They walked across the green like that, not really saying much, and it waslovely.
‘Right.’ Georgie was disappointed that they’d got to her parents’ front door so quickly. ‘We’re here. Thank you so much.’
She had her key out. It was a good job she knew he wouldn’t come in for coffee if she asked him, given that he had to get back to Beth and Noah, and that the babysitter was inside and there was every chance that Max was still up. Otherwise…
Raf was standing close to her and his eyes were on her face and her mouth and…
She really couldn’t work the key.
‘This is tricky.’ She fumbled around the lock some more.
‘Like some help?’ Raf’s eyes were twinklingagain. And they were fully focused now on Georgie’s lips. He was totally going to kiss her. Which would be so bad. Also probably very good. His gaze moved away, back to her eyes.
She finally managed some finger dexterity and inserted the key into its hole.
‘I’m good, thank you.’ She turned the key and dragged huge willpower from somewhere and said, ‘So, goodnight. You should get back to your chaperone duties.’
‘I should,’ said Raf, not moving. Georgie had to make a really big effort not to close her eyes in anticipation of A Kiss.
Okay, this was ridiculous. Her mind should not be going in this direction.
And then Raf leaned a little bit towards her. She could see his stubble, the little lines at the corners of his eyes, a muscle moving in his jaw. Her hand was practically twitching to reach up and touch his cheek. Her whole body was doing a massivezingand they hadn’t even touched. Although they would if she just leaned in a tiny bit. Raf was just gazing at her.
She moistened her lips – she couldn’t help it – and he leaned even closer. He lifted his hand up and brushed a strand of her hair away from her eyes. She could feel – really, really feel – where his finger touched the side of her face. She couldn’tbreathe. He was going to kiss her. He was definitely going to. What if she was a bad kisser? She’d kissed literally no one since she got pregnant with Max.
Max! What if theydidkiss and he saw? She needed to go inside.
‘Goodnight,’ she said. ‘Thank you. That was lovely.’ She knew it was embarrassing even before the wordlovelycame out, but her mouth still said it.
Raf didn’t limit himself to a bit of eye twinkling. He laughed out loud.
‘It was indeed lovely,’ he said.
Georgie just dived inside the door. Sometimes it was better to know when saying something else wasn’t going to help.
13
POPPY
Poppy peeled a banana with a dramatic flourish while Daniel laughed and tried to grab it, and then she mashed it with a fork in a little bowl for him, before peeling a second one, equally flourishingly, for herself. She’d had a goodish night’s sleep for once, and today she was determined to have a good day, involving at the bare minimum some proper food and a walk, and also hopefully some actual enjoyable social interaction with another adult, plus maybeshe’d have a little look online about how she might get a part-time job in a few months’ time. She was also going to look into joining some carer-and-baby classes. She missed her ante-natal class from Australia; maybe she could meet some people locally who had similar-aged babies.
Yep, she could totally make a plan. And ifDeclanwashaving an affair, she could totallycope. She could. Really.
Today was going to be a good day.
Ten minutes later, there was slimy, greyish-yellow banana splatted all over the place and Daniel was delighted. Poppy was not.
‘You know what,’ she told him, going for maximum facial expression exaggeration, because he loved that, ‘IknowI’m supposed to be giving you the spoon so that you learn but my sanity is important for you too, and I’m sorry but I’m just going to be feeding you myself for the foreseeable.’
Daniel laughed in delight and lunged for her face with his sticky fingers.
‘Eurgh.’ Poppy put her phone down on his highchair tray for a moment to wipe banana off her cheek. Daniel picked the phone up and threw it at the wall.
‘Noooo.’ Poppy leapt over to it. ‘Oh, thank goodness. It’s working.’ She turned back to Daniel and said, ‘No. That was naughty.’
He laughed even more. Yep, he was probably a good two or three years too young to understand the concept of naughtiness.
She smiled at him and then looked around at the kitchen and sighed. Shereallydidn’t want to clean it up yet again.
