‘Eighteen. Not seventeen, eighteen. What kind of mom forgets how old her kid is?’ Gehna was horrified. Then she took a closer look at her mother. ‘Oh. You’re joking. You made a joke. Nice one, Nina. Ha-larious.’

Gehna flopped down on a couch. She watched her mother coo and fawn over the onesies and baby blankets that were spilling out of the trunks. Even Druhi, usually so poised, was pulling the kind of goofy faces that people made when there was an actual baby nearby.

Nina’s becoming soft, she thought. I don’t even know her any more. Where’s the she-wolf gone? Look at the two of them. They’re all like ‘awww’. I don’t get it. I should be the one who’s all ‘awww’. It’s like everyone else around here is turning into this glowy Earth Mother-type person. Me? I’m just pukey and gross.

In her copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting, which Eram had given her as a first ultrasound present, it said that a baby bump could appear at any time depending on whether it was your first pregnancy, how thin you were, how strong your abs were and how many babies you were carrying. Truth be told, Gehna hadn’t managed to get too deep into the baby bible because it was six hundred pages of information overload and most of it was frightening.

She slipped a hand under her tank top and felt her stomach. It was definitely bigger, or at least rounder, than yesterday. There were bulgy bits in places where there shouldn’t be any bulgy bits. Last night in bed she had sent Eram an unfiltered photo of her tummy to prove that she was getting fat since he always insisted that she wasn’t. He hadn’t replied immediately and she had died a dozen deaths until he did. Some people just didn’t get that it was called instant messaging for a reason.

They flirted heatedly for a while after that. Gehna wasn’t sure if it had been proper sexting or not, but it was her first time doing it, whatever it was. She found that she could text things that would have made her blush had she said them out loud.

She took out her phone to reread last night’s conversation. Oh my god. Did I really tell him that my boobs are huge now? Yep, I did. I’m a shameless hussy. He made a joke about his boobs being much bigger, but his punctuation went all wonky at that point so maybe . . .

‘Gehna, what are you doing?’

‘Who, me?’ Damn, can she read minds now? No. I must’ve been boy-smiling while looking at the phone. ‘Nothing much. You?’

‘I’ve found a lot of things that you can use when the baby comes. Clothes, feeding bottles, blankets, booties, soft toys. I’m sure we kept your old pram too, if I could just remember where I put it. I’ll make a list of the other things that we’ll need so you can circulate it before your baby shower. It helps people to know what to bring.’