Chapter 16.

That kiss was going to keep Anna on a high for a long time.

Jess had left an hour ago and Anna couldn’t help smiling and dabbing her fingertips on her lips. The touch of Jess tingled there.

What a difference two nights had made. Anna stood in the middle of her flat, bathed and euphoric in morning sunshine. She could still imagine Jess's hand on her belly. She’d woken in the night, Jess spooned and wrapped around her, fingers on Anna’s bare stomach where her T-shirt had ridden high. Anna had jolted awake at the realisation, so unused to contact on her naked skin, and she’d lain there frozen. Jess hadn’t stirred. The cosy sensation of her, rising and falling with slow sleepy breaths, had calmed Anna with its soothing motion.

Anna had let her spine, taut like a metal wire, relax and allowed her body to sink back into Jess's embrace. Her tense shoulders eased down and she lay there feeling nothing but Jess's soft fingers resting on her belly. They gently stroked as Anna inhaled, then slipped lower when Anna’s breath hitched, and lower again at that movement, and all kinds of sensations celebrated lower still at the seductive touch.

Anna gulped at her body’s reaction. It had been a long time. It was frightening how rapidly she reacted to the barest contact with this woman. In the park, her inadvertent caress of Jess's back had sparked a torrent of feelings and Anna’s outburst. She’d blushed again in bed, then clutched Jess's hand at the embarrassment, subconsciously wanting her reassurance again that she hadn’t stepped too far.

Jess had stirred at the motion, snuffling a little as she wriggled in her sleep. She woke enough to perhaps realise where her hand lay and Anna stiffened at the realisation. Jess lifted her hand away and Anna’s heart sank. But Jess had reached up for Anna’s T-shirt, pulled it down to cover her stomach, before drifting back to sleep. Anna squeezed Jess's hand, warmed through this time at the young woman’s consideration. A person, at last, she could trust with closeness, and Anna lay awake, her body humming with the contentment.

If only she could trust herself though. She hadn’t meant to kiss Jess when she’d left. Not like that. Not at all.

She’d asked only to hold her face for a second, to commit the full sense of the beautiful woman to memory. Then, seduced, Anna meant only to place her lips on hers. But Anna had flooded with desire and when Jess had pulled her close, their legs entwined and bodies joined, that had been all kinds of wonderful. A wave of heat rose again through Anna at the memory, all the way to her cheeks and she took a deep breath and exhaled noisily, then fanned her face when that wasn’t nearly enough.

She smiled again. The world was a better place this morning, a bigger place. Her body was alive. Jess had found her hiding in this sheltered existence and burst it wide open.

Jess was only a message away. Anna patted for her phone but she mustn’t message though. That’s not how they left it. If there was time before Jess departed for good then she would call and Anna should leave it at that. She clutched her phone between her hands and it was comforting to know Jess was in there.

A harsh buzzer interrupted her reverie and Anna pressed the button on the intercom. “Hello?”

“Thank christ you’re in.”

Anna grinned. That would be Penny.

“Please. I’m begging you. Could you take Bibs? Just for an hour. Say yes.”

“Of course. Door’s– ”

“Great.” And the small woman topped with a frizz of long copper curls had already disappeared from the intercom screen.

Anna heard stomping up the stairs and opened the flat door to the whirlwind that was Penny MacFarlane, her very best friend. The woman barely cleared Anna’s shoulder in height, but there was much personality packed into that petite, round figure.

“I have got,” Penny dumped a small child into Anna’s arms, “the shittiest hangover ever.”

“Pen!”

Anna cuddled Bibs to her chest and gave the blonde bundle a smile. Smiles were impossible to deny with a squashy two-year-old in her arms, especially one who reached up and put her tiny hands on her cheeks and tried to say her name as something between “Anna” and “banana”.

“She’ll pick up swear words now,” Anna said in a harsh whisper to Pen.

“Really couldn’t give a flying monkey’s arse at the moment. Oh, Jesus Christ. This headache.” Pen put her hand to her head and the tight expression on her face gave the vivid impression of a splitting headache. “Lana’s gone to the shitting office already, so she’s no help.”

Anna was going to question it, being a Sunday, but this was Lana they were talking about.

“She has no idea,” Penny rattled on, “how appallingly wretched it is to look after children with a hangover.”

“You let Bibs drink? To excess?”

“What? No, of course… Oh…Please. This is not the time. Really, you haven’t experienced the truly hellish depths of a hangover if you haven’t done it while entertaining a two-year-old.”

“She’s so insensitive.” Anna had trouble not laughing. “Works round the clock to keep you in the manner to which you neither deserve nor appreciate, and refuses to do childcare at the same time.”

“I know she does all that bringing-in-the-money business. But does she get up in the middle of the night to clean up vomit and escapee turds? Hmm? Feed Bibs when she’s on a growth spurt? Read her Fluffkins the fucking Rabbit for the ten thousandth time at two o’clock in the morning?”

Actually Pen looked as if she was about to cry.

“I. Just. Need. Some. Sleep,” Pen said, throwing her hands towards the heavens.

“I know,” Anna relented. “Come here,” she said and she leaned forwards, Bibs in one arm and the other wrapped around Penny to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Can I crash?”

“Go for it,” Anna said.

“Thank Christ for everything that is good and holy.” And Penny stomped towards the bed, fell face first and rolled over with the duvet wrapped around her.

“She’s eaten by the way,” came a muffled voice from the cocoon. “Breakfast. Second breakfast. And a snack. And she’s pooed…”

And it was like Penny was asleep and snoring in the same breath.

Anna sighed and turned to Bibs. “Mummy’s tired,” she said gently.

“Kwee have story?” Bibs said.

“You betcha.”

Anna settled into the corner of the sofa with Bibs on her knee, snuggled into the crook of Anna’s arm.

“Which shall we have first?”

“Animals,” Bibs said, clapping her chubby hands together.

“Can you get it from the shelf for me?”

Bibs shuffled off her knee, waddled over to the shelves that divided the kitchen space from the lounge and returned with a large picture book. She hopped onto Anna’s knee and opened it at the first page of bright colourful snakes. The book was well worn and Anna read to a captivated Bibs, who sometimes pointed to the page and pretended to read too.

They followed up with a stack of Winnie the Witch books.

“What can you see in the picture? Tell me about your favourite bits.” Anna smiled.

“Wormy.” Bib giggled. “Wormy’s eating Winnie’s food.”

And Bibs pointed to the detailed and distinctive illustrations and Anna loved the emerging person that was Bibs talking to her. Anna knew the books by heart, given her aptitude for memorising presentations and lines, but being snuggled up with this squidgy toddler was a highlight of many days.

Bibs shuffled on Anna’s lap and rested her head on her shoulder. After the tenth book, Anna felt her slump and become still, all cosy in her arms. Anna remained quiet, taking in the gentle rise and fall of the toddler’s ribs, listened to the slight whistle from her tiny nose and watched her eyes roll back and lids finally remain shut. Anna picked her up and walked carefully, agonisingly carefully so the toddler didn’t wake, towards the bed.

Penny suddenly sat up and stared at them.

“Ssssh”, Anna said.

“I need a wee!” Penny said with a frantic hiss. “I’m going to wet myself!”

She fled off the bed while Anna lay Bibs down, replacing one slumbering MacFarlane with another, and covered Bibs up to her shoulders with the duvet.

Anna rolled her eyes at the sound of Penny on the loo.

“Sorry! Didn’t have time to close the door,” came a loud whisper.

Anna didn’t know why she bothered apologising. She’d experienced far more personal moments with Pen, none of them romantic.

“Oooooooohhhh,” Penny sighed as she shuffled back into the room, adjusting her snug top and pulling her tight skirt around her bum.

They both leant over the sleeping child and Penny sighed.

“Oh my wee girl.” The adoration was obvious in Penny’s voice. “I love you, sweet thing,” Penny said to the oblivious Bibs. “But I had no idea I was going to kiss goodbye to bladder control when you erupted from my womb.” And she tugged the duvet up to her daughter’s pudgy chin.