Yeah, this goes both ways,she thought rebelliously. He could read her like a book but she was pretty sure she had a similar insight into his personality.
“Clearly, it’s not ideal.”
“I didn’t have any expectations of the situation being ideal. But I got my beautiful baby at the end of it, so the trauma was worth it.”
“Our baby,” he reminded her, the words infused with a hint of steel. “And traumatic how?”
“I’m pretty sure all births carry with them a mite of trauma,” she said with an attempt at humor. “There’s no easy way to get a human out of your body.”
“Tell me about your delivery,” he invited, sipping his coffee with deceptive calm. On the surface, it appeared that he wasn’t particularly invested in her response, but she knew he was on a fact-finding mission. Gray had to know and understand everything. That was how he operated.
And she had no good reason to keep her experience a secret. But nor did she need to go into the emotions she’d felt. She kept it to the facts.
“My water broke when I was on the bus home from work. A Good Samaritan got off with me and helped flag down a cab. I experienced contractions, labored for about twelve hours before Charlotte’s blood pressure dropped dangerously low. They wheeled me in for a Caesar and she was out less than an hour later. And she was perfect.”
“No health concerns?”
“None. She was healthy and robust.”
He nodded, then tilted his face towards Charlotte’s bedroom door. Abby’s heart galloped. She didn’t know how he was avoiding the temptation to simply stride in and wake Charlotte up. Abby didn’t think she’d have the same restraint.
“And you recovered well?”
She focused on her coffee, watching it swirl inside the mug. “You know, c-sections are a major operation.” She shrugged. “And I live on the second floor.”
“So you needed help?”
“Angie was great.”
“Your neighbor.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
It took her a second to realize he was asking about men. At least, she guessed that’s what he was hedging around. She contemplated, for the smallest of seconds, lying to him, just to make her life seem more exciting than it was. But that wasn’t Abby’s away. She knew the victory would be temporary.
“Mom came when she could. She still works, and couldn’t get much time off. Still, she was invaluable,” Abby responded with a tilt of her chin.
He nodded, as though the answer reassured him. “Do you ever hear from your ex-fiancé?”
She frowned, the question catching her off guard. “No.”
“Not at all? You were together a long time.”
“Yeah. Then he cheated on me, remember?” She doubted he did, actually. Their fling had happened two years ago and someone like Gray would have had a lot of water under the bridge since then.
She bit down on her lip.
“Last I heard, through a mutual friend, he’s living in Indiana.”
“Good riddance.”
She took a sip of her coffee.
“When did you go back to work?”
“When she was six weeks old.”