I nodded but something inside me sank sadly. Even though I wanted to agree with her, I knew in my heart that I couldn’t.

‘You’re going to have a baby, aren’t you?’ I said, finding a smile for my friend.

She nodded and rested her elbows on the table, cradling her chin in her hands.

‘Ros?’

‘Sumi.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

I reached my spoon into her fro-yo and grabbed a scoop with a side of strawberries. ‘Shoot.’

‘How was the kiss with John?’ she asked, batting her eyes at me.

‘Oh, sod off,’ I mumbled, looking away.

‘Oh dear,’ she grinned. ‘You are in trouble.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

By Friday morning, I was a wreck.

The entire week had been eaten up by production prep and wedding planning, leaving me with only the odd minute here and there to worry about my own life. Thankfully, Patrick was caught up with a deadline and hadn’t had time to see me before the podcast recording, which he’d sworn up and down on the graves of assorted family members that he was going to attend, and all my friends were preoccupied by their lives. Adrian with Eva, Sumi with work and Lucy with being ‘too fat to live’, to quote her directly. While I hadn’t given an awful lot of thought as to when I would prefer to be pregnant, the height of summer seemed like the worst possible option. I was only carrying a food baby from all my stress eating and that was uncomfortable enough. I couldn’t begin to imagine what an extra thirty pounds strapped to your ribs must feel like.

‘Hey, Ted,’ I tapped my boss on the shoulder, smiling brightly.

‘Ros?’ My boss yanked out his AirPods. ‘What are you doing here? You should be at WESC, you should be backstage, you should be—’

‘It’s all sorted,’ I said calmly, pointing to the great big box on the floor beside me. ‘I was there this morning, the set-up, the soundcheck, it’s all done. I just came back to get the tiger mask and see if there was anything else you needed.’

He pressed both hands against his face and breathed out a gargantuan sigh of relief. ‘Thank fuck, Ros, thank fuck,’ he laughed. ‘Because for a minute there, I thought maybe you’d fucked up and I was going to have to fire you on the spot.’

‘Wouldn’t that be hilarious?’ I replied, polite smile still pasted on my face. Clearly the fact my entire career depended on what happened that afternoon hadn’t even occurred to me. ‘No, everything is great. Snazz should be getting to the venue in about an hour so I’ll head over now so I’m there to meet him. See you there?’