You and only you

13.

.........."You may as well seize the opportunity while you can" Leah says causing me to look at her and giggle

"Well I don't get it very often"

"So how have you been" she asks leaning forward putting her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her fists while giving me her undivided attention

"Yeah, I've been good, been a pretty hectic week but it's almost over now" I say and she giggles

"Why was it hectic"

"Well Arthur was sick and that's enough to make anyone go insane"

"Is he alright"

"Yeah he's fine, it was just a bug"

"Good"

"How have you been" I ask whilst we make direct eye contact across the table. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't lost in her ocean blue whirlpools

"I've been good, was a pretty hectic week as well but I was just looking forward to tonight" she says with a gleaming smile which causes me to blush and divert my attention to my finger nails which I now find extremely interesting. We make small talk for a few more minutes until our food comes out.

"I know this is going to sound really bad now but I know we got to know each other the other night but in all honestly I don't remember much from the night" she says a little embarrassed which causes us both to smirk

"I kind of figured that out by the head on you the next morning, you were a bit worse for wear" I say and we laugh

"Should we just start from the beginning then" I ask

"Yeah go fro it" she says encouragingly

"So I'm originally from Ireland. I moved here when I was very young, I was straight out of school. I got into university here and a few months in I met a boy, we had a one night stand kind of thing and I fell pregnant so I ended up dropping out and so did he so we rented a flat just outside London. He worked to pay the bills while I stayed at home. It was quite a controlled environment at the time and I was always on edge. So I gave birth to Nelly and everything was kind of fine after that but 3 years later I got pregnant with Arthur and then he left and told me he wanted nothing to do with us. It was really hard because I didn't really have any family around me and I didn't have any money either. My family tried to visit as much as they could but you can only expect them to do so much, but I was really lucky because his parents helped me a lot, they looked after Nelly everyday while I was pregnant so I could work in a coffee shop, and then that's where I met Alex and Carol and they became my second family. So when Arthur was born he had health issues which caused us to be in hospital a lot and he had a lot of setback but I had a good bunch of people around me. And yeah thats kind of it" I say as I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding and make eye contact with her across the table to see her smiling brightly at me

"I remember you saying you had a big family as well"

"Yeah I do I've got an older brother Dylan who's got two daughters Katie and Nathalie, and then I've got two younger sister Chloe and Sophie, and Chloe has a son Ollie, and you can add and army of aunts, uncles and cousins to that too" I say and she laughs

"You've got a brother haven't you" I ask and she nods

"Yeah Jacob, but like you I've an army of cousins as well, but I love having a big family, I'm very family orientated. You haven't seen your family in a while right" she asks and I nod whilst finishing my mouthful of pasta

"Yeah it's been about six months since I've seen my mom and dad and sisters but I see my brother often because he lives in Manchester so I have a touch of home away from home. I'm hoping to see them soon, maybe Christmas, I'll just have to see how this jobs plays out"