We talked about food and our nutrition endeavor while we ate Chinese at the kitchen island, my one glass of wine replaced with water to combat the salt I knew I was inhaling. We’d been in six schools so far, all locally, and did direct work with pupils aged fourteen to sixteen. The feedback had been interesting: they understood eating healthy and had an awareness of nutritional content, but there were barriers – parents not being able to afford the food they would possibly choose, or convenience food because they were going from school to a quick dinner and to another activity, or other reasons. Jude talked about body image and what sort of diet an athlete had and why, making comments that he was looking forward to retiring because then he wouldn’t have to look this way, or be this fit. We’d enjoyed it, each visit becoming smoother, bouncing off each other with a topic we were both passionate about. I handed out recipe cards I’d been working on, easy healthy meals that could be made cheaply from ingredients that could be bought easily.
“I want to show you something,” Jude said, polishing off the rest of his chow mein. “But don’t laugh.”
“I’m going to laugh now, aren’t I?”
He passed his phone to me. “Press play.”
I did, seeing a video of him in this kitchen, talking to the camera as he made one of the recipes I’d given him to make. I didn’t laugh, because actually, he was pretty good at this, so much so, I doubted it was his first attempt.
“You want to do these for the website? They’d get a ton of views.”
He nodded. “I’ve shown a few to Ezra. They’ve suggested setting one up properly – they’re just waiting for me to say yes.”
“I think you should.”
“I think you should be on it with me. It’ll give more credibility to it and we could follow one of your recipe cards that you’re giving out.” He sat back on the kitchen stool and folded his arms. “Let’s do a practice one tomorrow.”
I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t hate being on camera, and I could see that this meant a lot to Jude. “Okay. Let’s try it.”
“Awesome. Thank you, partner.” He flashed me that grin.
I stifled a groan. His smile should’ve been registered as a lethal weapon.
CHAPTER14
Jude
DECEMBER
I hadno idea what to do with a crying Neva.
Or any other woman. This was where my experience was limited.
I knew my mum had moments when she’d been sad, and she’d cried. I saw how my dad cheered her up and tried to fix things, even if it was just putting things into perspective. I knew she’d been heartbroken because she couldn’t have any more children after me, and there were times when that had really gotten to her. She’d thought about adopting, and I think they’d considered surrogacy, but it hadn’t replaced her want to carry another child.
“Just because you haven’t gotten pregnant yet doesn’t mean you won’t soon.” This was true. Factual. I was holding her in my arms sitting on the bathroom floor, which was thankfully heated otherwise we’d have been really fucking cold.
Her period had been late. Her hopes had been up. Not going to lie, mine had been too. But right now wasn’t about my disappointment.
“But I might not.” She was shaking. “It might never happen.”
“We’ve been trying two months. Give it four more and then we’ll make an appointment with a doctor, if we’re not pregnant by then.” I threaded my fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp.
She took a couple of deep breaths. “Maybe we’re having too much sex. That can have an effect on how high your sperm count is. Maybe I need to start taking my temperature so I can see whether I’m fertile. Should we try to look at what else we can do?”
I brought her closer to me, moving her back against my chest.
“Maybe we need a couple of months where we’re not trying so hard. Maybe just pretend that this is what it was a couple of years ago.” It killed me to say that, but if I could get her to not focus on becoming pregnant, then maybe it would just happen.
The sex we were having was fucking awesome, the best of my life, and while it hadn’t been that long really, I’d had a more than the average amount of sex for someone my age, or so I reckoned.
But afterwards, when we were lying there, I could tell Neva was thinking about what might be happening. Was this the time when we would conceive? Would it be forty weeks from now until she held our baby?
I knew she was doing everything she could, because Neva liked to be in control. The only time when she handed control over to me was when I was fucking her or going down on her. I’d worked out why she’d taken up a career in nutrition.
Food was the last thing you could control. What you put into your body was the ultimate control over you. By learning everything she could about food and nutrition, Neva had developed a way of control that was difficult for anyone to argue with. I got it.
I’d talked with my mum about it, after telling her what the plan between Neva and me was.
