Page 92 of Things Left Unsaid

“Coffee?”

“Please,” I say with a smile to the housekeeper, though nerves have me toying with my wedding band and engagement ring.

Colt carrying me over the threshold has only made this worse… in a good way?

Man, I don’t know.

It was a blip of normality in a field of bizarre chaos, which highlighted one truth—this kid that neither of us expected to have before last week, especially with one another, both of us are committing to them.

Mrs. Abelman’s grunt distracts me as she places a china cup alongside a matching dish of sugar complete with a silver milk jug in front of me.

It’s oddly…

Huh.

Of course.

British.

Just like Callan and Colt’s mother.

As I doctor my coffee with milk, I smile. “You should probably know that I’m type 1 diabetic.”

“I know for the future,” is her stiff reply, but the sugar pot is swept away as if by magic and plunked between Colt and Callan, who add four sugars a piece to theirs.

Ida Abelman’s an odd duck.

Cold and stark, she fits in with the Korhonens.

I get the sense Callan feels doubly ‘safe’ because she’s around. While she isn’t effusive, she pats him on the shoulder and speaks to him like he’s still a child, though she doesn’t stop him from cursing if he drops an F-bomb here and there.

For obvious reasons, her tone’s maternal.

Everyone knows about the custody agreement Clyde battered over his ex’s head.

Literally.

We all saw the bruises.

Like cowards, we let it go on as well.

Some community we are.

“I’ll do my research, of course, but how can I accommodate your dietary restrictions?”

“I tend to eat low carb, but that’s it.”

“We can talk later about routines you want to integrate and?—”

My brows lift. “Routines?”

“You’re the lady ofSeven Cs Abbey,” Colt teases, his lips twitching though he doesn’t bother looking up from his phone.

“The chatelaine,” Callan corrects.

“The what now?”

“Chatelaine, Colt.” Callan jabs a finger at him. “It doesn’t take an IQ of?—”

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