They were right now.
“Why didn’t you?” It was a simple question.
“Because I didn’t know if you wanted me to.” He looked towards the camera, his hand concealing one breast, his armcovering most of the other. His other palm settled on my stomach. “But I can’t look at you, knowing you’re growing my baby – our baby – and not want you like this.”
“Is that why?” Part of me felt disappointed. Was it just that? He wanted me because I was pregnant with his child?
“It’s one of the reasons, and there are many.”
I looked towards the camera, one of my hands on top of his and I imagined how this same pose would look in a few months, my belly hopefully bigger and rounder, the trees in full leaf and the sun brighter.
“I want to know those reasons.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you.”
Ruby’s voice carried through the air, her laugh louder still. “I should get dressed.”
“Let me help.”
Gully bent down with me, picking up my bra with one hand, shielding me with the other. Between us I was decent in seconds, his arms around me once more, just as Ruby and Finn appeared, looking curious.
“Photoshoot,” Gully explained, making no attempt to let go of me. “One for the album.”
Ruby raised her eyes at me, then looked us up and down. “Okay. I’ll choose to believe that.”
“We need to finish off.” Finn frowned at Gully, but changed his expression to a smile for me. “The fence. Nothing else. We weren’t doing anything else.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Gully was shaking with laughter behind me.
“Baby number three on the way then?” He used me as a shield, his hips pressing closer against me.
There was another reason he was holding me here. The lovely flame between my legs wasn’t the only effect of our photo shoot.
Finn shook his head and walked off. “I’m getting that axe.”
Ruby followed him laughing. “If baby number three arrives before Elsie’s fifth birthday, you'll be having a special procedure done.”
“Not happening.” Their voices dulled as they moved away.
“Want to see the photos?” I broke free of his hold gently.
Gully nodded, folding his arms. “Are we going to pretend this never happened like we did with New Orleans?”
A flicker of realisation hit me. “Not this time. Definitely not this time.”
Gully
Being in unchartered territory made me nervous. I was used to being Mr Confident, Mr Smile-and-Everything-Will-Be-Okay, the happy-go-lucky one of the Holland brothers who always got his way and made everyone feel like a winner in the process.
With Iris, I was steering a boat for which I didn’t have an instruction manual or any experience of captaining. I was feeling around in the dark, clutching at any hints to make sure I didn’t crash into anything and fracture the delicate world we’d constructed.
I wanted to say that the photos were the start of it, that I’d planned for that to happen, but that wasn’t the case. I was worried that I’d scare her off, that she’d revert back to pretending that nothing had happened between us, like we’d done after New Orleans, and then I was worried that she might only have feelings for me because of something like Stockholm Syndrome – she was carrying the baby we’d made and we were more entwined in each other’s lives than ever before.
It took her a few hours to show me the photos. I was in the kitchen, reading through some of Clover’s comments on the firstdraft of the novel that we were getting done at super speed. I’d tried to not think of how the photos looked, not wanting to fix too hard on that afternoon at the bottom of the garden, although when I wasn’t in total control of myself it was all I could think about.
Since this afternoon, we’d been more tactile. I’d held her more, she’d put her arms around me more often, there’d been little kisses but nothing more than that. It was as if we were both taking small steps to test out how it felt now that it was different.
It was giving me a huge case of blue balls.
