Is the coast clear? X

‘Looks like the time has come to allow the other half back in,’ I said.

‘Thanks for this evening,’ Lucy smiled, and I watched with awe as she gracefully lifted her Gucci bag over her head and across her body. It fell neatly to one side of her bump. She was effortlessly stylish. ‘Gorgeous home, I love all your personal touches,’ she added. I felt myself stiffen. If the designer handbag and posh salads were anything to go by, Lucy was probably just being kind – her home was likely to be something straight out of Elle Decoration.

I smiled politely, ‘Thank you – and thanks for helping me clear up. See you at the next one.’

Chapter Eleven

Lucy

As I walked home after the class, I felt edgy. I played over the moment Aisha had caught me looking at her photos. Sometimes I felt like a pressure cooker, the internal tension rising and rising inside me. But thankfully I didn’t blow it. Not yet. I was holding things together okay and no one seemed to think I was weird – if they did, they didn’t show it. The knitted boobs were much weirder, let’s face it. To take my mind off things, I FaceTimed Oscar, who was in New York on business. I told him about the rugby ball incident and he found it amusing. I also mentioned how Aisha had burnt the bruschetta.

‘Well, you can’t expect everyone to be as culinarily endowed as you, my sweetheart,’ he teased.

‘Culinarily endowed, is that even a phrase?’ I asked. ‘Typical of you to turn everything back to sex.’

‘Excuse me, you’re the one with the dirty mind!’ he retorted. ‘Thinking about how well endowed I am, are you?’

‘Oscar!’

‘Well, you can tell me in person tomorrow. I’ll be home off the red eye mid-morning. Why don’t you go in late?’

‘But I’ve got a meeting—’

‘I’m the boss, so it’s fine,’ he cut me off. ‘I can’t wait to see you.’

I didn’t realize until I had reached our house that I’d left the empty salad dish at Aisha’s. I was too tired to go back, so decided it would be the ideal excuse to ask her out for a coffee.

Thursday 6^th May

The following evening, sat on the sofa, Oscar flopped his arm around my belly and nestled into my body. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me; I mean really looked at me. ‘I missed you darling,’ he cooed.

‘I missed you too, honey.’ I planted a kiss onto his lips and took his hand in mine. I silently marvelled at how we had become a pregnant couple who referred to each other as ‘darling’ and ‘honey’. It should have made my heart sing, but instead it made me feel uneasy.

My desperation to be a mother had been so strong, for so long. But now I was here, on the brink of my dream finally coming true, it wasn’t quite the perfect situation I had hoped for. There was one big problem.