“I like them—very cheerleader.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Did I ever tell you about my cheerleader fantasy?”
Rolling her eyes and laughing, Sarah passed him the last of the ham from the fridge, the rest of their breakfast supplies already on the table. “I need to go grocery shopping.”
Abe didn’t grocery shop. It wasn’t that he thought he was too good for it—he just didn’t think about it. He had a housekeeper who came in once a week and who made sure the house was clean and he had food in the pantry. If he ran out of something midweek, he grabbed it from a local convenience store. But if Sarah wanted to go grocery shopping, he was in. “We can go after breakfast.”
Sarah halted in the process of pulling out slices of bread from the toaster. “Since when do you grocery shop?”
He grabbed the coffee carafe, topped off his mug. Sarah was sticking to one cup a day for the duration of her pregnancy, going with decaffeinated drinks the rest of the time. Today that meant some fruity herbal tea.
“I used to go with my mom when I came home from boarding school,” he told her.
“You must’ve missed your folks when you were away at school.” Sarah’s voice was careful.
It took Abe a second to figure out why: he’d always shut her down when she’d asked about his family during their marriage. Back then everything had reminded him of Tessie, and he hadn’t been able to handle it. But that Abe was in the past. This one could think of his baby sister without breaking… and he’d promised not to hurt Sarah.
It was a promise he’d damn well keep.
“Yeah,” he said, the grin that spread over his face unexpected and real both. “I was a bit of a mama’s boy, to be honest.”
Sarah’s face lit up. “You?” she said as they sat down to eat. “I don’t believe it.”
“Seriously, I was.” Abe grabbed a slice of toast, reached for the butter. “I mean, I didn’t run to her if someone talked shit to me or anything like that, but I used to enjoy doing stuff with Mom.”
Grinning again, he shook his head. “I’d complain if she asked me to go to the mall or the grocery store with her and pretend I was bored out of my skull while she shopped, but secretly I liked hanging out with her.”
Sarah’s smile was huge. “Did you ever let on?”
“Naw. But I think Mom knew. Somehow she always had to do a ton of stuff when I was home from boarding school.”
“What about your dad?”
Abe took a deep breath. Losing his father so soon after Tessie had been a hammer blow neither he nor his mother had expected, and sometimes Abe still forgot his dad was gone and would go to give him a call to ask his advice. “I loved him,” he said, his voice gritty. “He was older than my mom, a little more set in his ways, with some old-fashioned views, but he was always so proud of me.”
Abe swallowed the emotion choking him up. “He wanted me to be my own man, whoever that man was.” He shook his head. “I was so scared of telling him I wanted to pursue a career in rock music instead of going to college, but all he said to me was that a man had to be able to support himself and his family, and if I could do that with music, that was all that mattered.”
Shifting to sit beside him, Sarah ran a gentle hand up and down his back. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”
“He would’ve liked you.” Abe could almost see his father’s smile at that instant, quiet but deep. “This business you’ve created with your own hard work—it’s something he would’ve appreciated.”
“You had good parents.”
Sarah’s wistful tone made Abe realize he knew next to nothing about her childhood. She’d told him her parents were dead, but the only other thing he knew was that her mom had been Puerto Rican, her father African-American—though, he remembered, her dad’s grandmother had been Japanese.
And that was it, that was all he knew about her early history.
“Your folks?” he asked gently after she’d eaten a spoonful of muesli. “Not so good?”
Her face closed up. “No, they were fine,” she said, so quickly she almost tripped over the words.
Abe wasn’t about to let it go, not this time. If they were to make it, both of them had to be honest and open with each other. “Sarah.” He closed his hand over her nape. “Talk to me.”
Huge, dark eyes met his. Ducking her head, she didn’t say anything else. He was frustrated but knew he couldn’t force her—and she didn’t need any extra stress right now. So he let her eat her muesli while he demolished the toast and ham and cheese. Not the most traditional breakfast, but Abe wasn’t fussy.