Lucy leans in, presses her ear to my bump with all the solemnity of a tiny doctor. “Hello, Baby Pea-Lime,” she whispers. “Please don’t kick too much. It’s rude.”
Pea-Lime kicks again, right on cue.
Lucy straightens. “She didn’t listen.”
“That checks out,” I say.
Geoff’s hand lingers a second longer than necessary before he pulls it back, and the absence is… noticeable. Annoyingly so.
Everything is fine, I tell myself. Normal. Domestic. Completely non-threatening.
My body, traitor that it is, does not entirely agree.
I’m perched on one of the kitchen stools with my laptop open, spreadsheet glowing accusingly back at me. Rows, columns, colour coding. Control. Order. Lies.
Pea-Lime gives a lazy roll that I ignore because, if I acknowledge every movement, I will get nothing done and also possibly cry into Excel.
Behind me, Geoff is at the hob, stirring soup with the kind of focus normally reserved for bomb disposal. He has already warmed it once, decided it wasn’t warm enough, and is now on attempt two.
“You know,” I say without looking up, “if you hover over it anymore it’s going to develop performance anxiety.”
“I just want it hot enough,” he says.
“It’s soup,” I reply. “Not a spa treatment.”
He hums, unconvinced, and reaches for a spoon to test it.
That’s when his phone rings.
He freezes. Actually freezes. Spoon mid-air. Soup simmering. Phone buzzing on the counter like it’s personally offended him.
I glance up. “You going to answer that or let it spiral into a full existential crisis?”
He looks at the screen and grimaces. “It’s my mum.”
Ah.
Mrs Corbin. The one who once tried to set him up with a woman she met at a bus stop because she ‘had kind eyes and a sensible coat’. The one who had rather strong opinions when he told her he was buying a new sofa because she thought it meant he was ‘emotionally committing to furniture’.
“Good luck,” I say cheerfully. “If she asks if you’re eating properly, lie.”
He exhales, long-suffering and fond all at once, and answers. “Hi, Mum.”
I watch him as he listens, nodding automatically, murmuring agreement like this is a call he has had many times before and will have many times again until the heat death of the universe.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Pause.
“Yes, I am eating.”
Another pause. His shoulders tense.
“No, I’m not lonely.”
I snort and go back to my spreadsheet.
He glances at me, a warning look that means behave. I smile sweetly and type aggressively.
