He sighs and pulls me down into his lap as he sits on the bed. “Someone took photos of us on the beach this morning”
“What, how, that beach was deserted?”
“I don’t know, those lenses they use can zoom in from miles away, they could’ve been anywhere.” Well if one photographer has taken shots of us, that means there will be plenty more turning up trying to get the same thing. I’m glad we’re going home.
“Oh well, it’s been a nice unexpected break and at least they didn’t get pictures of us fighting this time.” I smile and kiss his nose as I speak.
“No, they got pictures of me sucking your tits and kissing your belly instead.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah, oh fuck, Len said you can’t see your tits in the pictures but that’s not the point and now the pregnancy stories are doing the rounds because of me kissing your belly.” I smile at him.
“Well at least they know you love me and not Marley now.” He laughs and raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I s’pose.” He’s quiet for a few seconds as he traces random patterns over my bare back.
“I’m sorry G, its fucking ridiculous. Why can’t they fuck off and pick on someone else? Why can’t the Beckhams be a bit more interesting so they leave us alone?”
“Don’t say that, I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone.”
“I’m getting worried now, how will they be when the baby comes, I feel like going back to Australia, leaving all of this bollocks behind, I’m over it G, I’m really fucking over it.”
“Sean, it will be someone else’s turn in a couple of weeks, I know they are being a pain in the arse right now, but you can’t let them make you walk away from everything. You can’t give up your music or the band; you would hate it and eventually hate me and our baby for being the cause.”
“Don’t talk shit, I’d do anything for you and the baby, I want you safe G, I want you and the baby safe and I will do anything, give up the band if that’s what it’s gonna take.”
“We’ll take on extra security and see how we go, let’s not make any decisions until after the baby’s here, I love you, stop worrying.”
* * *
The photographs of us on the beach actually do us a massive favour, they’re really quite beautiful and show nothing but a couple in love and enjoying each other, they put paid to the ridiculous rumours about Sean’s sexuality. They show Whorely up for the complete liar that she is and have hopefully convinced the press of what a complete bullshit artist she is and they will now actually leave us alone and move on, looking for their next victim.
The Monday after we arrive home, we are back at Richard Curtis’s office for my twelve week ultrasound and we have been told that as long as the baby is lying in the right position, we might be able to find out the sex.
Sean has a tight clammy grip of my hand as the room fills with the now familiar whoosh of our baby’s heartbeat, all of my other checks were fine, my blood pressure is perfect, nothing unusual was detected in my urine sample and my bloods have all come back fine. Despite this, we are both as nervous as hell as we look from each other to the screen. It’s amazing the difference a few weeks make, we can now clearly see the baby’s spine and arms and legs, the doctor calls out information to the nurse and she types everything into the computer, I stare, amazed that all of this is going on inside of my belly and as yet I haven’t felt a thing.
“Look at his arms move about G, dya reckon he’s gonna be a drummer?” I smile at Sean.
“Shit I hope not, listening to you practise guitar in the early days was hard enough, let alone listening to an aspiring drummer.”
“Cheers babe and there was me thinking that one of the reasons you loved me back then was because of my amazing guitar skills.”
“No, I loved you because I couldn’t not, I loved you because it was what I was put on this earth to do.” I look away from the screen and back to Sean, his eyes are full to the brim with tears, he brings my hand to his lips and kisses my palm gently, I realise the room is silent, Richard Curtis and his nurse Moira are both staring at us.
“Well,” Professor Curtis breaks the silence. “Your baby has decided to cooperate, we don’t usually tell parents the sex until the sixteen week scan because we can’t really be sure until then but looking at these images, I’m pretty confident that you have a son on the way, congratulations.” I burst into tears.
“A son G, we’re having a boy.” I nod and smile through my tears. “Thank you, thank you so much,” Sean says through his own tears.
The doctor and nurse leave us alone for five minutes while we pull ourselves together, eventually returning to tell us that everything is perfect. We make an appointment to return in four weeks and head home to share our news with our family. Sean actually doesn’t wait until we get home, he’s on the phone to Marley as soon as we are out of the building, then Lennon, then he insists we call into my parents on the way home, where him and my Dad share almost the entire contents of an eighteen year old bottle of Laphroaig whiskey and from where I end up driving us home and putting a very drunk, but ecstatically happy Sean to bed.
CHAPTER 29
Thanks to the hot and steamy photo shoot we did before leaving for Portugal and the pictures taken of us on the beach, the press left us alone for the rest of summer.
Over the years, Sean and I had done a few shoots together, but that was by far the raunchiest, the photographer had me wearing not a lot and draped all over Sean on a motorbike, wrapped around him in bed and various other poses where we looked as though we were having sex with our clothes on. They were all very tasteful and I must admit, the whole thing got us pretty turned on, to the point where the helicopter taking us to the airport cost Sean an extra thousand pounds as we were late getting ready after the unplanned sex we had, twice, once we got home. Best grand he ever spent in my book.
On my birthday in late September, the boys played at a charity polo game, it was a beautifully warm and sunny Sunday and I chose to wear a long flowing cheesecloth dress that we had bought from a retro stall at Camden market a few weeks before, it was cream and very seventies in style and showed off my growing baby bump beautifully. I teamed it with a big floppy orange hat and a pair of espadrilles and was thrilled with the look.
Dave picked me up with Ash and Jimmie already in the car, the boys had left earlier to sound check, I get kisses, cuddles and birthday wishes from all of them and for some reason I have butterflies in my stomach today and no idea why.
When we arrived we were shown through to the VIP area where we were offered champagne, I obviously declined and asked for water, we were there about fifteen minutes before I spotted Marley appearing from behind the stage and head over to us. Tom and Billy appeared next followed by my Husband. I watched him, waiting for him to spot me; my heart was racing in my chest. He looked stunning and quite literally stole my breath away.
“Fuck me, he’s hot,” I laughed as Ash whispered in my ear, stating exactly what I was thinking. He was wearing a pair of leather jeans and a v necked t-shirt that wasn’t quite long enough and showed off just enough belly and the start of that V thing he had going on that drove me absolutely insane for him.
“Put your tongue away G, you get to go home and tap that for dinner later.”
I smiled as Sean stopped, spoke and shook hands with various people.
“I taped that for breakfast and I want it again for lunch.” We had spent the morning having birthday wake up sex, followed by birthday shower sex, my libido hadn’t waned a bit during my pregnancy and my belly wasn’t big enough to get in the way yet so we were enjoying every inch of each other as often as possible before the baby arrived.