The Dusk Room

The Dusk Room chapter 24

I want to cover my ears, to drown out just a fraction of Lyla's overzealous squeal of uncontainable excitement. "Ahhhhhhh...oh my god...oh my bloody God! I'm going to be a bloody aunty!" She's clapping like a demented seal, her eyes wide like saucers.

Holding my finger against her mouth, I frown. "Not so loud. I don't want everyone knowing just yet." I check that no one from our office has heard me telling Lyla my news over our lunch of tuna salad in the corner of the work canteen.

Glancing back over her shoulder to also check that no one has heard her, she turns back around when she thinks she's in the clear. "Oh my god...I'm so very happy for you!" She whispers now, loudly. "Does your mum know?"

I nod, smiling at yesterday's memory. "I honestly thought she was actually going to pee her pants. She's so excited. She's already given us strict instructions for little one to call her Nanna." My thoughts make me smile even more, I don't think I've ever seen my mum look so choked up and happy over something. When we first told her, she just embraced Fane and I, then softly cried with such happiness preventing her from doing anything else.

Lyla reaches for my hand that rests on the table with my knife held between it. "This is such wonderful news. I couldn't be happier for you and Fane. How has he taken the exciting news?" She eagerly waits for my reply, her anticipation sitting obviously on her beckoning features.

My smile is more for my benefit, knowing how unquestionably over the moon Fane is about our pregnancy. "He's strutting around like a proud peacock." I answer with a soft laugh, putting in a forkful of my tuna salad into my mouth. As nice as my lunch is to my very human self, the only food that I truly do enjoy these days, are of the raw and bloodier variety. Fane has stocked the fridge with the freshest and bloodiest of meat. By the time I get home from work, I honestly can't wait to sink my teeth into the rawest of flesh; pigs livers and cows hearts being a particular favourite of mine. Before being pregnant, I couldn't even touch raw meat without shuddering; now, it makes me water at the mouth. Not that it bothers me. It's what our baby needs, and what our baby needs, our baby gets.

"When is your baby due? I need to have plenty of shopping time." She grins at me, waggling her feminine brows.

I pause before answering, needing to make sure that I'm telling the same rehearsed story that we told my mum yesterday. Although I'm only six weeks pregnant, we're telling everyone that I'm thirteen weeks. That way, everyone won't be overly shocked when our little one arrives in only four and a half months, they'll just think the baby has come a little earlier. Myself and Fane decided to sit on our news for a couple of weeks, we wanted to selfishly (and excitedly) keep it all to ourselves. We just needed time for it to sink in, wonderfully sink in. Feeling confident enough to answer, I'm soon replying to Lyla. "Our due date is the fourth of November."

She nods enthusiastically, happy with my response. "I have lots of time for some very impressive baby shopping, then." She then smirks, popping a black olive into her mischievous mouth. "Well your news has certainly put my news in the shade." She suddenly blurts out with a naughty glint in her eye.

Leaning forward slightly, I'm eager to know more. I know that look very well indeed. "Dish the dirt, you know you're dying to." I tell her, raptly amused.

Lyla's excitable body sits tall, her eyes eagerly round with very few blinks. "Last night, I slept with Dom."

My smiling eyes widen. "Dom...your new and shaggable flat mate?" I ask with an enquiring lilt.

Lyla sits taller, nodding with a crisp and satisfied nod. "The very same." She brags with a high chin. "Seriously hun...the sex was off the charts!" Her eyes roll to the back of her head, almost getting high from just the thought alone.