Chapter Fifty-Six.

                                    

                                          
Lying in bed, I stared at the ceiling in complete darkness. George was asleep and had been for a good few hours as I laid still, trying to fall asleep but I just couldn’t. No matter how I laid or what I thought of, nothing could get me to drift off to sleep. I looked over at George as he slept, looking like an angel and sighed. “You’re keeping mummy awake,” I whispered, prodding my bump gently as I felt a kick. 
                          
I closed my eyes and tried to count backwards from one-hundred – I was desperate to fall asleep. By the time I had counted down from one-hundred to one three times, I was fed up and knew that tonight was going to be one of them sleepless nights. I reached my hand out to the bedside table and grabbed hold of my phone to see what time it was – 3am. Groaning to myself, I sat up in bed, holding onto my bump and lifted myself up. Grabbing my dressing gown off the floor and slipping into my slippers, I made my way out of the bedroom – trying to be as quiet as possible so that I didn’t wake George up. Sneaking out into the hallway, I wrapped the dressing gown around me and shut the bedroom door.  As soon as I got into the kitchen, I switched the light on and headed straight towards the coffee machine. As I began to make myself a mug of milky hot chocolate, I looked out of the window onto the deserted streets of North London. Sitting down at the breakfast bar, I sat stirring the hot chocolate with a spoon, trying to think of what I could do for the next God knows how many hours until George woke up. I couldn’t even clean the apartment because I was useless with a baby bump; I couldn’t ring anyone up as everyone would be asleep. In the end I decided to grab George’s laptop from the lounge and browse the internet, looking at all the articles that had been wrote about me and George. Since the very first live show on the X Factor all them years ago, we had both been told to never read the media articles as 99.9% of the time they just make up stories that they think will sell, not even considering what their lies could do to the individuals involved. 
                          
As I sat back down at the breakfast bar and went to open the laptop up, I heard some footsteps in the hallway before the kitchen door opened. 
                          
“What are you doing up?” a coarse voice asked. 
                          
I looked up to see George stood in the hallway in his dressing gown, looking as sleepy as I felt. 
                          
“I couldn’t sleep,” I smiled as I logged onto the laptop. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
                          
“You didn’t wake me,” he laughed as he sat down on the stool opposite me. “What you doing?”
                          
“Nothing,” I smiled, closing the laptop lid shut so he didn’t find out I was Google searching us.
                          
“Okay,” he laughed awkwardly. 
                          
“Coffee?” I asked. 
                          
He shook his head. “You go sit in the lounge and I’ll make it,” he smiled. 
                          
“You should go back to sleep though,” I grinned as I got down from the stool. 
                          
“Nope,” he said as he began to make the coffee. “I’d rather stay up with you than sleep.”
                          
I stood looking at him, grinning from ear to ear before I walked into the lounge. Slouching back onto the sofa, I rested my hand on top of my bump, stroking it gently in a circular motion. After a few moments, George came into the room carrying two mugs of coffee. 
                          
*
                          
“I’ve missed this,” I smiled as I rested my head on George’s chest. 
                          
“Missed what?” he asked. 
                          
I looked up at him and smiled at him. “I’ve missed it just being about us.”
                          
“Well right now, all I care about is you two,” he laughed, pulling me in closer towards him as he wrapped his arms tightly around me.
                          
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked, gently making invisible shapes on George’s chest with my finger as we cuddled. 
                          
“What?”
                          
“Weird how in a few months we’re gonna be parents.”
                          
“Yeah,” George laughed. “But it’ll be amazing.”
                          
“I can’t wait,” I smiled to myself.
                          
“Want to know what is weird though?” he paused. “I love this baby more than I have ever loved anything else in my whole life and I haven’t even met them yet.”
                          
I laid besides him grinning. We stayed in silence for ages, just smiling at each other. And finally, with my head on his chest, I fell asleep listening to his heartbeat.