Cosy Christmas ✓

12 / home

"Sleep well."

"I'll try," she said with a smile, and she got to her feet, heading upstairs. Cass was on Duke duty, in charge of feeding and walking him now as Connor refused to leave Posy's side. They hadn't been out of each other's company for almost seventy hours now, and that streak was only going to continue.

The weather was gross. That was the only way he could think to describe it as he went around the room turning off the lights, preparing to sleep on the sofa for another night. It had been raining almost non-stop for two days, a pathetic drizzle that trickled down the window pane, and he watched it for a moment before drawing the curtains and shutting out the light of the moon. Settling on the sofa with a duvet draped over him, he closed his eyes and listened to the last of the crackles of the fire he had laid hours earlier, the final embers burning out as sleep overwhelmed him. Maybe tomorrow.

*

Posy's house was not soundproof. He had learnt that his first night there, when he had awoken at two in the morning to the creaking of the floorboards above him, the sound of Posy heading to the bathroom at an ungodly hour, and it was four o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the seventh of January when the clang of a kitchen drawer roused him from his dreams. The house was still bathed in darkness, no sign of the sun outside as the moon dipped down to the horizon, but a sliver of artificial light crept into the sitting room from the kitchen.

Four o'clock was early, even by Connor's standards, and he threw off the duvet to investigate. He hadn't heard Posy moving around upstairs, nor had he heard her come down, but he had been deep in a dream until that bang of a cupboard door. It was entirely possible that she was up, but he exacted a little caution as he pushed open the connecting door. Posy never locked the house. There was every chance that it was an intruder, perhaps a neighbour who needed sugar.

Except it wasn't. Posy stood by the counter, white-tipped fingers gripping the edge as she stood bent forward at a forty-five degree angle.

"Hey," he whispered, his voice not used to the morning – even the morning wasn't used to itself at five o'clock – and he squinted against the light. Posy didn't respond, but he could hear her heavy breaths. "Posy? You ok?"

She still didn't respond, and a few more seconds passed before her body relaxed and she lifted her eyes to his, straightening out her back. "Today's the day," she said, a little short of breath, and she let out a long sigh. Connor's jaw dropped, his eyes widening.

"Shit, really? You're in labour?"

She nodded, slowly walking around the kitchen, and she ran one hand through her hair.

"Since when? You should've woken me up, Posy."

She glanced at her phone for the time, wincing at the screen. "About five hours," she said. "No point waking you up just to stand there like a lemon every time I have a contraction."

"Shit. Five hours? Shit. We need to go to the hospital," he said, panic clutching his chest as he tried to remember where he had put the baby bag they'd prepared. Was it in the car, or in Posy's room? He couldn't remember for a moment, and she could sense the fear in his eyes. "Why didn't you wake me up? We need to go, Posy."

She let out a tired laugh, rubbing the base of her spine. "We've got time," she said. "My contractions are still about six minutes apart, and approximately twenty-five seconds long. Everything online says to go in when they're five minutes apart."

Connor just stared at her for a moment as she walked around in circles in her pyjamas, a nightdress stretched over her stomach. "How are you so calm? Are you sure you haven't done this before?"