Page 8 of No Safe Place

Wednesday | Afternoon

Lily

Lily had been awake for hours, curled in a ball next to the gently snoring form of her boyfriend.

Scott woke up slowly, arching his back and blinking himself into consciousness.

‘Morning,’ Scott said, his voice husky. He still had his eyes closed.

She shuffled closer to him. ‘Afternoon.’

He let out a low groan but smiled. ‘What time is it?’

‘Almost two o’clock,’ Lily answered, pushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. ‘You got home so late last night, I thought you needed the rest.’

Scott stretched, reaching for the ceiling, and then draped a heavy arm over her.

‘What’re you going to do today?’ he asked, eyes still closed.

‘I should probably write some lesson plans.’

He grunted. Opened one eye and tried to look down her shirt. ‘I’m not at work until eight tonight. We could get a late lunch?’

‘Tempting.’ Lily reached up to play with a lock of his hair, twisting it round her index finger. ‘But I don’t think I can face food.’

He frowned. ‘You still feeling beneath the weather?’

‘First of all,’ Lily sighed. ‘It’s under the weather, not beneath the weather. Don’t they teach you that at medical school?’

Scott rolled his eyes.

‘But yes.’ She put a hand to her stomach, which was churning. She’d felt a bit hot and sick-y in the mornings for a few days.

Scott lay back down, his hands behind his head, and inspected her cracked ceiling.

‘What?’ Lily sat up. ‘Why do you look all pensive?’

‘You don’t think—’

There was a loud creak from the hallway, footsteps, and then another door closed with a quiet click. Cal was up.

Neither of them spoke, not wanting Callum to overhear. Lily waited for the familiar gurgle of the taps running, then prompted Scott to continue.

‘It’s just, you know. You.’ He didn’t look at her. ‘Feeling sick in the mornings.’

Lily’s stomach lurched at the idea of it.

She’d already panicked and done two, mercifully negative, pregnancy tests. Thirty-one wasn’t particularly young to have kids, but she was far from ready.

She took Scott’s hands and pulled him into a sitting position. ‘Between the pill and our good friend, latex, I think we’re pretty safe.’

Scott still looked worried, and Lily threw her arms around him.

‘Besides, who’d want to have your baby?’ She laughed into his neck. ‘You fucking stink.’

He growled into her shoulder and pushed her flat onto the bed, a hand already inside her pyjama top. He nudged her legs apart with one knee, but her stomach clenched, and she gave him a pat on the shoulder.

He stopped at once and sat back.

‘Sorry.’ Lily smiled.

Scott’s hand moved from her chest to her stomach, letting it rest there for a split second, and then he kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘Got it,’ he said, softly. ‘None of that until you’re feeling the full ticket.’

She felt a twinge of guilt, and relief, and blew her hair out of her face.

Scott climbed off the bed, picked a T-shirt up from a pile on the floor and dragged it on. ‘Have you thought about a date? For the move?’

Heat rose in her cheeks. She had been putting off anything to do with moving in together. ‘There’s still three weeks of the holidays left. Loads of time.’

‘I have no idea where all your stuff is going to go.’ Scott turned, taking in the room. ‘You’re not going to be able to bring all this with you.’

She had boxes of old clothes under the bed, wicker baskets full of winter scarves on top of her wardrobe – shelves and windowsills crammed with photo frames and knick-knacks. Small, precious items from places she’d been, the people she’d loved.

Scott’s flat was a minimalist one-bed. The only books he bought were coffee-table books and big hardbacks, chosen because the spines looked aesthetic, lined up on the sideboard.

Her eyes went to the sprawling devil’s ivy, hanging in a macramé sling. A gift from Callum, years ago, that had slowly taken over one sunny corner of the room.

Scott moved the bric-a-brac on her shelves aside and pulled out a big book of brutalist architecture, picked up on the Southbank years ago.

‘I could always just take the essentials to yours.’ Lily flopped back onto the bed. ‘Cal won’t mind me storing some stuff here.’

‘Or maybe you should be ruthless, babe. Although we both know how hard you find it—’ He flipped through the pages, and then paused, peering closely at a photograph of the Barbican centre. ‘Letting go of things.’