Chapter 29
Hormone-Induced. Entirely Non-Emotional.
Christa
Theo arrives at our table with cake and the sort of expression that means he has already ruined someone’s day.
He sets down the Gugelhupf, dusting sugar everywhere, then looks at Ivy instead of me.
“You told her yet?” he asks.
I blink. “Told me what?”
Ivy’s fork freezes mid-air.
“Theo,” she says, low and tight.
“What?” he shrugs. “I figured you were going to.”
He disappears back behind the counter, whistling and leaving cake, coffee, and a silence that feels suddenly too heavy for a Tuesday morning.
I look at Ivy. She’s staring at the table. Not the cake. Not her cup. The marble between her hands like she’s anchoring herself.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “What?”
She swallows. Her throat works like she’s pushing past something lodged there.
“Lucy said something,” she says.
My chest tightens. “To you?”
“No,” Ivy says quickly. “To Theo. To Theo first.”
She glances up at me, eyes already too bright. “She asked him if I could be her mum.”
Oh.
The café noise dulls, like someone’s turned the volume knob just a fraction.
“She didn’t make a big thing of it,” Ivy goes on, words coming faster now, like she’s afraid they’ll disappear if she pauses. “She was very… Lucy about it. Said she didn’t need a pony. Or presents. Or cake.”
I sniffle and know I can’t dismiss this as hormones. “Oh, Ivy.”
“She told him she wanted a mum,” Ivy says. “And that, since we sleep in the same bed, and Sabrina’s parents do, that must be how it works.”
My eyes sting.
“And she didn’t ask you herself?” I say.
Ivy shakes her head. “She said she had nervous bugs in her tummy. So she asked Theo to ask me.” She laughs then, a broken sound that turns into a sob halfway through. “He came into the kitchen talking about ice cream flavours like nothing was happening and then just… dropped it.”
I push my chair back and stand, lean across the table, and pull her into me without asking.
She makes a sound against my shoulder that’s pure release and clutches me like she’s been holding herself together by her fingernails until now.
“She wanted me,” Ivy says into my jumper. “She wants me.”
“Yes,” I say fiercely. “Of course she does.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, tears spilling freely now. “I said yes. I didn’t even think. I just… said yes.”
I smile through my own tears. “Good.”
“She called me Mum later,” Ivy whispers. “Just once. Like it was nothing. Like it had always been true.”
My heart does something painful and wonderful all at once.
“That’s not nothing,” I say. “That’s everything.”
She nods, wiping at her face, breath hitching as she tries to steady herself.
We sit back down eventually. Ivy wraps both hands around her coffee like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.
She stares into it for a moment, breathing like she’s just run a race she didn’t train for. I watch her steady herself and feel something loosen in my chest. Relief, maybe. Or pride. Or the quiet certainty that Lucy picked exactly the right person.
Then Ivy looks up, eyes clearer now, and gives a small, crooked smile.
“Okay,” she says. “Enough about me.”
I blink. “You sure?”
“Yes,” she says. “Because, if I talk about it anymore, I’ll start crying again and I’ve already cried in public today.”
Fair.
She tilts her head, studying me in that way that’s always made me feel like I’m about to be gently but thoroughly dismantled.
“So,” she says lightly. “How’s cohabiting with Geoff going?”
My first instinct is to deflect. Make a joke. Shrug it off. Keep it neat.
Instead, heat rushes up my neck.
Bollocks.
I reach for my cup, anything to give my hands something to do, and manage to scald my tongue in the process.
Ivy’s smile deepens.
“Oh,” she says softly. “That’s interesting.”
“I’m pregnant,” I say too quickly. “My face does things now.”
“Mmhmm,” she replies. “Your face is doing that thing.”
I hate that she knows me this well.
I stare at the cake crumbs on my plate. Focus on that instead of the memory of warm hands and morning light and how safe I’d felt curled into Geoff’s side.
“We’re… fine,” I say.
The word feels thin even as it leaves my mouth.
Ivy waits. She always does. Doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t fill the silence. Just gives me room to trip over my own defences.
“We had a moment,” I admit finally.
There it is. The truth, small and contained, sitting between us.
Her eyebrows lift but she doesn’t interrupt.
“It wasn’t sex,” I add, because it feels like an important clarification. “Not like that.”
“Okay,” she says.
“It was… practical,” I continue, wincing. “And kind. And very much driven by the fact that my hormones have declared war.”
Ivy’s head tilts.
Just slightly.
“Practical how?” she asks.
There it is.
The moment I knew was coming and hoped might somehow… not.
I stare at my coffee like it’s going to rescue me. It does not.
“You know,” I say, waving a vague hand. “Helpful. Supportive.”
“That is still extremely vague,” Ivy says mildly. “And also not a recognised category of human interaction.”
I sigh and press my lips together. My face is definitely warm now. There is no pretending otherwise.
“My hormones,” I say carefully, “have been… intense.”
She waits.
“They were not interested in self-soothing solutions.”
One eyebrow lifts.
“And Geoff,” I continue, words coming faster now, “was there. Awake. Calm. Very annoyingly competent.”
Ivy’s eyes widen a fraction.
“Oh.”
I nod once, staring resolutely at the table. “Yes. Oh.”
“So,” she says slowly, “you’re telling me…”
I exhale. “I was horny. Unreasonably. And he… helped.”
“With?” she prompts gently, because she is enjoying this far too much.
I wince. “His mouth. And his fingers. Which I feel the need to point out were… very talented.”
There it is. Out in the world. I hate everything.
Ivy leans back in her chair, silent for a beat.
Then she grins.
“Christa.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“That man,” she says, shaking her head in awe, “is a public service.”
“I am not framing it that way.”
“Oh, I absolutely am,” Ivy says. “And I’m also framing this as you finally dating.”
I choke on my coffee. “No.”
She sits up straighter, eyes bright, already vibrating with excitement. “You are living together. You’re emotionally connected. There is oral community service involved. That is dating.”
“No, it is not,” I say firmly. “It is… situational support.”
She snorts. “That is the most you sentence you’ve ever said.”
“We are not dating,” I insist. “There is no romance. No declarations. No plans. This is just… practical help between two adults who accidentally made a baby.”
Ivy tilts her head, studying me like she’s trying to work out whether I genuinely believe that.
“Right,” she says slowly. “So, what you’re saying is… friends with baby.”
“Yes.”
“And,” she continues, eyes sparkling, “friends with benefits.”
I point my fork at her. “Temporary. Hormone-induced. Entirely non-emotional.”
“Mmhmm.”
“And absolutely not leading anywhere.”
She beams. “Christa, I have known you since you cried over a broken stapler because it ‘felt misunderstood’. You do not do calm, safe, non-emotional intimacy.”
I scowl. “That was a stressful job.”
She leans forward, lowering her voice like she’s sharing a secret. “You and Geoff have been orbiting each other for months. Months. I always knew you were meant to be.”
I laugh, sharp and disbelieving. “You say that about everyone.”
“No,” she says. “I say that about couples who are obvious and just too emotionally constipated to notice.”
I shake my head. “This is not a romcom. This is real life. And, in real life, people can help each other without it turning into more.”
She holds my gaze. Softens a fraction. “They can,” she agrees. “Until they realise it already is.”
“That is not happening,” I say quickly.
She smiles. Not smug. Just knowing.
“We’ll see,” she says. “Friends with baby. Friends with benefits. And one day you’ll wake up and realise you’re also… family.”
I feel that familiar tightening in my chest. The one I don’t want to name.
I stab another piece of cake and shove it into my mouth. “You are banned from saying that sentence ever again.”
She lifts her cup in surrender. “Fine. I’ll just think it very loudly.”
I glare at her over my coffee.
She grins back, entirely unrepentant.
And annoyingly, terrifyingly, a small part of me doesn’t immediately dismiss the idea.
“So,” Mrs Longthorn says from my laptop screen, glasses perched halfway down her nose, “you’re absolutely sure this isn’t… too much?”
I glance at the document open in front of me. Colour-coded. Timed to the minute. Names spelled correctly. Contingencies quietly tucked in at the bottom like insurance policies.
“It’s an eight-year-old’s birthday party,” I say. “Too much is sort of the point.”
Geoff is sitting on the kitchen island opposite me, laptop open, mug slowly cooling by his elbow. He’s pretending not to listen.
He’s terrible at pretending.
“We’ve got the magician arriving at ten thirty,” I continue, clicking through. “He’s the one who specialises in small children and low ceilings. No fire. No rabbits. I’ve checked.”
Mrs Longthorn lets out a breath. “Thank God.”
“The face painter arrives straight after,” I say. “I’ve asked her to keep it to superheroes and animals. No skulls. No glitter near the eyes. She brings her own wipes.”
Geoff’s mouth twitches. He absolutely heard that.
“And the cake,” Mrs Longthorn says, leaning closer to her screen. “You’re sure about the cake?”
“I am,” I say. “Chocolate sponge. Vanilla icing. No nuts anywhere in the postcode. The dinosaur topper is edible but structurally unsound, so I’ve asked them to reinforce it.”
She studies me for a second, then nods, accepting it.
What I don’t say is that this is the moment my shoulders finally drop. The part where my brain settles into its natural rhythm. I haven’t done birthday parties before, not really. But logistics are logistics. People. Timings. Expectations. Pressure points. Those I know.
“And the children,” she adds. “There will be… energy.”
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “That part I’ve planned for.”
Geoff lets out a quiet huff of laughter from the kitchen island. I flick him a warning look and carry on.
Mrs Longthorn smiles, the tightness gone from her face. “Thank you, Christa. I actually feel… relaxed.”
“That’s the aim,” I say. “Email me if anything else crops up.”
The call ends. The screen goes dark.
I sit back and let the quiet land. That steady, settled feeling hums through me. No adrenaline. No second guessing. Just the pleasant knowledge that everything is where it should be.
Geoff’s still perched on the kitchen island, watching me like I’ve just pulled off a complicated magic trick using a spreadsheet and tone of voice.
“How much do you charge her?” he asks.
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“For that,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the laptop. “All of that.”
I shrug. “Hourly. Nothing wild.”
“How much?”
I tell him.
He blinks. Once. Then again. “That’s it?”
I feel the reflex kick in instantly. The urge to justify. To explain. To soften it. “I only started doing this recently and it’s not like it’s—”
He cuts in, calm but firm. “Christa, you just took complete control of a situation involving an anxious grandmother, an eight-year-old, a magician, food allergies, and a dinosaur cake.”
“So?”
“So you should charge more.”
I laugh, sharp and defensive. “I can’t just put my rates up because you’re impressed.”
“I’m not impressed,” he says. “I’m informed.”
That makes me pause.
“I watched you,” he continues. “You weren’t scrambling. You weren’t guessing. You knew exactly what needed doing and you made it sound easy. People pay for easy.”
I open my mouth to argue and realise I don’t really have one lined up.
“I make things behave,” I say quietly, the words surprising me as they leave my mouth.
He smiles. “Exactly. And that’s not entry-level.”
Something shifts. Just a small internal click, like something settling where it should have been all along.
I look back at my laptop. At the neat list. The solved problems.
“Alright,” I say. “I’ll raise my rates.”
He grins. “Good.”
“And, if everyone vanishes overnight,” I add, “You’re to hire me to make up for my losses.”
He doesn’t even hesitate.
“Deal,” he says. “I’ve got a flat, a child on the way, and an alarming lack of organisational skills. I’ll keep you busy.”
I snort. “You do realise I charge extra for emotional chaos.”
“Worth it.”
I glance back at my screen, the neat columns and bullet points waiting for me. The old flicker of doubt tries to surface, that instinct to pull back before I’ve even stepped forward.
I don’t let it.
Not this time.