They held hands walking across the field until they were sitting on the wall, pretty much exactly where they’d sat the night of Laura’s eightieth.
James was about to point out Cassiopeia to Cassie when she nudged him, put her finger to her lips and pointed.
Two joined-at-the-hips-and-at-the-lips figures were making their way across the field towards the tents. They fell over and rolled around laughing. And then one of them rolled on top of the other.
‘Eek,’ Cassie whispered. ‘I think we might be about to witness something very X-rated.’
‘Evening,’ James called.
‘Evening, mate.’ Josh stood up and heaved his companion up by her hand.
‘Good evening,’ Dina said.
And then she pulled Josh inside one of the tents Cassie and James had set up near the bouncy castle for their guests to stay in, and Josh did the zip up.
‘I hope that’s Josh’s tent,’ Cassie said. ‘Oh my goodness.’ The tent was in no way soundproof.
‘Mate,’ yelled James. ‘Might as well be right next to us.’
The tent shook a bit and Josh and Dina emerged.
Cassie giggled as they disappeared off in the direction of Dina’s house.
‘Could be the start of a beautiful relationship,’ James said. ‘His divorce came through this week.’
They sat very close together, arms round each other, and looked at the stars for a few minutes.
‘Remember Laura’s party?’ James said.
‘So embarrassing.’ Cassie snuggled further into him. ‘I was so drunk. Want to know a secret?’
‘Mmm.’ James was enjoying the snuggling. He was also thinking. He was pretty sure that she’d drunknothingtoday. Which was unlike her. She liked a glass or two of wine.
‘Ireallywanted to kiss you that night.’ She angled her face up to his and he leaned down to her, loving the combination of familiarity and temptation as their lips met.
He sat up suddenly and Cassie nearly fell off the wall and said, ‘Oh.’
‘Sorry. But are you…?’ Really, how to ask? But she was tired, and not drinking. They hadn’t been outstandingly careful. They’d basically relied on natural contraception from Cassie’s breastfeeding, and even when she’d stopped a couple of months ago and had a period they hadn’t really taken too many precautions.
He saw in the moonlight that Cassie had squeezed her eyes shut. ‘If you mean am I pregnant, I think I might be,’ she said. ‘I need to do a test. I was thinking maybe do it tomorrow but I wanted to tell you before I did it but then I didn’t want to tell you in case you were either disappointed or happy at the outcome but then I did want to tell you because we should do it together. Shouldn’t we?’
‘Yes, we really should.’ He looked at her more closely. ‘What do you mean either disappointed or happy at the outcome?’
‘Well, do youwantanother baby?’
‘Yes.’ It was a really easy question to answer, as it turned out.
‘That’s a relief.’
James nodded, still a bit stunned at the possible baby news.
‘I have a question for you,’ Cassie said.
‘Mmm?’ He shifted round a little so that he still had his arm round her but they were facing each other a bit more.
‘I’d like you to answer this immediately without thinking: five minutes ago, did youknowthat you wanted another baby? Immediate answer.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Good question. ‘But now I do know. I really do. I love you and adore you and am definitely very excited at the thought that we might be pregnant again and if we aren’t I’d love the opportunity to spend a lot of time trying to make another baby.’
