Conviction

“That’s fine,” I call to her back as she staggers off in search of more wine.

I hear her talking to Duchess as she makes her way through the kitchen. I switch the television to a music channel, sick of seeing Shift’s press conference being played over and over again on the news. Of course, it’s a Shift song playing. I look at Conner on the screen as the camera zooms in on him. The film clip is of a live performance of ‘What If?’ It’s one of their earlier songs. Conner has long hair, much longer than it was the last time I’d seen him in person, and much longer than it was when I saw him today. He stares right into the camera as he sings and plays guitar and I study his face. There’s no denying how beautiful he is. He has dirty blond, almost bronze coloured hair and olive skin. His lips are full, his bottom lip being much plumper than his top and they’ve been on me, those beautiful lips have been all over my body. My heart rate picks up and my skin heats at the thought. But it’s Conner’s eyes that I always found so appealing. They are the strangest colour and look different according to the lighting around him or his mood. They’re a stunning combination of blue-green and grey. Mostly a bluey-greeny colour, but when he was pissed off, that’s when you would notice the grey. He’s gorgeous, there really is no other way to describe him and despite the fact that he’s a man, he really is beautiful.

“So, you didn’t answer my question earlier.” I look up at Sophie as she flops down on the sofa, cold bottle of wine in hand. I’m actually surprised she can remember that she even asked me a question but in saying that, I don’t remember her asking me a question.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I already know the answer.” I watch her as she tries to pour the wine without unscrewing and removing the cap. We both realise at the same time that the lid’s still on and collapse back on the sofa in fits of laughter.

We eventually make it to bed around three a.m., both of us curled up in my huge, king-sized bed, after two hours of me whooping Sophie’s arse on Sing Star and two hours of us dancing around my living room, to ‘Ultimate Party Hits’ that’s being played on the music channel.

Marcus doesn’t arrive home until midday Sunday. He stayed at a friends after drinking too much, but couldn’t phone and tell me as his battery was dead.





Monday is busy with work and I take a trip to see my doctor on Tuesday. She arranges for me to have some blood tests and an ultrasound. Once she’s sure that there’s no obvious problem as to my failure to conceive, despite not taking any precautions for the past eight months, we will sit down and work out a plan. She doesn’t seem overly concerned and has told me that it takes some couples a month to fall pregnant, some, a couple of years. That’s just the way things went. Marcus has a different doctor to me, but at the same surgery and Trish, my doctor has recommended that he makes an appointment to get himself checked out the same way I have. As I’m leaving her consulting room, I bump into Jay, Marcus’s doctor. I’ve never really spoken to him before and I’m surprised when he says hello.

“Hey Nina, how’s Marcus feeling now?” he asks with a friendly smile. I look at him with a frown. I don’t remember the last time Marcus was sick, let alone came to see his doctor. I watch a flicker of something cross over his face as he sees my reaction to his question.

“Marcus is fine, I wasn’t aware he’d been sick.” He laughs nervously as I stop walking and look at him.

“Well, you know, not sick exactly…” He opens his mouth a couple of times as if to say more, but nothing comes out.