talking.

About everything except the giant fluorescent pink elephant thundering beneath the surface—Carter and his new words, Emma and the fact that she was actually sleeping thanks to Jordan’s insistence on giving her that late-night bottle, on Hunter capturing the lead in his class’s play as Professor Rock, oh and the new nanny they’d interviewed based on CeCe’s recommendation who would be starting in a few days.

Everything was settling in, calming down.

And yet, nothing was.

Because her husband was hurt, even though he was putting on a great front.

Abby sighed and pushed off the chair in the back yard where she’d been enjoying the feel of the afternoon sunshine. She knew that she needed to figure out a way to take back those words.

Or not take back, she supposed, since she knew that was impossible.

Instead, she needed Jordan to know that she knew that he wasn’t like their fathers.

But, fuck, just thinking that tangled line of thoughts was confusing, let alone trying to prove something just so someone else could let go of their biggest insecurity wasn’t easy.

As a woman who’d spent nearly all of the last two months in that cycle of self-doubt and uncertainty, she knew one conversation couldn’t break it.

She’d needed Jordan and her friends, then the blow of seeing his face, then talking with her doctor, followed by several nights of thinking and journaling, and then several more conversations with the Sextant to get her head on straight.

Oh, and she’d needed sleep, too. And the gym.

Because all those pieces together had finally unsnarled the tangle.

Or maybe rather than untangling, she’d passed the snare from her to Jordan, like some perverse game of emotional telepathy.

He was sitting at the kitchen counter, his laptop open, a file from Heather open on the screen that he was reviewing for her.

But his eyes were shadowed, and when he heard her come in, he jumped up and crossed to her.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he murmured, tugging her close and giving her a peck on the lips. “Need anything?”

“No, thank you, baby,” she said, squeezing him back. “I’m just going to start dinner.”

“It’s already in the oven.”

She froze. “I told you it was my turn.”

“I was here and knew the recipe.”

“Jor—”

He hesitated, uncertainty on his face, and she hated that she’d made him doubt himself. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

Which was why she said, “Thank you” instead of anything else.

And then the same later, when he ran her a bath and rushed to gather up the kids so she could have private time—definitely much-appreciated, aside from the thread of vulnerability in his eyes, the slightly-desperate tone of his voice.

But it was his expression this morning that made her shift her thinking from this would pass—that it would just take some time to convince him she didn’t think of him as his father or hers, for that matter—to recognizing this wasn’t just going to fade away.

She could be as patient as possible, could keep trying to reassure him that she knew the difference between him and their dads, but he wasn’t going to absorb that.

Because she’d hit at his greatest vulnerability.

And that wasn’t something that was easily erased.

Luckily, she had an idea.