We were written off as women on a night out. They wouldn’t know the power we had. The men who’d fallen at our hand. It was still there. This belief we didn’t need to be taken seriously. This idea that we could be overlooked as a threat. More fool them. We were still the unexpected. It’s what made us better than them. They never saw us coming.

*

Daylight was slowly starting to creep in by the time I got on my bike and headed home. I ran over the evening’s events. I might be a little more tired. I might be a little more squashy. But I could still do my job just as well as before Gigi.

And now I got to go home to her.

The feeling of watching her sleep. This little person that I made. Pulling her duvet over her. Tucking her in. It felt like another life. One I didn’t deserve.

Everything else melted away.

Whatever was going on with Will would get better. It had to.

Marriage was tough. Marriage after kids was tougher. What the hell was that phrase ‘band-aid baby’? How could a baby hold a relationship together? ‘Baby-bomb’ would be more accurate. It could blow you apart. Less sleep, less sex, less fun.

I thought of the three of us in our bed yesterday morning. Her sweet round face, her dimpled cheeks, her rumpled hair. Lying between us as Will stroked her head and I held her hand. As she sang along to the Peppa Pig theme tune, we’d caught each other’s eye and laughed. Isn’t she perfect? Isn’t she wonderful? Aren’t we lucky? She’s ours.

Day to day it was harder. But Will and I were bonded together. Connected for life through the child we made. Our love for her plastering over the cracks.

Band-aid baby.

She helped us want to make ‘us’ work.

I parked my bike down the road from our house. The streets were empty. I figured I had enough time to creep in, change into whatever clothes I had in the clean laundry basket and pretend I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Coming home at this hour was not going to help a relationship that was currently blighted by claims I worked too much.

I was nearly at my front door when I heard a ‘Lex!’ I turned round to see a smiling Rochelle in running gear jog over to my side of the road.

Rochelle seemed to be making a habit of turning up without warning at particularly inopportune moments. She was an early period on a white jeans day.

‘Look at you. Very impressive. Do you always run this early?’ I tried to start a conversation as if I didn’t look as if I was dressed like a prostitute crawling home on a walk of shame.