Beating For Two

Chapter 36

Sunday, May 8th

Thirty-seven weeks and six days

It was with a yelp, a groan and a grumbling “stupid baby” that I stood up from my bed the next morning. The night had been spent in a state of complete restlessness, and even though I'd gotten an occasional hour of sleep, it had been just that: An hour of sleep, an hour of wakefulness, an hour of sleep, an hour of wakefulness, and so it'd went on the entire night. Needless to say I was in a rather foul mood when I took my shower that morning. Or maybe 'morning' was a bit of a wrong term to use seeing as it was already past noon. Harry had yet to wake up when I entered the kitchen to find myself something to eat for breakfast, but Connor, Adrian and Anne were there, sitting by the table with a basket of bagels and different kinds of toppings scattered around the surface.

Without offering a greeting like I normally did, I slumped down on a chair and rested my elbows on the table, sighing distressingly. I sat there like that for a bout, forcing my eyes to stay open and willing myself not to start crying in pure desperation. God knows I wanted to.

“Are you tired?” Connor's voice asked after a couple of minutes had passed in silence.

I lifted my eyes to look at him, and did my best to smile. To go off at a kid who was most likely in a slight bit of pain couldn't really be excused by telling him I'd had a bad night. “Yeah, a little,” I said.

“Why?” he questioned immediately, widening his his eyes innocently at me. “Is your back hurting too?”

It was pretty odd how close to home he struck with that comment, and my smile went even tenser – if that was possible. It probably looked more like a grimace at that point. “A little bit,” I replied vaguely before I hurriedly averted my gaze back down to the table. To sit there and lie a three year-old right in the face felt a little bit wrong.

In the crook of my eye, I saw Anne put the bagel she'd lifted halfway up to her mouth down onto her plate. Praying that she wasn't about to start asking a bunch of questions, I looked at her and offered a smile. “Everything's fine,” I said before she'd even gotten the time to ask anything. “He's just been kicking like crazy all night.”

The suspicion in her eyes didn't disappear completely, but it faded a little at least and a crooked smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Just take comfort in knowing that you only have a couple of more weeks left,” she said. “When I was pregnant with Harry, he was almost two weeks overdue and I was just about ready to yell at him to get out of there.”

I managed to force out a laugh – it even sounded legit – and picked absentmindedly at a loose fingernail. “Well, this one is getting out on May 24th,” I said, “so there's no being overdue with him. Thank God.”

She smiled again and took a bite of her bagel and it went quiet as she chewed and swallowed it. My appetite had quite suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared, and the food that was placed a mere half metre away from me looked more revolting than appealing. Eyeing it with distaste I promptly decided that to skip breakfast would be a clever idea seeing as I had no desire whatsoever to start up with the morning sickness again.

“What are your plans for the day?” Anne asked with a curious expression. “Harry said something about seeing some friends?”

I was about to reply when I heard someone step up behind me, and a moment later a pair of hands were placed on my shoulders. “We're going to see Liam, Zayn and Niall, mum,” said Harry's voice, “we're leaving at five thirty.”

I tilted my head to the side and looked up at him, giving a smile, a real one this time. He smiled back and offered a “good morning” before he leaned down and to my slight – or immense – surprise pressed his lips to my cheek for a quick second. I blinked quizzically up at him, but he just smiled again before he sat down on the chair next to me and reached out for a bagel. My cheeks had went a bit warm at the unexpected sign of affection and the somewhat startled look Anne was eyeing Harry with told me that she hadn't expected it any more than I had. He didn't seem to notice it, though, or maybe he chose to ignore it, and instead of giving an explanation he simply ate the bagel with a little smile playing in his eyes.