Page 117 of Wedding Crasher

He reached out, and the baby’s miniature fists curled around one of Tom’s fingers and held on fast.

Emily couldn’t keep still after the nurses had finished their work. The birth had been quick and mercifully straightforward, and she still couldn’t quite believe that she’d actually brought their baby safely into the world. The midwives melted away and Tom gathered them both into his arms.

‘My family,’ he whispered.

Emily leaned on his chest as tears slid down her cheeks onto the towel wrapped around her new boy.

Tears of joy, and tears of love.

A little while later, Emily belted her dressing gown around her already-deflating waistline and shuffled out of the en-suite on her way back to the bed. She was relieved to have been to the loo and not lost her insides down the bowl, as she’d feared she might. Good old Mother Nature.

Tom had nipped outside to share their happy news with the others, and to grab the camera that had been on permanent standby in the glove-box of his car for at least a month. He’d forgotten all about it in his panic to get to Emily’s side.

She froze, statue-still, in the bathroom doorway. There was a man standing next to the baby’s crib, and it wasn’t Tom.

It was Dan.

‘Hello, baby,’ he whispered. Emily’s less than strong legs wobbled with fear when he stepped closer.

What was he going to do?

She’d have to intervene if he reached out to pick him up, she knew that much.

But he didn’t. He just shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and watched the tiny child swaddled in pale blue.

‘A boy, huh? Wow. Well, that’s good.’ Emily heard the catch in his voice. ‘That’s really good.’

Dan pressed his hand against the outside of the maternity cot.

‘Listen, bud. You be a good boy for your mum and dad, okay?’ he whispered. Emily stepped back and held her breath, suddenly feeling like an intruder.

These were Dan’s only few seconds with the son that, God willing, she’d have in her life forever. She watched silently as Dan looked at his child, then touched his fingers to his lips and placed them back on the glass.

‘Right then. I better go. You didn’t see me, right?’ Dan tapped the side of his nose and winked at his son.

Emily dipped back into the bathroom, and gripped the sink as the sound of his footsteps receded. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror gazed back at her, familiar yet somehow different. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but she wasn’t the same person as she’d been yesterday.

She was a mother.

‘Hey there, handsome.’

Jonny glanced up from his iPhone at the Love God who’d just joined him in the smoking shelter.

Tall.

Blond.

Muscles.

Come to Papa.

‘Not many people could pull those trousers off, but you totally do.’

They both looked down at Jonny’s purple satin trousers, and he wondered if it would be too forward to tell this Love God that he was more than welcome to pull the aforementioned trousers off any time he fancied. He decided that, on balance, it probably was, so he accepted the proffered cigarette instead. A pleasant electric shock rippled through his fingers when he cupped his hands around the flame of Love God’s lighter.

‘So. Do you come here often?’ Over the years, Jonny had come to realise that sometimes the old lines were the best.

Love God took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘I’m a nurse, so you could say that.’

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