I thought I'd lost this! But I found it today on an old memory stick. So here you go....

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

Your sister who had two children of her own had told you today that pregnancy suited you. ‘I’m so jealous,’ she’d moaned, ‘why do you get to look adorable? At thirty two weeks I looked like a whale.’ You’d told her to shut up. She hadn’t looked like a whale, she’d looked beautiful and you didn’t feel adorable, you felt awkward and clumsy and huge.

You were so done with being pregnant. Getting out of bed, walking up the stairs, walking down the stairs, getting dressed, getting undressed, getting to sleep… everything was so much harder now.

“I hate you” you informed Mark from your seat on the couch. It had taken him all of ten seconds to tie his shoe laces. That morning it had taken you ten minutes to tie yours. It wasn’t fair. Especially since it was his fault that everything had become such a struggle for you. Or it was partially his fault at least. But even if it wasn’t entirely down to him you were still mad at him.   

“I love you too.” He said, unfazed. He knew you hadn’t slept well the night before. He also knew that spending the day shopping for baby things with your sister had your back aching and your feet hurting.The fact you weren’t in the best mood was understandable.

In fact that was why he was on his way out the door. He knew how crappy you felt and he wanted to cheer you up. He’d decided that buying you ice cream was the best way to do it. It wasn’t something you’d eaten a lot of before you were pregnant, you’d always preferred savoury foods over sweet but you couldn’t get enough of the stuff lately, something Mark had obviously noticed and he was putting that knowledge to good use.  

“Mango or cookies and cream?” he asked as he picked up his keys.

You didn’t answer right away, surprised by the question. When he’d first mentioned ice cream those had been the first two flavours you’d thought of. But how did he know that? Yesterday you’d worked your way through a whole tub of vanilla. A few days before it had been passion fruit. Your cravings weren’t exactly predictable.

“Are you a mind reader now?” you asked, eyeing him with suspicion. You hoped not. This morning when he’d emerged from the bathroom, towel around his waist and hair still damp from his shower your throat had gone dry. It wasn’t as if you’d never seen him half before, you had a baby on the way, there’d definitely been some ness involved in making that happen but for some reason you hadn’t been able to get the image out of your head. You’d gone on to spend far too much of your day imagining how your morning could have been spent if you hadn’t been in a hurry to leave the house. It was probably your hormones playing up but whatever the reason if he found out the direction your thoughts started taking whenever you thought he looked good it had the potential to become embarrassing.

“I wish. Then maybe I’d know when to stop talking.”  

You nodded, relieved that he hadn’t actually been reading your thoughts. And it was true, you had been a little sensitive lately, more prone to taking things the wrong way and there had been times where Mark could have helped himself by just shutting up. You always felt bad about snapping at him afterwards but it didn’t stop it from happening. Maybe you should apologise since he’d brought it up.

“I just figured that since you’ll be sitting here doing nothing while I’m out there in the cold I should at least get to come back with something I like.”

You threw a cushion at him all thoughts of apologising going out the window.

Sadly Mark managed to step out of the way before it hit him.

He was smiling now, clearly pleased with himself and you frowned. Obviously he’d been looking to get a reaction out of you. He