This is just a little, pointless thing...
Enough
She has already changed by the time he arrives home, pyjamas half buttoned and dinner half ready. It's been a long day for them both and she can see it in the way he moves slowly towards her, his coat already in his hands, eyes downcast and what she knows will be bad news on the tip of his tongue, waiting for the right moment to be shared, which he decides is right now.
"Sarah's pregnant." He just comes out with it and her mouth opens slowly in surprise.
"Blimey." Her eyebrow is raised and he must find this amusing, for he chuckles just a little.
"My thoughts exactly."
They are both leant against the kitchen counter, watching one another with equally as curious expressions. Carla reaches across the worktop to hold Nick's hand. He smiles at her and then sighs, obviously overtired.
"Did you get your laptop alright?" he asks.
She nods.
"Yeah. Though when I went in to get it, Johnny was still at the factory. I'm telling you, Nick; there's summat wrong with him. I just dunno what. I can't work it out. He was talking about when I was kid and what he did and didn't do for me. I don't get it."
He squeezes her fingers tightly, shrugging.
"What was it you said the other night?" And she is giggling before he can finish, allowing him to pull her closer, to place one hand on either side of her waist. She shakes her head at him, but he carries on regardless. She knows exactly what he is referring to. "Maybe he's just going through the manopause."
He tries to imitate her voice the best he can, failing spectacularly and earning himself a slap to the arm.
"Hilarious you, aren't you?" she says to which he nods, rather enthusiastically.
"You know it," he replies and he goes in to kiss her. And for a moment, it seems as if she is going to let him, but then her brain begins to work again and she pushes him away from her, grinning.
"I don't think so," she sings.
His pout is for show, but so, so kissable. Her eyes soon narrow and she is brushing past him to reach the fridge, pulling them out the bottle of wine Nick had brought home from the bistro earlier in the week.
Nick sighs loudly at her actions, running his fingers through his hair in light frustration.
"It's a cold, Carla." The remnants of which can still be heard in the hoarseness of his voice, the bluntness of his tone.
"Yes." She nods as if he thought she were simple, opening the bottle and navigating the kitchen in search of some clean glasses. "And it is also Christmas next week. And I'd rather not feel more like death than usual, sat opposite your mother at the dinner table, watching her carve us a dead bird, her paper hat all skeewiff as I cough all over her handiwork."
He laughs. Loudly. Isn't able to help himself.
Carla at Christmas, Carla at Christmas with his family, is still something he has yet to get his head around.
He reaches for her again, and she resists. His laughter does not subside. "One kiss," he promises.
But she just shakes her head. "No."
"We live together now." And they catch each other's eyes as he says this, their laughter breaking for smiles that are almost wondrous and still in disbelief at the fact that this has been made true. And so recently as well. "Come on, Carla! We've shared a bed the whole time I was ill. If you were gonna catch it, you'd have caught it by now."
She knows he is right (always right, infuriatingly right) and yet she still smirks, still pours them their drinks and ignores his pleas.
He dares to come up behind her, resting his head against hers in a way that forces her eyes to shut and she hums, though mostly because the way he has began to sway them, without her even being properly aware of where his hands have landed, makes her feel sleepy. Comfy.
"One kiss," he whispers in her ear and finally she snaps, her head tilting to press a firm lips to his cold cheek, her arched eyebrow screaming are you happy now? and of course he is, but of course she's not – for the second he pulls away from her, she sneezes.
Her sneezes barely subside for the rest of the evening.
