It all started with Freshers.....

Part nine - Spoons

I struggled most with my body changing. When my friends came home from uni for Christmas my bump was obvious. Not I overly but it was there. We all met up at Spoons for dinner and drinks.

Laura looked at my bump distastefully. I sat beside Stephen and pretended to ignore her judging glances aimed at my stomach. Stephen held my hand beneath the table and that's when Rachel started chatting randomly.

"Oh I love yous two together. Yous are so cute!" She babbled cheerily seemingly oblivious to Laura's dirty looks.

I chuckled and Stephen laughed. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and hooked me under his arm. I rested my head on his collarbone, letting myself sink into his warm embrace. I liked having this with him. This intimacy.

"See, fucks sake. Why can't I have that?" Rachel swore before taking a sip of her cocktail. The godfather. A cocktail with whiskey in it and only Rachel could drink it out of our group. Laura was still staunchly refusing to drink. She was never going to be a drinker. I doubted she would ever drink at this point.

"You'll find it Rach, don't worry," I murmured. Rachel sometimes got a bit emotional when she drank. Sometimes if she was feeling a little down she got very thoughtful and pensive when she drank. It could get a little scary and deep sometimes. I could usually turn her by saying the right things but sometimes she just pulled herself out of it.

Amelia interrupted. She was a happy being most of the time. I did like Amelia. She had beautiful blonde hair and it was wavy. Her boyfriend Markus was sat beside her. He was enthralled by her. Totally in love. She could do no wrong. She'd even moved away to Durham for uni and he'd simply made his peace with it deciding he would rather be in a heavily committed long distance relationship with her than be without her.

"So did I tell yous about my placement?" Amelia grinned. She'd sensed the awkward angle and had decided to try to turn it around.

"No go on though," I said with a smile.

Amelia launched into a cheerful conversation about her placement. She was training to be a nurse and part of that was a thirty seven and a half hour work week alongside her studying. She found it full on but she loved it.

Our food arrived piping hot and everyone settled to their dinner. When we were finished we were joined by a couple of people we'd went to school with but who we hadn't been all that friendly with. We'd chatted with them in classes and stuff but they weren't our best friends, if that makes sense?

Clary swung her bleached caramel blonde hair over her shoulder as she sat beside me. We'd had a running joke whilst we'd been in school that I was her mummy. I apparently looked after her but I did very little for her as far as I knew.

"Oh Ciara, long time no see. Nothing strange?" Clary asked with a grin. Her lips were a bright red and her makeup immaculate. The drink was cheap in Spoons so loads of people stopped in on their way by to Kelly's and the like.

"Not much, yourself?"

She pursed her lips as she thought. She was quite dramatic in her own way. Loveable but dramatic. "Not much. You haven't been up to see my house yet, will you pop up after Christmas please!" She begged like a child.

"I could probably make my way up on a Friday if you weren't going home?" I replied carefully. My intentions of heading back up to Belfast were small. I knew Clary meant well and she wanted me to feel a part of student life.

"You aren't telling Clary everything," Laura said with a smug smile.

Clary flicked her dark brown eyes towards Laura then looked into my blue ones. We were perfect opposites.

"What does she mean Ciara? Is everything okay?" Clary asked. "You can tell me anything."

I smiled and chuckled. I could talk to Clary but she wasn't the type of person you could tell everything to. She was a chatter. A gossip. If she knew something half the country knew it too. It was the way she was.

I shifted like I did with nerves every time I was about to tell someone I was pregnant. The table covered my bump mostly and I had on a wide chiffon top which concealed my bump. I just didn't like people judging me for being pregnant so I covered it up when I was out.

Clary's gaze grew more intense as she waited. Her eyes growing wide with worry as they always had. She reached out for my hand as I'd done many times over the years for her. Especially in our final year.

"Clary, I'm pregnant," I told her gently. I squeezed her hand and sat back. "I'm fourteen weeks gone. Stephen's the Daddy and I'm due June thirteenth."

Clary blinked in stunned shock for a long minute. Her eyes darkened with worry then I watched as she smiled involuntarily then she giggled nervously. "You know something, I always thought I'd be the one telling you I was pregnant. God Ciara, congratulations. You're completely cut out to be a Mammy. You just fit the mould. You always were the mammy of our RE class and a lot of us would have been lost without you. Do you know what you always were my second Mammy and I love you for it!"

She flung her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I felt two tears running down my cheeks as I absorbed her kind words. She was sweet it had to be said.

"Awk Bubs, I did nothing more than what anyone else would do for you. I love you too."

"Will you still come see our house?" She asked. "Wouldn't be right for my second Mammy not to see it."

"Course, I'll be up after Christmas, I promise."

Clary grinned happily. She looked pleased I had promised to come see her. She chatted a bit more about her boyfriend. He sounded lovely. A guy called Aaron. She was crazy about him. I liked seeing her so excited about a boy.

When we went back to Stephen's he seemed restless. I got into his bed and he got in beside me. As he lay down he seemed irritated.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Ciara, promise me something?" Stephen asked.

"Yeh of course," I replied.

"I know you and Laura are close but would you be careful around her. I get a bad vibe from her."

"Yeh, she's a bit funny sometimes."

"It was the forcing you to tell Clary you were pregnant. The little jibes about no sex before marriage. The jibes about drinking. All that shit."

"She's always been like that and you know it." I was trying to cool him down a little.

For a second he didn't speak and instead let himself think. "No, I just don't trust her at the minute."

I nodded.

He leant in and kissed me lightly like he always did before bed. His hand rested on my bump. I kissed him back lightly. Our lips just touching but it made me feel warm inside. I cupped his cheek, just feeling the warmth of his skin and the slight roughness of his stubble on my palm. This just felt right.

His lips made their way down my neck and I sighed in contentment. His face buried itself into the crook of my neck as he laid me down on the bed. His weight rested on his elbows, no pressure applied to me or to the bubba. I ran my hand across his chest and he sighed slightly.

Soon we fell into our own little world.