Page 27 of The Surrogate Mother
I frowned at him. “Huh?”
That’s when he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little blue box. My mouth fell open. We’d only been dating a year and a half, and even though we were living together, I hadn’t expected this. “Oh,” I breathed. “I didn’t expect…”
He blinked at me. “Well, I love you. Why wait?”
Why, indeed.
“Hang on, let me get down on one knee,” he said. And then he did, like he was following some proper procedure for proposing to one’s girlfriend that he read in the relationship manual. He opened up the blue box and the ring was… well, I’m not going to lie. It was tiny. Sam had only recently finished his doctorate and wasn’t making the big bucks in his postdoc program. But still. It was perfect. “Will you marry me, Abby?”
I said no.
I’m just kidding. Obviously, I said yes. A very vehementyes. Because otherwise, why would we be sitting at the table, waiting to enjoy paella, going into our ninth year as husband and wife. I have never for one moment regretted my decision to marry Sam Adler.
Although sometimes I wonder if he feels the same.
But there’s no trace of regret on Sam’s face as he watches our waitress place the large pan of piping hot rice and seafood down in front of us. He grins at me over the steam rising off our food.
“What do you think?” the waitress asks us.
“Looks great,” I say.
She places a white hand with red nails on my husband’s shoulder, “And what doyouthink,cariño?”
Our waitress has been flirting shamelessly with Sam since we arrived. This sort of thing always happens—I hardly even notice anymore. And henevernotices. You’d think his wedding ring and the fact thathe’s here with his wifewould be deterrent enough, but apparently not.
“Yep, looks good,” he says, but his smile is directed only at me. It’s amusing to see women try to flirt with him while he completely ignores them. That will never get old.
The waitress gives up and leaves us to our paella. It’s really good. It’s costing us a fortune, but money has never been something I worry about. I’ve always felt a need to strike out on my own, even with my trust fund sitting in the bank, but between my salary and Sam’s, it would be hard to live in Manhattan without that nest egg.
“This is really good,” I say as I pop a piece of sausage in my mouth.
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I think the paella I made last month was pretty good too.”
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. Sam is not getting any better at cooking.
“Well, that wasn’t technically paella,” I say. “It was Spanish rice with pieces of sausage and shrimp in it.”
“Yeah, and what isthis?” He digs some of thesocarratoff the pan. “Same thing. Rice with sausage and shrimp.”
“You don’t have the crackling part at the bottom.”
“Sure I do.”
I grin at him. “Burning it at the bottom is not the same thing.”
“It was just atiny bitburned.”
“It was black.”
“Hmm. I think it was brown.”
I roll my eyes. “I will say, I do like that you put fresh tomatoes in yours. Tomatoes are my all-time favorite vegetable.”
He gasps. “Abby! Tomatoes aren’t vegetables! They’re fruit.”
“No way.”
“Way,” he says firmly. “It’s got seeds on the inside. That makes it a fruit.” He winks at me. “It’s asavoryfruit.”
