Pregnant With Her Best Friend's Baby. Alison Roberts

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       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘WOW...CHECK YOU OUT, Maggie. You’re wearing a dress...’

      ‘Hi, Jack... Yeah, I know... I’m just trying to decide if I want to keep it.’

      Maggie had spent half her afternoon off today shopping for something suitable to wear to a wedding but it felt very odd having all this loose fabric brushing against her lower legs. Just how long had it been since she’d tapped into her feminine side and worn a dress instead of her uniform or jeans or the leather pants she wore for protection when she rode her beloved Harley-Davidson sportster motorbike with its sky-blue fuel tank and mudguards?

      She turned back to where their other flatmate, Laura, was sitting on the couch, Harrison snuggled up beside her. They were both staring at her thoughtfully so she did a bit of a twirl, one way and then the other. That was enough to make her wonder how long it had been since she’d been anywhere near a dance floor. At least a year, she decided. About when her last relationship had faded into oblivion after a few months had made it obvious it should never have got going in the first place. That ‘love at first sight’ wasn’t to be trusted. Maggie stifled a sigh.

      ‘So...what do you think?’

      ‘It’s perfect,’ Laura pronounced. ‘That blue is exactly the same colour as your eyes and I love the little daisy print. Very summery.’ She ruffled her son’s hair. ‘What do you think, Harry? Doesn’t Maggie look pretty? Isn’t it fun that we’re all going to get dressed up for the wedding tomorrow?’

      Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t want to get dressed up.’

      ‘You don’t have to get really dressed up. It’s not a fancy wedding where you might have to wear a suit, but you have got an important job to do. You get to carry the rings.’

      ‘I’d get dressed up,’ Jack told him, ‘if I could go. I’d wear my very best jeans and a shirt.’

      ‘A T-shirt?’

      ‘No, a real shirt. With buttons. Maybe even a tie.’

      ‘Why can’t you go?’

      ‘I wish I could but I have to work, buddy. Someone has to be ready to go up in a helicopter or off on a bike and look after the people who get sick or injured.’

      And Jack probably hadn’t even tried to juggle his roster to take time off. He’d only recently succeeded in winning one of the hotly contested paramedic jobs on the rescue base and his excitement was still palpable.

      ‘Who were you crewed with today?’ Laura asked. ‘I didn’t see anyone from Aratika come into Emergency during my shift.’

      ‘It was a really quiet day. Joe and I got a bit bored, to be honest. And we ate far too many of Shirley’s cookies. I’m meeting him at the gym as soon as I’ve collected my gear to try and burn some that sugar load off.’

      ‘How come Joe was working?’ Maggie asked. ‘He’s on the same roster as me.’

      ‘He was covering for Adam, who called in sick. Food poisoning or some kind of gastro bug. I hope he’s back on deck tomorrow. Joe said he could come in again but he wouldn’t want to miss the wedding.’

      ‘No...’ But Maggie could hear the doubtful note in her own voice.

      Maybe Joe had a reason that meant he wouldn’t be too upset to miss the wedding. Or rather, to miss having to spend any time with Maggie.

      She hadn’t seen him since the last shift they had worked together. Since that awful moment when she’d made the cringeworthy mistake of telling him that she wanted him to father a baby for her.

      ‘I reckon if Cooper had decided to have a best man, it would have been Joe,’ Jack added.

      ‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. ‘And then Maggie would have been a bridesmaid for Fizz.’

      Thank goodness their friends weren’t going down such a traditional format for their wedding. How awkward could that have been, with everyone they worked with watching them? Someone would have picked up on the odd vibe between the best man and the bridesmaid and maybe asked what the problem was, which would have only ramped up this odd tension.

      There hadn’t been any chance to try and convince Joe that the notion of him being a sperm donor had only been a joke because the night shift crew had been outside chatting to their pilot as Maggie had followed behind Joe, who had got into his car and simply driven past, with a casual wave. Maggie had texted him later with what seemed a slightly awkward attempt to tell him he had nothing to worry about but the response had been a terse ‘Forget about it, I already have’, which didn’t quite ring true.

      It was probably unfortunate that their days off had meant they hadn’t had to work together the following day. It would have been so much easier to brush off and genuinely forget about it if they hadn’t both had a couple of days to think about it.

      Because Maggie was quite sure that Joe would have been thinking about it, even if it wasn’t filling his mind to quite the same extent as it was hers. Who wouldn’t have to give it some thought, when confronted by something you would never have expected your friend to come out with? Something that had clearly shocked him. She couldn’t text him again, either, because that would be making it into a bigger thing than it actually was. All they needed was to be in the same space, an opportunity to make a joke about it and then they could go back to the way things had always been—a friendship that made it possible to work and socialise together and to always feel perfectly safe.

      ‘Anyway...’ Maggie pasted a bright smile on her face. ‘Even though I’m not a bridesmaid, I think I will wear a dress. This dress.’

      ‘Good choice.’ Laura encouraged Harrison to slide off the couch but kept hold of his hand as she got up. ‘Want to help Mummy decide what she’s going to wear?’

      ‘I’m tired...’ Harrison was climbing back onto the couch. ‘Can I watch TV?’

      ‘I’ll help Mummy choose,’ Maggie offered. ‘Let’s both go girly with pretty dresses. How often do we get the chance to do that?’

      ‘Almost never,’ Laura said. She was smiling now, СКАЧАТЬ