When's It Due Sophie Drew?: a heart-warming romantic comedy Read online

  When’s It Due, Sophie Drew?

  Katey Lovell

  Copyright © 2021 Katey Lovell

  The right of Katey Lovell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2021 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  Print ISBN 978-1-914614-04-0

  Contents

  Love best-selling fiction?

  Also by Katey Lovell

  December

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  January

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  February

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  March

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  April

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  May

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgements

  A note from the publisher

  Love best-selling fiction?

  You will also enjoy:

  Love best-selling fiction?

  Sign up today to be the first to hear about new releases and exclusive offers, including free and discounted ebooks!

  Why not like us or follow us on social media to stay up to date with the latest news from your favourite authors?

  Also by Katey Lovell

  Nothing New for Sophie Drew

  For all the anxious over-thinkers

  December

  Chapter 1

  There it was, squirming on the screen. A grainy grey-white jelly baby, an actual little person nestling in my womb, tucked behind my already-expanding stomach and the three iced fingers I’d made Max pull over at Greggs to buy – not for me, for the baby, obviously.

  My cheeks were damp, and I’d no chance of stopping the tears escaping as Max squeezed my hand – reassurance and love being sent through the pulse of his palm against mine – and said, “That’s our baby.”

  Our baby.

  Our. Baby.

  No matter how many times I heard it, I still couldn’t get my head around the fact there was a miniature human being in my stomach who, if the on-screen antics were anything to go by, was going to be as uncoordinated as me. Our baby (nope – still not used to it) looked like I do on the rare occasion I make it to Zumba class – arms and legs flailing in every direction.

  “Is everything okay?” Max asked, and at first I thought he was talking to me, because I was still crying. “Is it the right size?”

  I inhaled, the wait for the response feeling like forever.

  “I need to take some more measurements,” the lady replied evenly, tapping away on her computer touchpad, “but from what I’ve seen, Baby’s looking around the right size for your dates.”

  My shoulders quivered, relief escaping through the hot tears that were in full flow. It wasn’t long since my sister-in-law, Chantel, had had a stressful twin pregnancy, and although the sensible part of me knew I was doing all I could to be healthy – avoiding alcohol, eating a minimum of five pieces of fruit and veg a day, and not smoking (admittedly that last one hadn’t been difficult, as I hadn’t smoked since school, when my friend Tawna’s mum had caught the pair of us leaning out of Tawna’s bedroom window, taking turns to puff away on a shared Silk Cut) – there had still been a dark cloud of dread hanging over me in the build-up to the milestone scan, especially as I’d not found out I was pregnant until well into the second trimester. Not that the scan was a guarantee, of course, but seeing our unborn child wiggling around on the monitor reassured my overactive mind.

  The sonographer pressed the wand firmly along my pubic line, the clear, cold gel she’d smothered across me earlier no match for her force. It was enough to make me regret at least two of the iced finger buns, and wish I’d not taken the instructions to drink a pint of water to heart. I was bursting for a wee, and what’s more, it hurt.

  I tightened my grip on Max’s hand, and he let out a high-pitched noise somewhere between a squeak and a yelp. Anyone would think it was his liquid-filled stomach being violently probed with a phallic instrument that could see inside his body.

  “Sorry if that’s uncomfortable,” the woman said, with not an ounce of apology evident in her jovial tone. “I’m trying to coax Baby to move a bit to get these last few measurements.”

  She pressed down harder still, and I breathed in sharply through my teeth as I shifted my focus to counting the square tiles that formed the room’s ceiling.

  “Sophie’s a warrior,” Max said, and I wished I felt as sure of that fact as he sounded. It was all I could do to a) remember how to breathe and b) not wet myself, so I hardly felt like Princess Xena.

  “I’m not sure about that,” I managed, my voice snake-like through my gritted teeth.

  “And we’re done,” she said with a smile, wiping her magic wand with a square of tissue. “Everything looks as it should at this stage, although the measurements suggest your dates are slightly out. Baby’s measuring at eighteen weeks.”

  “Oh.” A week less than the midwife had thought going on the date of my last period.

  “That gives you a due date of May twenty-sixth,” the sonographer said.

  “He or she will be like me,” Max said, “in the younger half of their year at school. I was always jealous of the kids who had their birthdays earlier in the year.” His birthday, August the twenty-fifth, had meant he was the youngest in his year – his mum, Andrea, had told me how he’d cried on his seventh birthday because all his “friends” were either away on their jollies or forgot his party because it was so close to the end of the summer holidays.

  “As long as this little one is fit and healthy, that’s all that matters,” I said, gladly taking the tissue offered me and wiping the excess gel from my stomach. Despite her efforts my knicker elastic was damp and sticky.

  “Would you like photos to take away?”

  I wondered if anyone who’d ever laid on that table had said, “Actually no, I’m not bothered.” I doubt it. Whipping out the little card containing a shiny photo made up of every shade of the grey/black colour spectrum is the only way to make a pregnancy announcement. It’s the law that you pass it around and everyone coos as they try to figure out which part of the ghostly outline is the head, and whether the long extension is an arm, a leg, the placenta, or if the baby in question is a super well-endowed boy (cue inappropriate jokes about whethe
r or not they get that from Daddy).

  “Yes please.” Max grinned.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the screen of the computer as I hoiked myself up to a sitting position. The swell of my stomach was barely-there, but there was definitely activity going on inside – for weeks it had felt as though my hips were being pulled apart. If it carried on I’d have snapped like a lucky Christmas wishbone by the time May rolled around.

  The sonographer clicked her mouse on three different pictures and set them to print, reaching over to a stack of those oh-so-familiar cards. She cut the pictures down to size, popped them in the frames and told us the price. Max didn’t hesitate in pulling the money out of his wallet ready to exchange for the photographs.

  We said our “thank you”s and made it as far as the harshly lit corridor before scrabbling to look at the photos.

  “I think it’s got your nose,” I said, cricking my neck to examine a picture of our baby’s head in profile. “Look, it’s that same little snub nose, I’m sure of it.”

  “That’s our baby.” Max reached out and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  When I tore my eyes from the photographs and looked at my boyfriend, I noticed the tears in his eyes, glistening behind the thick lenses of his black-rimmed glasses.

  “It is,” I said, not quite able to believe it myself. “And I know we hadn’t planned for things to happen this quickly, but I’m really, really glad they did.” We’d been together less than a year when the digital test had surprised us with the word “pregnant”, but we’d both been delighted at the thought of starting our much-wanted family.

  “Me too. I love you, Sophie Drew, and I can’t wait to meet our son or daughter.”

  “There’s still another five months to go yet.” I laughed and hugged my arms around his waist. The wool of his jumper tickled my fingertips. “You can’t hurry cooking a baby.”

  “I can wait,” he replied, his voice cracking with love. “It’ll be more than worth it.”

  We took another moment to savour the photographs, mooning over how beautiful the tiny person we’d created was, before stepping out into the cool December sun. Looking up, the sky was pure powder blue.

  It wouldn’t have made a difference even if it had been a blizzard. It wouldn’t have dampened my spirits. Nothing could, not even the uncomfortable rub of the soggy elastic of my comfy supermarket knickers against my pregnant belly, because I had a man who loved me, a baby on the way and, thanks to hard work, determination and a bit of sheer luck, my debts were all paid off. It seemed that finally, I may have got my life sussed.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m nervous about telling everyone,” I admitted, as I pushed open the wooden gate leading into my parents’ garden. “My friends must have their suspicions because I’ve not been drinking at Christmas parties, but my mum and dad are going to be shocked.”

  “We did a pretty good job of keeping it to ourselves though, didn’t we?” Max chuckled. “I didn’t think we’d manage to hold it in this long.”

  “Nor me.”

  The temptation to share our news had almost got the better of me many times since the positive test. After all the times I’d heard my brother talk of how much Noah, Alicia and Imogen meant to him I wanted to let him know I understood, really understood, in a way only someone who had already fallen totally in love with their unborn child could, how much of a miracle and a blessing it was.

  “They’re going to be happy for you, Soph. Happy for both of us.” He suddenly looked worried. “Unless you know something I don’t. They don’t hate me, do they? Think I’m not good enough for you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I guffawed, “they love you, you’re already one of the family. That’s not why I’m nervous about telling them. I just don’t want them to know that we, you know…” My voice trailed off and I raised my eyebrows twice in quick succession to get my point across.

  “They know we share a bed. It’s not that much of a leap for them to take a guess at what we do when we’re there. They’ve got three kids of their own, so they obviously know all about the birds and the bees.”

  “Don’t.” I clamped my hands over my ears to block out the horrific imagery running through my head. Cheers, Max. “Thinking about my parents’ sex life makes me feel queasy, and I’m only just getting over the morning sickness.”

  “Come on,” he said, knocking on the front door before turning the handle and walking into the hallway of my childhood home. “They’re going to be over the moon. A new grandchild to spoil and love, and their firstborn becoming a mummy. That’s a celebration waiting to happen.”

  I knew he was right, but it still felt a bit like, by walking into the kitchen and getting out the scan pictures, we might as well shout “WE’RE HAVING SEX!” at the top of our voices. I had to get over it though, because despite no visible bump my trousers were already getting tight. I thought lustily about the maternity jeans I’d seen in Mothercare’s window just the week before. Then I’d been giggling at the swath of navy fabric designed to cover and support a mother’s bump, but even just one week on that excess material – super-soft excess material at that – seemed inviting and necessary as my jeans and still-damp pants rubbed harshly against the skin of my stomach.

  I didn’t have chance to dwell on my thoughts of comfy clothes though, as my mum poked her head around the kitchen door, her cheeks smudged with flour where she’d wiped her hands against them as she baked. She couldn’t help herself – whenever she knows I’m coming over she makes my favourite rich chocolate cake, topped with Smarties, just the way she’d made it as a treat when I was a child.

  “Sophie!” she exclaimed, as though I hadn’t told her we’d be coming over at teatime and me and Max turning up was a complete surprise.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  I stretched my arms around her neck and enveloped her in a hug. She smelt the same as she had when I was a little girl, vanilla-sweet, and as she planted a kiss on my cheek – something I’d normally pull away from – I couldn’t help but think that I was soon going to be a mum myself, and how I never, ever wanted to kiss my child and for him or her to pull away. I wanted to smother them with kisses, shower them with love, and for me to be a comfort to them.

  Everything my parents had done for me flashed before my eyes.

  All the nappy changes and sleepless nights – I was a notoriously bad sleeper as a baby, apparently. Dad can’t believe they had two more children after me and risked even more nights of broken sleep.

  The school runs and the loads of washing.

  Taking me to majorettes, and piano lessons, and ballet classes.

  The sleepless nights (again) when I was an unruly teenager, using the house like a hotel and my dad as a taxi service at some ungodly hour.

  There had been times I was sure I was failing them, disappointing them, but our home and their hearts had been filled with nothing but love.

  I’d become so wrapped up in my thoughts that I’d not let go of Mum, and if it weren’t for one of her wiry chestnut curls tickling the skin on my neck I’d have gladly stayed in her embrace for longer.

  “Are you all right, pet?” Two lines of concern appeared between her eyebrows as she looked me up and down. “You’re not sick, are you? I’ve spent all afternoon baking your favourite chocolate cake. You can always take it home for another day, I suppose.”

  “I’m not sick, Mum. Why would you think that? Do I look pale or something?”

  “No more than you usually do,” she said, but there was suspicion in her tone. “I still can’t get used to you not being orange,” she teased. “When you used to go for those spray tans it was like having an Oompa Loompa coming to visit.”

  Max laughed. He didn’t know me when I was high maintenance, but he’d seen the photos, and even I had to admit I looked like a different person. Not worse – at least, I didn’t think so, and neither did Max if the way he couldn’t keep his hands off me was anything to go by. I still took my time over my make-up most d
ays, but didn’t lay it on as thick as I used to. The honey-blonde highlights I’d once sworn by were a thing of the past too, although my hair was naturally fair anyway, so it didn’t look radically different. All the pampering I’d insisted was a necessity had finally been seen for what it was – a luxury, an expense I could do without. I’d been amazed by how much I’d previously been spending on beauty treatments.

  “I don’t know why you’re laughing, Max Oakley,” I jokingly chided. “I know you’ve been using my tinted body lotion. That bottle’s going down way quicker than it usually does.”

  “I’m not getting involved in your little domestic,” Mum said with a chuckle, heading back into the kitchen. “This cake needs to come out now before it catches around the edges.”

  Max grinned, then leant down and whispered into my ear. “Although you would have been my favourite Oompa Loompa by a mile.”

  “I wasn’t orange!”

  “You were a bit,” he said, almost apologetically. “Look.”

  He handed me a silver frame from next to the landline phone and I studied the photo, taken at Nick and Chantel’s wedding. The blushing bride, swamped by her meringue-style princess dress, and my younger brother looking rather dashing in a classic film-star kind of way, in traditional top hat and tails, smiled back at me. My dad was in the same get-up as my brother, although at six foot three already, the top hat made him look even more pencil-thin than usual, and my mum beamed beneath a wide-brimmed hat that matched her cerise and white floral dress. My sister, Anna, the middle sibling, had her arm looped through Dad’s and I stood on her other side.