Thank you so, so much for the lovely reviews! I am sorry for how long this chapter has taken. It has been half written for what feels like months, but I've only just gotten the chance to complete it. Do let me know what you think! (And I know this may seem like it's taking ages to get going, but it's a slow burner... so be warned!)
Slowly, Now
The bistro is usually busy – but, for once, Carla is glad that it isn't. The quiet gives her the headspace she needs to declutter her brain of all things Hayley and concentrate on what Hanlon is really interested in: women's underwear.
"Are you not having any wine?"
She looks up from her paperwork to be met with a questioning look from Nick. He is standing next to her table, gesturing towards the glass of lemonade she had earlier ordered with a grimace and a longing for something much, much stronger.
God knows how she'll be able to get through this meeting without that strength.
"I can't," she replies. "I'm still breastfeeding and it's killing me."
His eyes widen and Carla realises a moment too late that perhaps she has shared just a little bit much too information. She laughs to herself, wondering where her sudden forwardness has come from. Nick smiles indulgently at her.
"The price of motherhood, eh?"
"I suppose so." Carla shrugs. "It is worth it, though. If I'm being honest, I think that becoming a mother is the best thing that could've happened to me. You know, after everything."
Nick nods. There is something different about Carla that he can't quite put his finger on. Her smiles are wider and she wears them more often. She holds her head up high when out in the street, daring anyone and everyone to say something. Just one word. She knows they're dying to. People are gasping to tell her of their surprise, their disbelief in many cases, that she is a mother and a pretty damn good one at that. Despite all of the doubts and the setbacks and the sleepless nights she spent worrying that she would never be good enough for her child, motherhood does suit Carla. It makes her eyes practically gleam with happiness whenever her daughter is near and it's a beautiful thing to witness.
It has forced many people, including Nick, to swallow their pride and admit to themselves they they were wrong. She can do this. She is doing it every day and she is doing it in the only way Carla Connor knows how to do anything; and that is brilliantly.
"I think so, too," Nick says.
Carla can't hide her surprise.
"Thanks," she replies. "I'm glad I'm not the only one."
Nick nods his head and leaves her to it.
Hanlon is late, of course.
Hanlon is never not late.
Carla silently fumes in her seat, glancing over at the door every thirty seconds, wishing that he'd just arrive and put her out of her misery. She is about to pack up her things and head for the exit when Nick makes his way over to her, his arms folded across his chest and a thoughtful look on his face.
"Have you been stood up?" There is a hint of mirth in his voice.
"No, of course not!" Carla exclaims. She then lets out a big sigh. "Oh, I don't know! I don't ever know anything when it comes to this particular client."
"A bit of an handful, is he?"
Carla snorts.
"You don't know the half of it." But that isn't necessarily true. She pauses upon realising this, a smirk crossing her lips and a memory springing to mind that she doesn't think she'll ever forget for as long as she lives. "Actually, I think you might. Do you remember a Mr. Hanlon? Guy in a wheelchair, receding hairline? He's got a wife he hates. One of them faces you just want to slap."
Nick does remember, he must remember, for he has suddenly gone rather quiet. He is trying not to give himself away.
"Um..."
Carla begins to laugh.
"Yeah, you do! And I bet you also remember that meeting, don't you? That meeting when you peeved him off so much, you lost us the order, and he ran over your foot on the way out."
She is grinning, attempting to hold back her laughter before it becomes hysterical. Nick blushes. He rolls his eyes and finally admits that, "Alright, yes! Okay! Of course I remember. How could I forget? It really hurt, you know!"
Carla covers her face with her hands in an attempt to calm herself down.
"God, you were so useless," she says, but not unkindly. It's strange to think of that time now. So much has happened since they were unlikely and reluctant partners in a business only one of them really had the ability to make succeed. (And did.) It almost feels like that partnership existed in a different life, for they were, essentially, different people back then. "I used to hate you, you know."
She says this softly. She says this with honesty.
Nick smiles despite himself.
"I know," he says, looking rather amused. "I used to hate you, too."
Carla waits for Hanlon to arrive, but he doesn't – proving her wrong for the first time in their seven year acquaintance. Despite losing the order before it has even been drawn up, she is glad. It gives her the night off to spend how she pleases. No business, no Hayley; just herself, a nice bottle of non-alcoholic wine, and any DVD she so chooses to watch.
After paying the bill and making it half way home, she is surprised to find that Nick is walking in the same direction as her, albeit on the other side of the road.
"Hey!" she calls over to him. "Where are you going? It was heaving in there when I left."
She points back at the bistro. Nick smiles at her in rather a smug manner.
"I know!" he calls back. "That's why I've left Leanne to it! It's my night off."
Carla nods.
"Nice," she says. "You heading home, then?"
"Yeah!"
Nick crosses the road to walk with her, the constant shouting over the traffic beginning to turn the heads of passersby.
"Are you not going to pick Hayley up?"
They have walked past number one.
"No." Carla shakes her head. "Ken offered to have her for the night and I couldn't refuse."
Nick snorts. Couldn't and didn't want to are two completely different concepts.
"What?" Carla rolls her eyes. "I couldn't!"
Nick doesn't look too sure about this.
"Whatever you say," he sings.
They smile at each other, a little unsure as to why they are conversing in the first place, and carry on walking. They soon reach the flats; and once indoors, their talking stalls and they begin to feel very awkward in one another's company. It seems they hadn't thought this far ahead and it is obvious.
They pass Nick's flat first.
His eyes flicker between Carla and the door. His hands are in his pockets, fishing around for the key to his flat in a manner as discrete as he can manage. He doesn't know what to say, so it is a good job that Carla does.
"Enjoy your night off."
Nick nods.
"You too," he replies.
It takes her a moment to realise what he is talking about, but the lack of baby spit on her shoulder should have been a dead giveaway. She decides to blame her obliviousness on the sleep she has yet to catch up on.
"Yes." Carla smiles at him. "Yes, I will. Thank you."
Carla spends most of the next morning in bed, a luxury she had almost forgotten existed. She isn't hungover, of course; but the jetleg doesn't seem to have left her quite yet. Her first thought is of Hayley. She finds herself wondering whether she is still jetlagged, too, before rolling her eyes at the thought, for babies can't be such things – at least, not in the same way that adults can.
She dresses slowly, taking her time in choosing what to wear. It's a Sunday and it feels like one; lazy, inconsequential. Carla almost trips on one of Hayley's toys on her way to the kitchen and it is this stumble that makes her abandon the idea of producing her own breakfast, instead opting to have Roy make it for her once she has collected Hayley from Ken's.
Carla has missed her friends. She doesn't have many of them, but the ones that she has found in Roy and Michelle are for life. This, she knows. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, she texts Michelle to see if she can meet her in the cafe for a catchup. She can, it seems. Carla smiles and reaches for her makeup bag.
"How was she, Ken?"
Hayley is awake in her arms, kicking her legs increasingly – almost as if in protest – as Carla walks her closer to the door.
"She was an angel," Ken says. As if she could be anything but.
Carla smiles her appreciation and bids Ken goodbye. She then steps out onto the street, where she almost steps into the very man she had managed to avoid only minutes earlier. They had left their respective flats at pretty much the same time, and Carla had not been in the mood for sharing small talk so soon after the night before. They had ran out of things to say so quickly. The awkwardness had been painful.
"Hello!"
"Hell—Oh."
Nick's greeting had actually been for Hayley, not Carla. Why this bothers her she cannot say.
"Are you stalking me?" The question automatically falls from her lips and Nick grins at it, his eyes moving from Hayley to Carla so quickly that it almost takes Carla aback. Almost.
"Don't flatter yourself," he says, but she can tell her even suggesting the idea has done more than flatter him. "We live in the same building. We work on the same street."
Carla rolls her eyes and bounces Hayley on her hip.
"Funny that. I'd never realised."
And perhaps there is some truth in that.
Perhaps there is more truth in it than Carla would ever care to admit.
"You off home, then?"
She shakes her head at his quiet question.
"No. We're off to Roy's," she says. Hayley lifts her head from her mother's shoulder to stare at Nick, though he doesn't seem too put off by this. He simply smiles at her, brightly.
Nick then nods.
"Well, enjoy."
There is nothing else to say and the conversation could have reached a natural end – but Carla, despite not wanting to, prolongs it; prolongs the agony.
"You're not heading into work at this time on a Sunday, are you?" she asks, to which Nick laughs just a bit too enthusiastically for her liking.
"No, no. Of course not. I'm off to my mum's." She should've known. The corners of her lips pull into a smirk that he pretends not to notice. "It's Sunday. 'Family day'."
Her eyes widen and she laughs uneasily. He uses air quotes and everything.
"Oh, I see." She nods her head. "You know, I do love a good Sunday roast."
"Me too." Carla can practically feel the awkwardness creeping back up on them, breathing down her neck in a way that is less than comfortable; so she is thankful that Nick has the sense to end the conversation she should've ended herself when she was given the opportunity to. "Well, I'll see you later, then."
"Are you working tonight?"
The words leave her mouth before she is able to stop them.
This makes Nick, who had already began to walk in the opposite direction to Carla, to spin around on his heel to face her again.
"Sorry?"
Carla can feel her face burning. "Tonight. Are you working?"
"Yes, I am." Nick smiles sheepishly. He looks amused, something which Carla does not appreciate when she is feeling this embarrassed. "Why do you ask?"
Ugh. She doesn't even know.
"No reason," Carla says. So why can she think of plenty?
Oh, and your eyes are not deceiving you! I have changed the title of this. It was "Baby Brain"; it is now "Slowly, Now". Yeah, I'm sorry. I do this a lot.