Players, Bumps and Cocktail Sausages (Silence #3)(73)

“And the space for me?” I asked, chewing on my lip. I didn’t want to ask, but I wasn’t comfortable being away from my baby. It was selfish; I knew that, he would have to spend nights away from her, but I couldn’t help it.

“Are you asking to move in with me?”

I elbowed his arm. “No. I’d just feel more comfortable if I was there too.”

He frowned.

“Not because I don’t think you could handle it, please don’t think that. It’s just being away from my newborn makes me feel panicky already. Plus she’ll need my milk. When she’s older you can have her overnight without me but to start with I’d like to be there.”

He nodded slowly. “I understand that feeling. There’s room for three. Always will be.”

I wasn’t sure if that covered forever the way I wanted it to.

“You want to get some more stuff this weekend? I can take it back to your parents for you when I go. You said you wanted one of those vibrating, music playing, all-singing all-dancing chairs.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Cool. Then I’ll take you out to dinner. It is the card companies day after all.”

“Someone’s bitter.”

“Catching your wife with another man will do that.”

I winced. “Crap. Jasper, I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”

“Forget it. It’s fine.”

“How are you about all that now?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Alright I guess. Still hurts, the way it all happened, you know? I could live with her leaving me a lot easier than I can knowing she’d been sleeping with someone then coming home to me. I thought she wanted to wait to have a baby because of her career, and that’s it. Guess shagging Brett put her off too.” He laughed, but it was bitter. “Then she went and got pregnant by the fucker. It’s like a double slap in the face.”

“I’m sorry.”

He snapped out of his mood and smiled at me.

“Doesn’t matter now. We’ve got this one on the way,” he said, covering my little bump with his hand. “And I couldn’t be happier about that. Plus my lawyer said the divorce should be finalised in the end of next month or so. I’ll be able to finally put it all behind me.”

“Good,” I replied, meaning putting everything behind him and because of the divorce. As soon as he had no more ties to her there would be no more talk that involved Abigail Dane, and hopefully he would start looking to the future. I wanted him to be happy and have nothing dragging him down.

“How are the therapy sessions going?”

He never liked talking about them; it was as if he was ashamed to admit he needed help. Everyone did at some point. I saw facing your problems as a strength rather than a weakness.

“Fine,” he replied.

“You can tell me about it if you want, you know.”

“No offence, Holly, but you’re the woman carrying my child. I don’t want to dump my crap on you when I’m the one that’s supposed to take care of you.”

But he wasn’t supposed to take care of me, just the baby. He was too hard on himself all the time, thinking he need to do more and be stronger.

“You do and you still can. You tell me to unload on you, so you can do the same.”

I rolled my eyes as he fought a smile, knowing he’d turned my words dirty.

“Thanks, Hol, you always know how to cheer me up.”

He was in need of cheering up?

“Talk to me. Please.”

He sighed. “It’s going well, I guess. She makes me look at things differently, and I’m starting to believe some of what she says. I’ll be fine. Please don’t worry.”

Well that gave me absolutely nothing to go on. Could he have been any more vague? He wasn’t going to give me anything else, so I let it go, hoping he’d open up properly when he was ready – if he ever would be.

“Alright,” I said as I took his plate with mine to wash up. “I’ll just sort out the flowers and then we can go. Oh I need to do my make-up properly first.”

“No, you don’t. You’re perfect as you are.”

That was probably a lie, but he made me feel beautiful enough to push my make-up bag aside. If anyone ran screaming though, I was never going to trust him again!

“Thank you,” I said.

“No need to thank me, just being honest.”

It wasn’t just the words that he said; it was how his words made me feel. He was the first person to really see me as a woman. Being the youngest in my family and the youngest amongst my friends meant I had always been treated as a child, people had gone out of their way to look after me just that little bit more. I appreciated that they cared, but I didn’t want to be Little Holly in my twenties.

Jasper took me shopping, spoiling our unborn baby with clothes and cuddly toys and spoiling me with lunch out, a movie and then dinner in the evening. When we got back to my empty flat, we laid on the sofa chatting about whatever popped into our heads. I realised that the last seven months had been the best of my life, and a lot of that was because of him.





Chapter Thirty-Three


Jasper




“Jasper!” Holly’s voice pierced through the bathroom door.