Forever Yours (The Moreno Brothers 1.5)

“The marshmallow crunch,” she said, lowering her voice.

Angel moved over to stand behind her and brought his hands around her waist, squeezing her tight. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he kissed her cheek. He’d made his point. Sydney would always be a sore subject, but he didn’t want to upset her or for this to ruin the evening.

Glancing up at the poster, he inhaled. “The Chocolate Swirl Monster sounds good.”

She turned to him with a sudden smile, and it felt as if she were about to say something but decided not to at the last second. She glanced back at the poster instead then spoke. “You sure?” she asked. “They’re pretty big.”

“I’m sure,” Angel said, kissing her temple again.

His plan to send the message that talking about her and Sydney was not something he would be embracing so easily seemed to have worked because they were back to her dad. He didn’t want her keeping anything about Sydney from him, but he certainly didn’t want her thinking just because the guy would be closer now he’d be a welcome subject. Before Sydney’s surprise visit, Sarah had mercifully kept any talk about him to an absolute minimum.

Sitting there across from each other sharing the sundae felt intimate. Angel listened to her go on, trying not to visualize her doing this with Syd.

“So I’m gonna email Leonardo tomorrow morning,” she said, licking her spoon. “I’ll keep it short and to the point, offering up no information about myself. And I’ll respond to my dad . . .” This was the second time she seemed to catch herself. “Uh . . . Omar, letting him know I’ll be responding to Leo.”

“It’s okay to call him dad, you know?” Angel said, offering a small smile, and shrugged. “I know he’s never been a real father to you, but technically he is your dad.”

For as much as Sarah had said in the past that she’d never had an interest in finding or meeting the man who’d fathered her, Angel had seen the excitement in her eyes already. It had to feel good to finally say “dad.” It’s what scared him most. He was trying to think optimistically, but the thought of this guy weaseling into her life after all these years and possibly hurting her or even just disappointing her, was enough to worry him.

“I know,” she said, taking another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. “It just feels weird.” She tilted her head sideways as she stuck her spoon into the ice cream and left it there. “On an unrelated topic,” she began and then stopped and chewed her bottom lip. “When’s the last time you talked to Dana?”

That came way out of left field, and while Angel wished he could say “who,” he knew exactly who she was talking about. As far as he knew, they both only knew one Dana, but he had no idea why she was bringing this up now.

“Dana? I don’t even remember,” he lied. “Where’d that come from?”

Sarah sat back, placing her hands on her flat belly with a bit of a frown. “Oh, I’m so stuffed now.” Angel stared at her, waiting as she lifted and dropped her shoulder. “She’s been posting about the San Diego-Hawaii game. I didn’t see it. Valerie did. She said I might wanna let you know Dana might be up to something.” She lifted a very telling brow, her carefree demeanor going a little on edge. “Seems she’s really looking forward to seeing you. She’s even posting old photos of you holding her. You know from back in the days when you two weren’t an item. You just took lots of sweet pictures together with you all over her.”

“Okay, first of all,” Angel said, sensing the mood taking a turn for no good reason at all, “it’s been years since I’ve spoken to or even seen her. We are not gonna get into this—”

“I don’t wanna get into it,” she said, sitting up suddenly. “I just thought I’d give you a heads up. Obviously, last summer when you took a photo with her at the game she caught you by surprise, right? I don’t know,” she added, pushing her chair out. “Maybe you didn’t say a word to her, but you did smile real pretty for the photo.”

Angel pretended to think about that, feeling like an ass, especially since Sarah rolled her eyes at his feigned bewilderment. But at least she smirked. He’d been caught. Damn it. “I forgot about that,” he said, but that wasn’t so much of a lie as a stretch.

Until she’d brought up Dana tonight, he hadn’t thought about taking that photo with her since the day it happened. Sarah was spot on. Dana had caught him off guard, and he’d had no choice but to be civil and pose for the photo for her. He just didn’t think that the one moment she’d nabbed a photo with him deserved any discussion time with Sarah. He knew after that day he probably wouldn’t see Dana until their next game this year. It just hadn’t seemed worth it to even see Sarah frown about it. Thankfully, she didn’t seem upset now.

Sarah stood up, glancing down at the near empty ice cream tray. “Are you done? I need to go walk this off again.”

He threw his napkin and spoon on the tray and picked it up. As soon as they walked out of the shop, he pulled her to him and kissed her softly. “Okay, maybe I remembered seeing her last year but only once you’d brought her up. I really had forgotten all about it until now.”

She lifted that sexy little brow and puckered her lip for a second. “But you said you hadn’t seen or talked to her in years after I brought her up.”

“I know. I know,” he said, walking backwards onto the rail of the boardwalk and bringing her with him. “It was stupid. I just didn’t think it even merited mentioning. I talked to her for all of a minute if that. She caught me on my way to the locker room, and I was already in a rush, so I had an excellent excuse to make a quick escape the second the picture was taken.”