Page 97 of Lilly
“You’d better be right. And I love you, too,” he says before lowering his lips tomine.
“Are we going or what?” Dec shouts from thecar.
“Yes, let’sgo.”
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,Lills.”
“Oh, why’s that? Because you don’t like Nic, or because you may have to deliver two babies at any moment?” I ask with alaugh.
“All of theabove.”
“But you love me, so you’re going to suck it up and get on with it, even if you have to play midwife on the hard shoulder of the motorway.” He glances over at me in the passenger seat and doesn’t look amused by my comment. “It’ll be fine,” I say again, just like I did to Lucas an hour or soago.
“Oh my God, you made it,” Nic shouts over when she spots me waddling towards her after Dec drops me off right outside the crematorium where the funeral is beingheld.
“I told you I would. Come here,” I say, trying to give her ahug.
“Lilly, you are fucking massive,” she says, putting her hands on my colossalbelly.
“I know. I feelridiculous.”
“Oh, I didn’t know Dec was bringing you,” Nic comments when he appears from the carpark.
“Didn’t I mention it?” I ask innocently, because I know full well I didn’t tellher.
“No, youdidn’t.”
“Whoops.”
“Nicole, I’m sorry for your loss,” Dec says politely as he steps up tous.
“Thank you,” she mutters, before excusingherself.
I glance over atDec.
“What? I was perfectly polite. What did you want me to do? Pull her in for a hug?” He has a point, but I don’t really know what I expected. They haven’t seen each other for years; they aren’t suddenly going to start getting alongnow.
The service is short and sweet, with only a handful of people in attendance, making me glad I made the effort. When Nic and her mum moved up here, Natalie was either looking after her parents or working, so she never really made many friends before she gotill.
Nicole ushers me to a chair right next to the buffet table when we get to the pub the wake is being held in, and I couldn’t be more grateful because I’m starving, asusual.
We’re probably there for an hour before ithappens.
“Ohshit.”
“What?” Dec asks in a slight panic because of mylanguage.
“I think…um…I think my waters have justbroken.”
“Please tell me you’re fucking joking,Lilly.”
I stand up to head to the toilet to check it out, but the second my arse leaves the chair I feel fluid run down mylegs.
“Uh…nope, pretty sure it’s really happened.” I’d been having weird twinges for a few hours, but I put it down to the long car journey to get up here. Apparently, I should have taken them moreseriously.
“Fuck. What do we do?” Dec asks, totally flustered. It’s quite amusing for me because he hardly ever gets workedup.
“Firstly, calm down.” I’m not entirely sure why I’m so calm about all of this. Some kind of natural instinct, I guess. “There’s a blue and white striped bag in the boot of the car. Please go and get it forme.”
