“I don’t think I’m depressed,” she murmured, wiping the tears away.
“Then what, honey?” Sera asked. “For all intents and purposes, you have everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Abby stared at her hands. “Then why does it feel as though it’s all going to get torn away? Like any second it will be gone, or Jordan will get tired of me and move on, or my kids will get sick or I will, or we’ll all get struck by lightning!” She sighed. “I know it’s ridiculous,” she said. “But every instant of the day, my thoughts are in this cycle. What if Jordan doesn’t like my body now? I’m heavier and stretched out and—God—he saw me poop twice on the delivery table. Twice!”
“Abbs,” Sera began.
“And I know it’s ridiculous,” she repeated. “Jordan loves me and doesn’t care what I look like. But he’s a fucking Greek god with a six-pack and I’ve got a flattened, lumpy keg! And—”
“Didn’t he used to have the mystical eight-pack?” Heather asked.
A strange question from the man’s sister.
Abby blinked and glanced down at the phone. “Um . . . yes?”
“And you don’t love him less just because he has two less . . . packs?” Heather asked.
It was such a ridiculous question that Abby just looked at her.
Then eventually answered, when Heather stared back through the screen at her, brow lifted, inscrutable expression in place.
“Of course not,” she finally said, albeit a bit mutinously.
“Well, that’s that,” Heather said, rubbing her hands together. “He loves you, sickeningly, so if he’s willingly invited our lot into your place to take over and fuss and eat and drink him out of house and home. And that’s just from a friend perspective,” she added when Abby began to shake her head. “From a sister perspective, I know I’ve never seen my brother happier.”
“It’s true,” Sera said. “Even from that first night in the bar, he’s never had eyes for anyone but you.”
“And,” Rachel murmured, “the way he looks at you is . . . right. He’s not worried about the varnish on the surface, he loves what’s within.”
Silence.
Then Bec grinned and shook her head. “Damn Morris, you’re good.”
Rachel smiled. “It’s Scott now, but I’ll take it.”
“I thought you were going to stay Morris?” Abby asked. Rachel had been married before, to a man who was a special brand of asshole. She’d vowed to never change her name again.
“I’ve decided I like being a Scott,” she said, eyes full of love.
“I bet you do,” Bec chortled.
“How’s Luke?” Rachel asked innocently.
They all laughed when Bec’s—or Becky as Luke called her—cheeks went pink, but she was a true New Yorker and didn’t back down, teasing Rachel about Bas and Sera about Tate, and Heather about Clay, just for good measure.
“Also, fuck the notion of having to do it all,” she said, turning her laser-sharp focus onto Abby. “That’s just some bullshit patriarchy hangover. Jordan isn’t working, but you are, or will be soon. He can definitely pick up the slack. And even if he was working and you weren’t, you just spent the last nine months puking your guts up and then pushing a watermelon out of something that’s the size of a lemon”—here, she shuddered—“and you’ve been playing milkmaid with all the nursing and then when you go back to work, I know you’ll be pumping. He can do some of the work around here.”
“It’s more than some.”
“So what?” Heather said. “Plus, my brother has never been shy about expressing himself. If it gets too much, he’ll tell you.”
Abby bit her lip. “He wanted to hire a housekeeper to come in once a week and maybe someone else to do the laundry, but I told him no.”
“So no to the night nurse, no to the laundry service—which sounds amazing, by the way—and no to the housekeeper,” Sera said, ticking the items off on her fingers. “Why don’t you want the extra help?”
“I—” She sighed. “It’s just such a waste of money, and I should—”
“And there goes my bullshit meter, scaling right off the charts,” Bec said. “Jordan sold off his multi-billion-dollar company a few years ago to sit on a beach. He found you instead and wants to make your life easier.”