Joan looked amused at the child that he had stopped crying again while listening to her daughters music.
"Is he like that with any other song?" she wondered, watching the joy on her grandsons face.
"No, it's just this one. Cheryl sang it to him the night he was born and he's loved it ever since" she said, a smile coming to her face as she remembered watching the two of them in that moment nearly six months ago.
"It's your favourite of hers as well, isn't it?" asked Joan, Kimberley nodded happily in reply. "Do you miss the band?" she wondered. Kimberley nodded again but a little sadly.
"Yeah... yeah, I do" she replied. She really did miss it a lot. She had spent so many years seeing the band every day, then for them to suddenly not see each other for two years, only a few days here and there, made Kimberley feel a little bit lost.
"Cheryl misses it too" Joan said, thinking back to an earlier conversation with her daughter.
"I know" replied Kimberley. "For Chezza though I think it's just the fact that she's not seeing us all as often as she would like to" she explained.
"She had quite a hard time about Nadine not telling her she was engaged, didn't she?" Joan stated, taking Scott from Kimberley when she handed him to her. She straightened her back out and stretched a little.
"Yeah, it hurt her more than her not texting her when she found out she had malaria" she replied, her voice quieting down a little as she mentioned Cheryl's illness. "But in all fairness, no one told her about it, we were all too worried to even think about telling her" she replied, suddenly realising it was down to her and the other girls that Nadine never wished her well and possibly why she never told her about her engagement.
No one told her about Cheryl, so why should she have told them about her engagement? She thought Cheryl probably didn't feel so bad about that because she wasn't well enough to tell her herself and didn't blame Kimberley or anyone else for being too worried to tell her. Kimberley thought Cheryl would have expected Nadine to tell her at least about her engagement because it wasn't her fault she had to find out from fans about her illness.
Kimberley felt awful, and felt even worse that Cheryl never told her about what she thought about it. It all made sense to her now.
"Cheryl doesn't blame you, you know" Joan said after a while of silence. She saw Kimberley thinking after she'd spoken and had an idea of why she went quiet, as Cheryl had already told her about the situation.
"She told you?" Kimberley wondered, feeling her insides turning.
"Don't worry about it, pet" she said, placing her hand on Kimberley's leg for comfort. "Come on, lets get some lunch" she said while standing up, still holding Scott. She handed Kimberley's mobile back to her and they began walking to the cafe.
Kimberley had cheered up throughout the next hour but it was still on her mind on the way back home. She knocked on the door when they got home and waited for Cheryl to answer.
"Alright" said Cheryl, taking Scott from Kimberley's arms. "I heard you missed us today" she said to him, kissing the side of his head while he leant against her chest and shoulder.
The other two stepped into the house and Kimberley took her shoes and scarf off, she looked up when she heard Joan giggle.
"Now I see why you wanted to wear that" she laughed. Kimberley covered the mark with her hand with an amused and embarrassed laugh.
"I totally forgot about that" she replied. Joan raised her eyebrows to her daughter who shrugged with a smile in return. Joan walked up to Cheryl and whispered something in her ear and took Scott from her. Kimberley tilted her head to the side, watching the two of them.
Cheryl nooded to her mother and held her hand out to Kimberley. She lead her upstairs and sat on the bed, patting the space beside her for Kimberley to sit down.
"Don't feel bad" Cheryl said after she got in a comfortable position, leaning against Kimberley. "This is a conversation I should be having with Nadine but me and you need to talk about it, don't we?" she added.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked while stroking the skin on her girlfriends thigh, just below the bottom of her dress.
"I didn't want you to blame yourself for it... I should have known you'd figure it out though, I guess" she said. She put her hand over Kimberley's and watched as they both linked their fingers in each others, resting on her leg.
"I'm sorry for not understanding sooner" said Kimberley, tears filling her eyes.
"Hey" said Cheryl after hearing the emotion in her voice. She looked at Kimberley. "Stop that" she told her, seeing the tears in her eyes. She kissed her on the lips to reassure her. "Baby, this is between me and Nadine, okay? Not everything that happens is down to you or your fault" she said before kissing her again.
"But if I said somethi..." she started but was stopped by Cheryl's lips on hers again.
"If I had a choice of you being there with me, or off calling Nadine... which do you think I would choose?" she asked. Kimberley nodded at the easy rhetorical question.
"God, I love you" Kimberley said after a while of thinking over Cheryl's words. Cheryl smiled at her and took her into a hug.
"I love you too" she said quietly onto her shoulder. "Lets go back downstairs" said the younger girl as they pulled apart.
"Scott would like some time with you" Kimberley smiled after she got up off the bed. The two of them made their way downstairs to two glasses on the table filled with wine, Joan both knew them well.
