“So,” she says lightly. “How’s cohabiting with Geoff going?”
My first instinct is to deflect. Make a joke. Shrug it off. Keep it neat.
Instead, heat rushes up my neck.
Bollocks.
I reach for my cup, anything to give my hands something to do, and manage to scald my tongue in the process.
Ivy’s smile deepens.
“Oh,” she says softly. “That’s interesting.”
“I’m pregnant,” I say too quickly. “My face does things now.”
“Mmhmm,” she replies. “Your face is doingthatthing.”
I hate that she knows me this well.
I stare at the cake crumbs on my plate. Focus on that instead of the memory of warm hands and morning light and how safe I’d felt curled into Geoff’s side.
“We’re… fine,” I say.
The word feels thin even as it leaves my mouth.
Ivy waits. She always does. Doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t fill the silence. Just gives me room to trip over my own defences.
“We had a moment,” I admit finally.
There it is. The truth, small and contained, sitting between us.
Her eyebrows lift but she doesn’t interrupt.
“It wasn’t sex,” I add, because it feels like an important clarification. “Not like that.”
“Okay,” she says.
“It was… practical,” I continue, wincing. “And kind. And very much driven by the fact that my hormones have declared war.”
Ivy’s head tilts.
Just slightly.
“Practical how?” she asks.
There it is.
The moment I knew was coming and hoped might somehow… not.
I stare at my coffee like it’s going to rescue me. It does not.
“You know,” I say, waving a vague hand. “Helpful. Supportive.”
“That is still extremely vague,” Ivy says mildly. “And also not a recognised category of human interaction.”
I sigh and press my lips together. My face is definitely warm now. There is no pretending otherwise.
“My hormones,” I say carefully, “have been… intense.”
