“No. She can keep a secret and she’ll keep this one. Telling her that you might be pregnant seems to have made her feel better.” The back of my hand brushed against Iris’. Her fingers entwined with mine.
Mavis had been feeling low when I went to see her a couple of weeks ago. Her arthritis was playing up and her hip was giving her grief, so she’d decided to stay in, which had made her grumpier than usual. I’d told her about the wait Iris and I had to find out whether the IVF had been successful and it’d perked her up, Mavis giving me the pep talk instead of the other way round.
“I’m glad it’s perked her up.” She squeezed my hand and turned over, the sheets falling away to expose more skin.
“’Ris, I can control myself, but I am going to stare. I just need you to know that.” I heard the choke in my voice.
She giggled, pulling the sheets around some more. “Do you want me to put a top on?”
“Not really, no.” The fact that she didn’t have a top on was distracting me nicely from what else today was going to expose. “You can have your top off whenever you want, as long as it’s only me who gets to look.”
That might’ve been a bit too much.
Iris bit her lips together and I hoped it was to stop her from laughing rather than swearing at me.
“Possessive much? Even though we’re just friends?”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t feel like this is just friends.”
She relaxed back, her hand still holding mine. “Co-parents. Hopefully. Shall I do the test?”
I sat up, nodding. “I think so. We’re not going to know what to do with ourselves until we know. It’s definitely long enough, isn’t it?”
She glanced down to my crotch. I was wearing pyjama bottoms which were probably a bit flimsy. “It was long enough that one time.”
“Now who’s being inappropriate?”
Her cheeks coloured. “If you can look, so can I.”
That was the point something changed. Later, in weeks and months to come, it was this moment when I realised my life changed, even though a bigger event was about to take place.
Iris slid out of bed, her back to me so I couldn’t actually see her tits, no matter how much I tried to look, and pulled a dressing gown off the back of the bathroom door, covering herself up without giving me a peek of anything.
I lay back on the bed, disappointed.
“Are you doing it now? The test?” I knew she had to pee on a stick, but that was about it.
"Just brushing my teeth first. Then I’m doing the test.”
I heard the water run in the sink, the sound of her electric toothbrush, the call of a gull outside.
My heartbeat that was too fast.
The toothbrush stopped.
“I’m going to do the test. I don’t want you to see me pee so don’t come in. Or listen. If I think you’re listening, I won’t be able to pee.”
I laughed at the instructions. “I’m not listening.” I totally was. I started singing an Elvis song, the same song that’d been playing in New Orleans when we first kissed in the middle of Mardi Gras.
It was a deliberate choice.
“Okay, you can come in.”
I stopped singing and sped to the door, pushing it open. Iris was at the sink, the test in her hands, watching the tiny screen.
I stood behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, not even trying to resist holding her. I could see the test over her shoulders, her back resting against my chest.
“How long does it take?”
