Rock Wedding(81)
“I had to basically steal a builder,” Schoolboy Choir’s guitarist said from beside Kit, the golden skin of his shoulders beaded with water. “He was working for Beau Flavell at the time—I spun Beau a line about true love and winning my girl and he fell for the romantic bullshit.” Though Noah’s words were offhand, the way he looked at Kit was anything but.
It was clear the bad boy of rock and roll was permanently off the market.
“Ignore him, Sarah,” Kit said. “He secretly wanted the waterfalls too.” Laughing when Noah threatened to push her under the water, she said, “Come join us. The water’s glorious.”
Sarah hesitated. She wasn’t really showing yet, but…
Sliding his arms around her from behind, Abe said, “Listen up! We have an announcement!”
Everyone waded closer. As if sensing this was important, Flossie padded back to stand beside Sarah. Her heart began to pound with all those eyes on her, her breath coming faster… until Thea’s voice cut through the air. “Is this like a reality-show pause? Dum, dum, dra-ma.”
Laughter filled the air, their friends yelling at them to hurry it up.
“I’m pregnant,” Sarah blurted out before Abe could say anything.
Surprise on more than one face, but it wasn’t the bad kind of surprise. It was the suspiciously gleeful kind. Whistles and congratulations filled the air the next second, the two of them bombarded with handshakes and wet hugs that had her beaming as Abe’s grin threatened to crack his face.
It was about five minutes later that Sarah finally had a chance to go behind the privacy screens of the newly built pool cabana and change into her deep green tankini with its fun white-on-green polka-dotted bottoms. The tankini style was her number one swimsuit of choice—she just felt prettier in it, and she liked being able to swap the tops and bottoms around to make fun combinations.
Abe whistled from where he’d already changed into his boxer-brief-style swimming trunks. “Sexy doesn’t do you justice,” he said, so much appreciation in the eyes that shaped her body that she might’ve lost her breath there for a second or two. “You still have that red bikini?” Abe asked. “The one that was all teeny tiny triangles and string?”
Sarah blushed; she’d bought that scandalous bikini for their honeymoon but hadn’t had the nerve to wear it on the white sand beaches of the tiny Fijian island where they’d spent a week. Instead, she’d only ever worn it beside their pool at home when it was just her and Abe. “No.” She paused. “I didn’t take it when I left. What did you do with my clothes?”
Scowling, Abe said, “First, I went in your wardrobe and sniffed your clothes like a pathetic fool.”
Sarah almost melted where she stood at this further evidence that he’d missed her, really missed her. “Then you threw them in the pool?” she guessed, remembering his fury during their divorce.
“Something like that.” A shamefaced shrug. “I was an asshole.”
“Don’t feel bad.” She patted his cheek. “If I’d had access to your clothing, I’d probably have taken scissors to it. Especially your favorite suits that you got on Savile Row.”
Horror on his face. “You have a mean streak.”
Winking, she sauntered out, well aware he was watching her ass. It made her grin deepen. Once outside the cabana, she dropped her hat on a lounger, then slipped into the crystalline blue waters of the pool to swim lazily out and join Molly.
The glee hadn’t quite faded from the other woman’s features.
“How long have you known?” Sarah asked. “About how serious Abe and I had become?”
“Well”—Molly smiled that wide open smile of hers—“I kind of figured out he had it bad when he kept messaging to ask how you were after Zenith.”
Sarah had seen one of those messages, hadn’t quite known how to handle Abe’s obvious concern when she’d convinced herself he didn’t care about her. “That was a while ago.”
“Yes, but then he started missing dinners with the rest of us and being unavailable when he usually wouldn’t be…” An affectionate shoulder nudge. “It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. Especially after David flat-out asked him.”
“Oh.” Sarah looked over to find Schoolboy Choir’s drummer sitting on the edge of the pool with Abe, both their legs in the water. David was having a beer while Abe was sticking to a nonalcoholic version Noah had stocked for him. The two appeared to be chilling, talking about nothing in particular. “Abe said he’d spoken to David, but I wasn’t sure how seriously anyone was taking it.”