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Abbe nodded. “While I was still recovering from the appendectomy, actually. He came in while I was lying there, in the hospital bed, and asked for the ring back.”
“Fuckingasshole,” he hissed, completely shocked.
“The nurses told me it happens a lot. It’s depressingly common for men to break up with their partners rather than go through a long sickness with them.” She waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Anyway, it turned out I didn’t have cancer—just some cancerous cells inside that one tumor that was removed—and I didn’t even have to have any more treatments, or chemo, or radiation, or anything. I’m completely in the clear, just so you know.”
“Thank god,” Rafe breathed. He thought of something else and frowned. “Why did you and Avrika stop being friends, though?”
“She’s his cousin, and I didn’t want to be around him anymore, so I lost her. And pretty much all of my other friends from that era of my life.”
He looked confused. “How could they side with him?”
Abbe gave an uncomfortable laugh. “It’s not that they sided with him. It’s just I made a choice. Danny wanted me back as soon as he found out that I was healthy, and everyone thinks I should have gotten back together with him.” She chuffed, trying not to be too bitter about it, but it did still sting. “It’s like in a way, they wanted me to take him back because deep down they were questioning whether or not they would have done what he did. They were quick to excuse him, reminding me how he’d always wanted kids and if I’d had radiation, I might not be able to have them. That he was only twenty-six and he panicked.” Abbe shook her head. “All good points. And Idon’tthink Danny’s a monster. But why wouldIwant to be with someone who I know for a fact would ditch me if—”
“If you got sick. Or old,” he interjected, nodding like he finally understood something. “Were these the same people at the coffee shop?”
Abbe nodded and looked down. She started fiddling with the buttons on his shirt.
“Which one was Danny?”
“He wasn’t there.”
Rafe was silent for a long time. She finally looked back up at him. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “It explains a lot.”
Abbe smiled and made a face. “Yeah, so, that whole thing about you adopting Daisy, who has health problems…”
He huffed a laugh. “I get it,” he said, leaning forward and standing up with her still clinging to his hip, her legs wrapped around his waist. Walking with her to the bedroom he said, “Abbe?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not Danny.”
Thirteen
Rafe did not bring her into the bedroom for more sex, much as Abbe would have liked that. Instead, he rushed her through the process of dressing and packing.
“But you won’t need to bring anything,” he said, trying to shove her into a sweater and hustle her out the door.
“What? I’m just going to walk around the Berkshires naked for a day and a half?” she asked sarcastically.
Rafe thought about it for a moment. “Interesting. But no. You don’t need to pack because I have everything you’ll need already there.Inever pack,” he said, pointing at himself by way of example.
“Because you are a weird rich person. Normal people pack,” Abbe replied, stubbornly throwing a few things in a bag, and scuffing her feet into a pair of boots. “I’m ready. Are we going to drive there tonight?”
He gave her a look like she was crazy. “We have to go back to my place tonight. I have to get Daisy.”
Abbe grimaced, chagrinned. “You’d think I would have remembered that.”
“You’d think,” he agreed, dropping yet another kiss on her lips. He kept doing that. Stopping her in the middle of an action so he could kiss her, only to immediately complain afterward about the fact that she wasn’t ready yet.
They finally made it into the car and fought their way through evening traffic into Boston. Luckily, they were going in the opposite direction of the worst of it. The first thing they did was take Daisy out for a walk, although Ray, the concierge, assured them that he had just walked her an hour ago. It was nice to go on a walk and enjoy the crisp autumn air after a rain.
“You’re quiet. Which normally I’m fine with,” she said after a solid ten minutes of silence from Rafe.
“I keep wanting to ask you questions about…your ex,” he said, avoiding using Danny’s name, though Abbe knew he remembered it.
“Go ahead,” Abbe said, sort of knowing this was coming. “It doesn’t bother me to talk about it.”
“Yes, it does,” he said quickly, and then moved on. “Did you live together?”
