Page 3 of How We Loved

We spun a few times, bodies perfectly aligned. “It’s just, I guess I thought it would be us first, hasn’t it all been so perfect today.”

“Ben.” I balanced on tiptoes to kiss his mouth. “We aren’t in a race to the finish line.”

The ring he gave me when he asked me to marry him back in June glinted in the soft lighting. “We’re having a baby; in my view, that’s so much more than getting married.”

He leaned back a little so he could meet my gaze. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Are you being crazy right now? Because that’s my role, and you know it. What we have, what we are about to do.” As if on cue, the baby gave me a kick which Ben felt too, eyes widening as he met my gaze. “See, the baby agrees, what we are about to do, it’s more than music and marquees, rings and dancing. We’re about to be parents, together, a job that lasts forever.”

He stared at me, biting down on the edge of his lips. “I love you, do you know that? I love you with every single fibre in my body.”

“I know.”

He kissed me, and it stole what little breath I had in my lungs. “We’ll have a wedding, Ben, we will, but it will be a perk, the icing on a cake that’s already perfect, it won’t be the thing that ties us together.”

He tucked me tighter into his embrace, and we swayed and turned. Until I needed a fart.

Then I thought it best to move away.

We didn’t end up having romantic sexy times after all.

3rd September.

Everyone is still recovering. Meredith and Tristan have slipped off for a cute little honeymoon before her uni lectures start. He’s taken her to stay in a Scottish castle. I have to say I’m impressed by the level of effort he’s put in. Maybe he’s not such an arse after all, but actually a cute little romantic teddy bear.

The jury will stay out until she is back and fills me in on what they get up to.

Whale they are gone, Ben and I (okay, mainly Ben) have been carting ourselves upstairs. It’s strange, and probably a little bit daft, but it feels strange up here. Sure, it looks basically the same, although we don’t have the direct kitchen door access to the garden, but it feels odd, weird.

I know Ben’s worried about it; he keeps looking at me oddly, like he’s worried I’m going to fall apart, but this is our life now. Tristan and Mer are husband and wife, and Ben and I are about to become parents. Life moves on, doesn’t it? Nothing ever stays the same.

I’m very melancholy today, probably just tired. The weekend was busy with the wedding and the driving back and forth to Suffolk. Plus, I’m not sleeping well; the baby bump likes to do the conga between the hours of two and three in the morning. It’s like night-time aerobics. Beth was telling me she’d read an article in a magazine that said the night-time activity of the baby in the womb was a sign of what was to come. Apparently, the babies are lulled to sleep during the day in the womb by the gentle movement of walking around, and this is why they want to be held and rocked all night when they come out of the womb. I find this worrying. Basically, a newborn baby is pre-programmed to never sleep at the right time. I discussed with Ben whether it would work if I lay down all day and slept and then stood all night, but he just looked at me like I was mad. So I’m still lying there awake every night, hugging my pregnancy pillow like my life depends on it, listening to Ben sleep, while our baby uses me as a soft play.

Later

Ben noticed the melancholy vibe. I was just settling down with a KitKat on our new, rather gorgeous leather sofa when I heard the most awful bashing and crashing from outside, our front door, and down the stairs to where our communal hallway lead to Tristan and Meredith’s. “What the hell?” I asked when he battled his way through carrying my antique writing desk the old lady we’d bought the downstairs flat from had left me. “I thought we were leaving that down there. We won’t have room with the baby stuff.”

He pushed it into the corner of the lounge, so it was next to the ornate fireplace. “We did, but I want you to have it up here. I think this is important for you.”

“It’s not like I’m going to write anything on it. I won’t even be writing essays soon.”

He watched me carefully, reading my face. “Is that why you’re so down? Because you’ve got to leave uni?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t even gone back yet.” I looked down at the giant bump protruding out from under my too-small maternity T-shirt.

“But you’re worried about it.” Ben dropped onto the sofa next to me and picked up my hand.

“Maybe. Look at me, Ben. When you were on campus, did you see many other massively pregnant women walking around?”

His lips twitched. “Well, no.”

“Did you see many massively pregnant women with famous boyfriends walking around?”

“Well, no, but who knows. Anyone can be famous these days, what with Insta and the socials.”

“I just think we’ve got so much going on. We’ve just moved, we haven’t prepared for the baby at all, I seem to be rather large, and for some reason that you aren’t talking about, you aren’t creating any music at all.”

Ben’s smile dropped. “Lilah...”