Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best romance books of all time txt) 📗

old, practically a miracle, and now she regularly slept twelve hours at night as well as taking an afternoon nap. Lexi didn’t brag about her daughter’s sleep patterns—she knew that exhausted mothers would find that really annoying—but her two best friends, of course, knew the facts.

It was flattering that Carla thought Lexi could work some sort of miracle on baby Megan, who was fractious and agitated, day and night, and had never slept more than three hours in a row, but truthfully Lexi didn’t think she had any special powers over Megan or anyone else’s baby. Perhaps she had a bit more patience.

Lexi was constantly being told that she was lucky her baby was a good sleeper, and a good feeder, too, as it was turning out. They’d all three recently started weaning. Emily would eat anything that was offered up. Was it luck? Lexi swore by routines, blackout blinds and home-prepared food. Carla didn’t believe in those things.

Jennifer leaned forward and picked up the bottle of red, poured a glass for Lexi and refilled Carla’s and her own. “Is it wrong of me to be glad I’m no longer breastfeeding, so I can enjoy a guilt-free glass of wine?” she asked, grinning.

The other two women smiled lazily and didn’t bother to reply. It was a rhetorical question. They felt the same. They were all good mothers, devoted even. Their eight-month-old bundles of joy were their worlds, but no one ever told a new mum just how exhausting and relentless the whole mothering business was. A glass of wine, a bar of chocolate, the occasional whinge to each other were necessary coping methods that kept them functioning.

“Where are the men?” Lexi asked, looking about her.

“They’ve popped out for the takeaways,” replied Carla.

“Thai tonight.”

“Oh, goodie. Did you order me—”

“Crispy prawn tempura served with sweet chili sauce and jasmine rice. Yeah.”

Lexi nodded, grateful and content. It was amazing how close they had all become in the past ten months. Close enough for them to each know one another’s favorite dishes on the takeaway menus, whether they were opting for Thai, Chinese or Indian. They had met at a prenatal class and had clicked immediately, brought together by fear of the unknown as much as excitement. Bound by their swollen bodies that had seemed a long way from the desirable blooming, bonded by talk of intermittent incontinence and depressingly low sex drives.

A sound emitted from the baby monitor. They all froze and listened. Collectively holding their breath, they waited to see if it was a sleepy murmur, or a precursor to a full-on wail. “That’s Ridley,” they chorused in a whisper.

Close enough for them all to recognize each other’s baby mews. Lexi and Carla turned to Jennifer. She was perhaps the most anxious mother of the three. Ridley was the result of four rounds of IVF. All the babies had been wanted, of course, but Jennifer had waited the longest. Lexi hoped Jennifer wouldn’t dash upstairs to see her son. He’d most likely go back to sleep if left alone. All three babies were in the same room, two in travel cots. Chances were, Emily would sleep through if Jennifer did go in the room, but Megan would almost certainly wake and wail. They waited a beat. Nothing. Relieved, they smiled at one another. Then, suddenly, there was noise at the front door. Baritone laughter and chatter. The men back with the food. It was somehow primal and satisfying. The women leaped to their feet. Opened the door. Hushing their husbands, they began dashing around the kitchen, hunting out plates, cutlery, trays.

“Did you watch the lottery?” Jake asked as he landed a light kiss on the back of his wife’s neck. He was comfortable with giving public displays of affection. He fancied his wife like mad, even when she had baby food in her hair and hadn’t managed to put makeup on for a week. He liked to show his desire. Lexi smiled at Jake, paused for a fraction of a second and leaned her head back to rest against his.

“No, I missed it. I was helping Carla out, putting Megan down.”

“We caught it, though,” said Carla. “Sadly, we did not become millionaires this week.”

“Did any of our numbers come up?” asked Patrick.

“No, not one,” replied Carla with an air of amusement. This wasn’t a surprise. They’d been playing the lottery for about four months and they’d never had a number come up. It had become a running joke between them that they were defying the odds in managing to be so unlucky. Jennifer reached for the kitchen roll and efficiently snapped off six squares. They didn’t bother with napkins. It only caused more laundry and they were long past the stage of feeling they had to try to impress one another. In fact, they had simply skipped that stage. It was hard to be the sort of person who might impress guests when all your conversations centered around cushion rings for piles and putting cold cabbage leaves in your bra to ease the pain of cracked nipples.

“I’m not resigning on Monday then,” laughed Fred.

“No, darling, you’re not,” said Jennifer, playfully nudging her husband in the ribs. “So, make yourself useful and open another bottle of wine.”

The babies all slept through until it was time to carefully carry them home. The parents drank five bottles between them. More than they’d had for a while, but not as much as they once used to put away. Luckily, they all lived close to one another, and no one had far to walk, just a few minutes up the road. Lexi and Jake stood at the door, waving their friends off. The couples excitedly whispered plans for the next meetup and tried to smother the drunken laughter that erupted from one or the other of them. They all felt light-headed. Lighthearted. Lucky. As they closed the door behind them, Jake pulled his wife into a hug. He kissed the top of her head. He didn’t try