Sam Baker - The Stepmothers’ Support Group

‘So, he got a call late Friday night saying they needed him to cover the quarter-final. To be fair, he did try to get out of it. I heard him. But his editor wasn’t having it. And, ultimately, work’s work. The paper comes first, everything else is second. That’s what he’s like. What he’s always been like.’

Now that Eve understood.

Taking a gulp of coffee, Lily said, ‘He couldn’t face calling Siobhan—his ex—at midnight. I didn’t blame him. It’s not exactly amicable at the best of times and this was going to cause a huge row.’

Clare nodded. She’d obviously heard it before.

‘When he left next morning, I just assumed he’d call her on his way to work. I was on the verge of phoning the Comedy Club to see if they needed any shifts covering, when his doorbell rings. So I picked up the videophone assuming it’s the post or something. There’s Siobhan, with Rosie, Angelina Ballerina rucksack and all.’

‘God!’ said Eve, horrified. ‘What did you do?’

‘What could I do?’ Lily shrugged. ‘I let her in. Siobhan was furious. Man, did she give me a piece of her mind. It’s funny how she’s changed the goalposts to suit her. She refused to let me anywhere near Rosie in the beginning. But then Liam told her that if she wanted every third weekend off, Rosie would be spending it with us or she’d be making other arrangements. So she backed off.’

‘New boyfriend,’ Clare said. ‘Wants some time for herself.’

For a split-second Eve’s eyes met Lily’s.

‘So there I was—and there Liam wasn’t,’ Lily continued. ‘I was at least as furious with Liam as Siobhan was. Being lumbered with his kid without anyone even having the decency to ask, but there was no way I was going to let Siobhan see that.’

‘What about Rosie?’ Eve asked. ‘Did her mum take her away again?’

‘Fat chance!’ Lily was emphatic. ‘She dumped her on the settee, turned on CBeebies and shut the flat door so she could spit venom in the privacy of a communal stairwell. She said I could tell Liam she expected him to deliver Rosie back at the usual time and she’d be having words with him. Then she buggered off. Can’t say I blame her. But talk about kicking the cat.’

Eve was blown away by the young woman’s calmness. She wasn’t sure she would know how to cope with this now, let alone when she’d been Lily’s age.

Maybe she could learn something after all…

His dark head was burrowed into the pillow, and his flat silent but for the sound of his breathing when Lily finally pushed open the door to the bedroom she shared with Liam. As she stood in a strip of light from the hall, she couldn’t help feeling a pang. A bit of her wanted to reach out and stroke his hair. Another bit wanted a quiet life and some sleep. She couldn’t risk waking him, and didn’t want another scrap, because scrap was all they had done since Rosie’s last visit.

If they were speaking at all.

Surely this wasn’t how it was meant to be? Surely this wasn’t what having kids did to you? Even kids who weren’t your own.

Reaching back to click off the hall light, Lily heard a floorboard creak, making Liam grumble in his sleep and burrow further under the duvet. She waited for him to settle, before shutting the door and shucking off her clothes, her eyes adjusting to the quasi-darkness of south London, visible through a gap in his curtains.

God knows she loved him. She just hadn’t bargained for this. She was twenty-three, twelve years younger than he was. And suddenly she was being referred to as Mum by Polish waitresses in Pizza Hut.

When I was your age I was married with a three-year-old.

Her mother’s voice echoed through her head. Yes, Lily thought, as she always did. And so was Clare. Well, not the married bit. That was precisely why Lily was determined to do things differently.

What had she been thinking, getting involved with a not-quite-single dad? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been out with boys with baggage before. In fact, the bigger the baggage the better she liked it. If Lily had a type it was tall, skinny and arty…All cheekbones, hipbones, angst and assorted undesirable habits.

So what was she doing with a slightly stocky sports reporter who came with a child attached? It didn’t bear thinking about.

Except, of course, thought hadn’t come into it. Their second bottle of Pinot Grigio—or was it the third, who knew?—had seen to that. And the sex was amazing, even drunk. Or should that be especially drunk? But when her wine goggles came off, Lily hadn’t moved on in her usual easy-come, easy-go way. Moving on hadn’t even entered her head.

Somehow, Lily Adams, who never let a man get under her skin, let alone in the way of her ambition to make it on the comedy circuit, had found herself organising her weekends around a three-year-old. That was something they didn’t mention in all those magazine features about the Dos and Don’ts of twenty-first-century relationships. Where were the features on falling in love with a man with baggage? The ones about how to handle his ex, know Peppa Pig from Iggle Piggle, or planning your Saturday around trips to the playground.

Making a mental note to suggest those to Eve next time they met, Lily slid into bed beside Liam.

To Lily’s surprise, her brief coffee with Clare and Eve had turned into a long yack; only ending when a Portuguese barista, with trainee written across his back, started mopping up around them. Lily had serious grovelling to do when she got back to the Comedy Club, gone nine, to find the show almost at the first interval and Brendan cashing up the till himself.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Really sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘Whatever.’ Brendan’s shrug suggested it couldn’t matter less. ‘But, next time you want an evening off, just book it like everyone else.’

So when the show finished, and the stragglers and autograph hunters had gone, she insisted he head to the pub with the crew for a pint before closing time. She stayed behind to lock up. It meant braving the night bus with its drunks and letches, but in the circumstances it was the least she could do.

‘Lil, that you?’

The sleepiness was obvious in Liam’s voice, as he rolled over and draped his arm heavily across her hip. ‘S’late…You OK?’

Her body instinctively curled into his. ‘Work,’ she whispered. ‘It was my turn to lock up.’

‘Look, I’m sorry about the Rosie thing,’ Liam said, his sleep-fogged breath hot against her ear. ‘My fault entirely. Should have called on my way to the match. And then it was too late and…’

I know, Lily thought, you gutless sod, you chickened out.

‘Sorry you got landed with my shit.’ He nuzzled the back of her neck, and she could feel him hardening against the base of her spine. Despite herself, she pushed against him. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he promised, sliding one hand up to her breast, the tips of his fingers grazing her nipple. ‘I’ll straighten it out, I promise. You do believe me, don’t you?’

Her brain didn’t, not really.

But for that moment at least, her body did.

Two hours later Lily was lying, eyes wide open, staring at streetlamp shadows and passing headlights on the ceiling. It wasn’t the itchy-eyed insomnia she’d suffered since childhood, the kind that guaranteed her migraines by the following lunchtime.

She was warm and her body relaxed; she’d even been dozing since they’d finished making love and Liam had sunk back into his usual impenetrable slumber. No, she’d been woken by a thought. And now that thought was bugging her.

Liam and she had barely gone forty-eight hours without sex since they met, let alone two weeks. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d made peace in the nick of time for Rosie’s next visit. Now that thought was playing on her mind. Was he really sorry? Had he missed her as much as she’d missed him? Had he been as unhappy about the quarrelling as she was? Or was he just worried he might have to field his daughter on his own for twentyfour hours?