Maisie lets out a shriek, and a moment later Ross has spun her over. ‘There you go. It’s not so funny down there, is it?’
Except to judge by Maisie’s giggles, it’s hilarious. After a few minutes of whirling her around upside-down while she lets out peals of laughter, Ross tips her upright again and Maisie grabs his nose. ‘M-my daddy crawls on the floor and lets me ride on his back.’
Ross gives me a pleading stare. ‘Jeepers, tell me she’s joking?’
I’m biting back my smile. ‘I don’t think she is.’
Maisie nods her head. ‘Like a h-horsey.’
I can’t help teasing. ‘If everyone has a turn, it’sreallyfun.’
Ross groans. ‘For eff’s sake, Bertie, don’t encourage her. She’s already scalped me – I can’t cope with more of them.’
Maisie whoops. ‘Me first! Me first!’
Nell’s laughing. ‘There you go, Ross, looks like you’ve got a job for the afternoon. That’ll be a job for life, once word gets around the Mums and Bumps group.’
I laugh. ‘What are you waiting for? If you hurry you’ll fit in three rounds of the living room before I’m ready to start.’
Ross rolls his eyes. ‘You’ll wish you hadn’t done this when you’re stuck with the washing up later.’
But Maisie’s back on the floor now, tugging at his wrist with one hand, hammering his thigh with her other. ‘C’mon, Boss, my little pony, my little pony!’
To be fair to Ross, for someone shuffling their way round a very smart living room on his hands and knees while the rest of the adults are all on the very comfy sofas knocking back fizz and chomping on canapés, he doesn’t lookthatunhappy about it. In fact he is smiling quite a lot.
By the time my demonstration is done and everyone has iced their own cupcake, and we’ve all shouted hurrah at the news that Amelia’s baby is a boy, and clapped furiously when we heard he’s going to be called Maverick Jonson Jonas Johns, Ross is flat out on the floor, with small children perched right across his chest and legs.
As Nell goes past she stops and stares down at the pile. ‘For someone who doesn’t play with kids much, you’re remarkably popular.’
I have to add my bit. ‘He’s so compliant too.’ I stop to laugh. ‘You don’t have to agree to everything. It is okay to say “no” to them, Ross.’
He lets out a snort. ‘You could have told me that earlier.’
Sophie gets up from where she’s perching on a stylish Ercol chair. ‘Okay, kids, how about we pack away some toys now, and move on to ice cream.’
Ross lets out a long moan. ‘Please, I’m up for many things, but if it’s a choice between being covered in Mr Whippy or helping clear the plates—’ he gives me a look, ‘—I’m going to say “no” to the ice cream.’
I hold out my hand to him. ‘Come on, up you get. I promise you safe passage to the dishwasher.’ Somehow I resist the urge to both hang onto his hand and give his bum a smack as he passes me.
Then just before we make it into the kitchen he turns to look at Sophie from the doorway. ‘You may think I’d have been too much of a tidier to hack this, Soph. But if things had turned out differently for Cressy and me, I swear, I’d have sucked it up.’
It takes a moment for it to sink in, what he’s referring to, but when it does I round on him. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Ross?’In front of a whole room of people.
His thoughtful expression disintegrates. ‘You said you’d shared with them? About the—’
I’m hissing at him to shut him up. ‘I shared the bits aboutme, I never confirmed the part aboutyou.’
His reply is low enough for only me to hear. ‘Oh frigg. I’ve stuffed this up big-time, haven’t I?’
I’m growling back through gritted teeth. ‘That’s the kind of question that doesn’t need an answer.’
Sophie’s got her smoothing-over voice on. ‘After three months with you two, we’d all pretty much guessed the rest for ourselves.’ She turns to the other women in the room, who are all sitting, eyes wide. ‘Cressy and Ross had a bit of a thing back in the day, that’s all.’
Nell rolls her eyes at me, then turns to everyone else. ‘Which reminds me, ladies, we can’t have a girlie party without teenage reminiscences! So, holiday romances – tell us your best and worst ones. I’ll kick off with when I lost my heart to the guy in charge of the hog roast at the Young Farmers’ camping weekend.’
And I have to hand it to Nell. That’s totally taken the heat off us. As for Ross, I’ll deal with him later.
So to make sure we don’t have to spend too long in the kitchen together, I push all my icing stuff into a plastic box to wash up at home later, and then get called over by Nell to talk to another mum with a very small baby bump about fitting in a gender reveal after her scan next week, and someone else who wants a donut evening for her husband’s birthday.
