Page 37 of Unsaid Things

“Yeah? Megan said she’d invite her to my birthday party if she seemed likely to stick around. If you can tell Matt’s serious about her, then I’m sure Megan can too. We’ll get to meet her in a couple weeks at least.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “That’s good, I guess. Are you okay with a random stranger at your tiny birthday party?”

He caught her nod out of the corner of his eye as he turned into the store parking lot. “You sure?”

She smiled at him while he parked. “Yeah. She’s important to Matt. It’s a good chance for us to meet her. Megan says she’s nice. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Okay. But I can tell Megan not to invite her if you want me to.”

Abby climbed out of the car, shaking her head while Lance closed his own door, taking her hand as they walked into the store. “No. Don’t do that. Knowing Megan, she’s already invited her. It would be a million times worse to uninvite her.”

“Okay.” Conversation moved onto what groceries they needed and arguing over Lance’s tendency to make spur of the moment food purchases. When it came time to check out, he expected Abby to divide up their groceries like she usually did so she could pay for what she considered her portion. He hated when she did that and always ground his teeth to keep himself from trying to insist on paying for everything for the millionth time. That always ended in a fight. Which involved make-up sex at some point, but he much preferred sex without having to fight first.

Instead, she just piled everything on the conveyor belt together. No separating things. No divider between what she wanted to pay for and what he was buying. He shot her a surprised look, but she just smiled and didn’t say anything.

He waited until they’d paid and loaded the groceries in the car before saying anything, his hand resting in its normal place on her thigh. “What was that back there?”

“Hmm?”

Of course she tried playing dumb. “You know what I’m talking about, Abby. You never let me pay for all the groceries when we’re together.”

He kept a close eye on her in his peripheral vision while he waited for her to respond, so he caught her little shrug. “We live together. You keep saying I should let you pay for more things since you make more money. I guess I just figured that I’ll pay for stuff when I’m shopping by myself, but if we’re together or you go by yourself, then you can pay. At least for groceries.”

More questions piled up, but he swallowed them down. This might seem like a baby step, but it was a major concession for Abby. If she was already heading this way, maybe it wouldn’t be such a fight to get her to agree to a joint account and not splitting the rent and utilities fifty-fifty anymore like roommates. He’d wait to push the issue until after they were engaged. Hell, maybe she’d come around even more before then, especially since he still didn’t know when that would be. But nothing could keep the smile off his face the rest of the way home.

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