and kind of impossible to read; Abbie had always been the best at deciphering it. “Grandma apparently decided that grouping by categories was unnecessary, so we’ll have to go through each aisle and hope we don’t miss anything.”
“I’ll tell you where we’re at, you tell me what we need. Teamwork.”
“Teamwork,” she agreed, and when he held up his hand for a high five, she rolled her eyes and slapped his hand down. “Dork.”
He bumped her hip. She bumped his back. He tried not to remember that moment outside when he’d said—God, he’d said so much wild shit, pressed up against that unbelievable body of hers, and her pupils had blown behind her glasses and her mouth had dropped slightly open and her breaths had coalesced quickly in the cold air between them, and he’d thought, high as a fucking kite, She doesn’t hate this.
But it didn’t matter if she had or hadn’t hated it. She didn’t want it. So Will shoved the memory firmly from his mind, and when it crept back, he shoved it again, and when it returned a third time, he had very stern words with it and decided it was best if he ignored his entire brain for the rest of the day. He was totally capable of that.
“Grapefruit,” he said, starting things off by blurting the first food his eyes landed on. “I like grapefruit. Grapefruit on the list, Abbie?”
“Mmm…” She frowned, scanning the sheet of paper. “Noooo, but grapes are.”
“Both,” Will said. “Let’s get both.” And then, before his brain could show him more shit he didn’t want to think about, he threw ten grapefruits and a few punnets of grapes into the trolley and moved on. “Mango. I like mango.”
“Christ. We should never have left the house before breakfast.”
Will frowned. “I thought you had breakfast. Didn’t you? Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You’re hungry.” Her words were exasperated, but she was all warm and secretly fond again, killing him softly. Fuck.
Later, he told the longing in his gut. Later, later, later. And then he put it away, for now.
Five
two years ago
It was midnight, which meant it was Christmas, and Abbie was alone. Alone in a house full of family she couldn’t even talk to because her husband—her own husband—had abandoned her and she was wrapped up in pride and shame. She couldn’t allow anyone to know her feelings because those feelings were foolish and dramatic.
That’s what he told her, anyway. As if she was nuts. As if she couldn’t see and hear and feel him slipping away from her, frantically erasing the pencil he’d written his vows in. This was the second year in a row they’d spent Christmas apart, and when she tried to bring it up, he said, “Stop fucking nagging. You hate Christmas, anyway.” As if holidays like this one weren’t secretly worthwhile beneath the bullshit, as if religious festivals didn’t mean Find your family. As if family wasn’t everything to her.
He was supposed to be hers.
But when she tried to say so, to say it plain, he looked at her with confusion and distaste and that cold, burning anger. Abbie was coming to realise she’d worn her impenetrable mask a little too well before they’d married and taken it off far too eagerly afterward.
She should’ve known she’d be too much for him.
A noise brought her out of her thoughts, and she lifted her head from her hands. Will walked into the room, coloured lights from the Christmas tree slicing into his shadow.
“You should be in bed, Abbie-girl,” he said, soft as a kitten’s paw.
“You’re not my father, Will Reid,” she bit back, as if sharp words would hide the thickness in her throat, the threat of tears.
Sometimes her husband talked about Will—but only after a few beers. “Did you ever fuck him, Abbie, back in the day? Just tell me. You can tell me. I can see you fucked him—you don’t need to lie. And I don’t even blame you. Look at the bastard. But God, just tell me.”
“I hate him, you know,” Will said. “I fucking hate him.”
She blinked back to the present. “Who? Dad?” Will had never met her shiftless father, so that seemed a bit strong.
“No,” he murmured, and then he came to the sofa and bent and kissed—
He kissed her forehead. He kissed her forehead, but not the way concerned lifelong friends or pseudo-brothers usually did. No; this forehead kiss was a quick and desperate press of his lips that seemed to say, Don’t