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“Okay.”
“Is this really what you want?” Paige held her gaze.
“Yeah,” Lauren said. “I think this one’s different.”
“How?”
Lauren looked down the hall. Berkeley had abandoned his post by the back door and was lying flat outside the bathroom with his nose to the gap under it.
“Because I’m embarrassed,” she said slowly. “And I’m never embarrassed. I used to want everyone to know. It was like… proof. That someone had picked me. I don’t want you to see this. Not because I’m ashamed of it. Because it matters. And I don’t want anyone breathing on it yet. Even you. Especially you.”
Paige reached over with her free hand and squeezed Lauren’s knee, hard.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so too.” She shifted Sam. “Though I’ll be honest, the Man City shirt is a lot to process before eight in the morning.”
Lauren laughed, mostly with relief.
“We’re keeping it quiet,” she said. “Until after Christmas. Her dad’s just moved into a home, and her sister’s a nightmare, and she wants one thing that’s just hers for a bit. So you can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Promise.”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Paige said, very solemnly, “except Becky.”
“Paige.”
“I can’t not tell Becky. We share a bed. She’ll see it on my face. She’ll see it on my face from the car.”
“Fine. Except Becky. Nobody else.”
“Nobody else,” Paige agreed.
Sam had fallen asleep, milk-drunk, his mouth slack. Paige eased him off, tucked herself away, and laid him on her shoulder, patting his back until he produced a burp so loud and so satisfied that Berkeley looked round from the bathroom door to check what had died.
“Right,” Paige said, standing up carefully. “I’m going. I’m going to sit in my car outside my own house for an hour, so he doesn’t wake up. That’s my life now.” She paused in the doorway. “Lauren.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t cock it up.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it nicely.”
“I know you do.”
She walked Paige to the door and held it while she manoeuvred herself and the sleeping baby down the step. Halfway down the path, Paige turned round.
“Tell Carly I said she suits your shirt better than you do.”
“I’m not telling her that.”
“You will,” Paige said, and went.
Lauren closed the door. She stood in the hall with her back against it, listening to the shower and Berkeley sighing outside the bathroom.
Then she walked back down the hall, past the fallen magnet, past the ironed jacket on the hook, and pushed open the bedroom door.
