‘It’s Earl Grey, you great big barbarian. The only other men I have in here on a regular basis are Russell – and he drinks Apple-Tinis – and Rob, who’s not allowed to drink whilst Sarah’s pregnant.’
‘Really? Christ, that ball-breaker really has him by the short hairs, doesn’t she?’
Katie shrugged. ‘He’s just learnt from bitter experience not to anger her whilst she is incubating his devil’s spawn. Now, stop changing the subject. You know exactly what I mean.’ She took a deep breath and squared her small shoulders. ‘You’ve ignored me for six years and when you did deign to look at me it was like I was an alien from another planet or something you’d scraped off your shoe. This –’ she pointed between the two of them ‘– is a bit of a turn-around, wouldn’t you say?’
Suddenly the arm around her was lifted away and her legs were grabbed under her knees, twisting her so that she flopped back onto the cushions of the sofa with Sam’s big body hovering over her, his face inches away.
‘I never thought about you like that,’ he said, planting his arms either side of her head on the cushions.
‘You called me vertically challenged, mouthy and annoying,’ she whispered, and Sam closed his eyes slowly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice sounding almost like he was in pain. Katie nodded, not trusting herself to speak without her voice wavering at the remembered humiliation. ‘I didn’t mean that, baby. I was pissed off with Rob –’
‘Yeah, for setting you up with “someone like her” – I heard that too.’
‘You don’t understand,’ he said, sounding almost desperate.
‘I understand perfectly,’ Katie whispered, cross that her voice broke on the last word, ‘– perfectly. And I don’t see what’s changed. I’m still short, annoying, loud, and, as you repeatedly remind me, bloody ridiculous.’
‘And warm, funny, kind, beautiful, hard-working, tenacious, brave … everything I … look, I didn’t mean “someone like you” in a bad way. Look at the bitch I was with that night.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Katie scoffed. ‘International star, tall, beautiful, well-spoken. I mean, yuck, how could you stand it?’
‘You left out cold, boring, pain in the arse.’
Katie frowned. ‘Then why – ?’
‘Look,’ Sam cut her off, ‘I was a coward, okay? But I’m tired of it. I’m so fucking tired.’ And in that moment, looking into his dark eyes Katie could see it for herself: fear, exhaustion, pain, and maybe a tiny bit of hope. ‘I’m tired of staying away from you.’
Before she could demand any more answers, Sam’s head came down and his mouth met hers. Just like the other times, her mind blanked completely. There was only Sam, his smell, his beauty, and his quite frankly amazing snogging ability. The world around her fell away and she had the strangest sense that she’d come home.
*****
‘Jesus Christ,’ Katie heard Sam’s deep voice rumble from behind her as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his front. ‘Aren’t baby showers supposed to be for just birds? Why are we all being dragged into this crap?’
Katie gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. ‘Look if you want to get out of here alive you’ll do whatever the Oestrogen Beast wants and look happy about it,’ she mumbled out of the side of her mouth, eyeing an extremely pregnant Sarah with a healthy amount of fear. She felt Sam’s body shake behind her with suppressed laughter. ‘It’s not a joke,’ she told him. ‘I swear she almost dislocated my shoulder earlier, and she was just pushing me out of her way to get to the milk. She develops superhuman strength in pregnancy; she’s a monster.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Russell said from Katie’s side. ‘I thought she was going to gouge my eyes out earlier; I told her she was “blooming”.’ He shuddered. ‘Won’t be making that mistake again in a hurry.’
‘Well, I’m bloody starving!’ they heard Sarah semi-shout from across the room. She was sitting on the sofa holding an orange juice and scowling furiously at anyone with anything alcoholic in their hands. They heard Rob mutter something back to her, too low to make out the words. ‘I don’t care if everyone’s only just arrived. Nobody else is eight months pregnant with your toxic, evil mega-sperm, are they? We’re going to sit down to eatnow.’
Rob, who had spent years in the Special Forces, who regularly went out to supervise security details in Somalia, and who, other than the man holding her, was the toughest man Katie had ever met, held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, backing away with actual fear in his eyes.
‘Well, help me up then!’ Sarah semi-shouted again, and although she was directing her words at Rob, at least three people around her leapt into action, Frankie and Lou helping her from either side and Dylan pushing from behind.
Tom however just stood off to the side, rolling his eyes. ‘God, you always were a stroppy madam,’ he (very unwisely, in Katie’s opinion) said, then leapt back even further to avoid a red-faced Sarah’s punch to his most sensitive area.
‘He’s a brave man to poke that particular tiger,’ Sam muttered in a low voice, and Katie giggled, earning a withering look from Sarah, who was now lumbering across the living room into the open-plan kitchen diner.
Sam’s arm fell from around her waist, but then she felt his big hand warm on the base of her spine as they moved through to follow them in. He had been the last to arrive after a long day of filming at the set. He’d wanted to pick Katie up on his way but The Beast wanted her there to help get the boys to bed and set up for the party. So as they moved through there were a fair few people for Sam to greet, which he did, giving the occasional cheek-kisses for women and back-slaps for the men. (Even Dylan earned a semi-amicable greeting; although his back-slap might have had a little too much unnecessary force behind it.)
But throughout this Sam never lost contact with Katie. It was something that she’d noticed over the past two weeks that they’d been officially together. It was one of the many things about him that surprised her. If he were in a room with her, then more often than not he would be touching her in some way. He’d pull her into his side or have his hand on her back if they were in company, and if they were alone he’d go a step further. Say, if they were in the kitchen, he’d lift her up onto the counter top and stand between her legs with his arms around her, bringing her to his eye level. If they were in the living room he’d pull her onto his lap or lie next to her with her tucked into his side. Katie had never thought of him as a particularly affectionate man – in fact he’d been one of the coldest people she knew – so the turnaround was dramatic, and it also meant that they garnered a fair bit of attention.
The first time they had been round at Rob and Sarah’s, and Sam had pulled Katie between his spread legs where he was sitting on one of their kitchen stools, and then rested his chin on the top of her head, Sarah had stared at them for a full half hour with a soft, glazed look on her face, and Katie could swear she had been on the verge of tears. Rob was at least less obvious, although he had been smiling like an idiot for the entire evening, and he gave Katie an extra long hug at the end of the night, whispering: ‘Well done, honey,’ nonsensically into her ear.
But sometimes it felt like Sam wanted to keep her close in a sort of desperate way, like if he didn’t then someone was going to snatch her from him or she would simply disappear into thin air. Whilst she found this endearing to some extent, something about it made her vaguely uneasy. It was like he expected the worst. He expected to lose her and was just waiting for the axe to fall. They’d been to the pub together a couple of times, and if she went to get a drink he’d go with her, while if she was across the room from him, even if it was just her making her way back from the toilet, she could see that his jaw was clenched tight, and a strange hunted look in his eyes, which would only ease when she was close enough for him to claim her once again.
Weird, sweet and a little disturbing.
