Page 64 of Everything After

“You do it,” I argued. “Granted you need to travel for interviews, but that’s not all the time, right? How often is he at home, Mya?”

“Three days at least each week,” she replied, throwing her husband under the bus.

“There you go, Jack. Lily and I will be sharing the childcare for our little one with a nanny, just like you and Mya do.”

“Yeah, but Mya is here all the time,” he protested again. “Maria is only here to give Mya a break.”

“Enough, Jack,” Lily snapped. “I’m having a baby and a career. You’re the last person I figured wouldn’t be supportive of us.”

“I am supportive, but can’t forget that he left you, Lily. Isn’t that enough to make me concerned about the future for you and the baby?”

“Right, I give you leeway with Lily because of your history, but you’ve gone too far now,” I warned. “What happened between us is none of your business. We’re good now, and we’re looking forward to managing our careers and our family together.”

“Lily?” Jack asked, turning to stare my wife down, like he didn’t believe me. “Are you sure you’ll be happy about this?”

“Jack!” Lily admonished, her eyes blazing with anger toward him.

“What the fuck?” I barked. “Back the fuck off,” I ordered.

“Alfie, language… the children,” Mya chided, hugging herself and looking uncomfortable with our exchange.

Lily placed a hand on Jack’s arm with a deep crease in her brow. “I know you want to look out for me, but Alfie is right. The reason he left was because neither of us spoke up aboutsomething that was upsetting us. Once we’d talked it through, we realized it was a miscommunication. And if my memory serves me correctly, it wasn’t that long ago that you advocated for Alfie to me in that matter.”

Jack put his hands up in surrender. “Look, I saw how you leaving tore her apart,” Jack argued. “A baby won’t solve any rift between you.”

“Nor would we expect it to,” I agreed. “We’re as much in love now as we’ve ever been. I had no idea Lily had felt the same as I had been feeling. I should have spoken up sooner and our situation wouldn’t have gotten that far.”

Lily frowned at Jack, then nodded. “I’ll admit, what Alfie did had blindsided me, but with hindsight, I’m glad that he left. It brought us both to our senses, showed us how much we mean to each other and not to take the other for granted. And as for parenting, Alfie’s right, plenty of other people in our industry have the same set up as us to be a family. So, we might appear like an unconventional team to take care of our baby, but we’ll manage this together.”

CHAPTER 38

LILY

The Saturday we flew back from London was the first day that I hadn’t been sick since I’d been pregnant. Once I’d had a good night’s sleep without the need to get out of bed to throw up, my world felt like a brighter place.

Alfie’s confidence in parenthood had begun to rub off on me and, although I wasn’t totally convinced that I could be everything our baby needed, knowing how excited he was, gave me hope.

The sun had barely rose in the sky when I woke and felt Alfie’s warm, protective hand splayed wide across my stomach. He was spooning me from behind, and from his slow, deep breaths fanning across my neck, I knew he wasn’t awake.

My heart felt full to the brim as I laid there still and completely contented, waiting for him to stir.

My mind wandered back to his reaction to me being pregnant, and how supportive he’d been from the moment he’d learned he was going to be a father. I’d been astonished by hismaturity and understanding when he’d taken my fears seriously about being a mum.

Alfie had been known to be frivolous with my feelings in the past, and I’d expected him to dismiss my extremely real concerns as irrational, hormonal paranoia or something. But instead, he’d shown genuine empathy and shown consideration of my feelings.

An incoming text message alert appeared to break through Alfie’s unconscious state because he stirred. As he did so, he gently rolled away onto his back and his hand slid off my stomach. Lifting my cell phone from the nightstand, I pulled the charging wire out and read the message.

Cody: Missed you. Can’t wait to see you at the studio today. It’s going to be a blast.

I turned my cell phone face down on the nightstand without replying and turned to face Alfie.

“Who is that?” he muttered with his eyes still closed and lips that barely moved.

“Cody,” I answered truthfully.

Alfie stiffened and grumbled, “Of course it is. That was a stupid question. I should have guessed.”

“Stop it. He just said see you at the studio.”