"Decided on what toppings we are having yet?" I ask with an impatient sigh to follow. I'm hungry. Soooooo hungry! But my annoyingly indecisive friend is taking half a lifetime to choose what pizza we are going to order online.

"It's a toss up between ham and pineapple or ham and mushroom." Narrowing her eyes on the menu, Hetty is trying to hurry up with her decision as she knows how grouchy I get when I'm deprived of food. "God, I would give anything to tuck into a spicy beef one, but this little dumpling wouldn't like it all." Lovingly, she is now rubbing her adorable seven month old pregnancy bump before smiling up in my direction, referring to the horrible heartburn she has been getting a lot of just recently.

"Don't worry, H....I'll treat you to a spicy beef one once you've pushed that little form of human torture from out of your vagina." I tease her, chuckling as I do because it's my way of getting back at Hetty for making me wait longer for my food.

"I can assure you, B, I won't be feeling a thing. I have written down every form of pain relief into my birth plan. Dumpling won't be hurting any of its mumma's bits."

"Well, I've heard that giving birth is much like shitting out a really big pineapple, so maybe you should just go for the ham and mushroom pizza, instead?"

Throwing one of my velour cushions at me, Hetty's face is now a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "Remind me again why I'm even still your friend?"

"Because you like my dry sense of humour, my opinionated point of views and my faithful disposition?" Is my very playful answer, whilst hugging onto the cushion that she only just threw at me.

"There's that, plus the fact that you're buying this week." Hetty cheekily then grins. "Okay, ham and mushroom it is, then!"

While I'm starting to tap in the order on my phone, Hetty begins to thoughtfully start stroking her belly. "The nearer I'm getting to my due date, the more scared I'm getting."

Looking away from my phone, my eyes are soon looking up at my lovely but worried pregnant friend. We have been joking about her pregnancy ever since she first told me about it when she was twelve weeks gone, but I think the jokes are beginning to wear thin now that the birth date is getting ever closer. "Hetty, both you and Will have totally got this! You are both the most prepared first-time parents that I have ever known!"

"B, we are the only first-time parents that you've ever known?"

Shrugging a little, I concede with a knowing smile. "True, but I still know that you've both totally got this." Then, I happily confirm our pizza order.

"Just you wait until you go through this. You can go to all of the antenatal classes, you can read a whole bunch of books about it, you can talk to loads of different people about their experiences, but ultimately, it's the unknown that you're going into." Hetty is looking very distant, even scared, in her own thoughts of what is yet to come with her pending parenthood.

Gazing over at Hetty, I smile before speaking the truth. "You might not feel like you are ready, but you are, H. You have done everything right to prepare yourself and Will for that little dumpling in there." Now staring down at her swollen stomach, I smile some more. "You've done the birth plan, you've spoken to your midwife, the nursery is nearly finished, your hospital bag has been done about three thousand times and you have nipple and piles cream...you're good to go, hun."

Resting her head against my sofa, Hetty still looks so serious and vulnerable. "Do you really think I can do this...motherhood, I mean?"

Thinking back to conversations that both myself and Hetty have had in the past, they really no longer matter. "I know you can do this, and you'll do it wonderfully well." I smile assuringly her way, wanting my sweet friend to just forget the many discussions that we used to have about marriage and babies.

Hetty and I met at college. We met over a last bag of salt and vinegar Hula Hoops in the canteen. Both of our hands went into the wicker basket, both of us wanting that solitary packet of crisps. My hand accidentally grabbed hers, which made us both laugh. In the end, I said she could have them, and while she was paying for her food, Hetty asked me to join her and we ended up sharing those Hula Hoops. The rest as they say, is history. We became firm friends. She was studying Graphic Design, while I was studying Computing. Our friendship solidified over books, Warhammer and museums. She has always referred to me as B, short for Becca, and I have always referred to her as H, short for Hetty. I have a lot of business acquaintances, but Hetty is probably my one and only true friend. She gets me and I get her. We have always just rubbed along so nicely together. Just like me, H is passionately driven by her career and her personal goals—and getting married and having children was never factored into any of those goals.

That was what we used to talk about. We had many serious conversations about settling down and stuff, and it was something that we both couldn't see being in our futures. But when Hetty met Will through her work, all of her goals quickly changed. Over the course of two years, she fell in love with Will. Within another year, they had got married. Now, they are expecting their first child.

And I'm happy for them both, I truly am, but it hasn't changed any of my own personal goals. I still don't want children. I still can't envision myself getting married. I'll never say never, because Hetty herself has shown to me that our goals and expectations can and do change, but I just think I have already become too independent to fall in love and to ever want children.

I'm just not that lovey-dovey, maternal type.

I never have, nor never will be.

It's not who I am.

I'd rather be up to my eyes in data, software, cache and malware, than having to carry around some child inside of me for nine months, only to then give birth to it and forever have a saggy fanny, then to be expected for the tiny bugger to destroy what little of my small breasts that I do have by basically becoming a milking cow....nope, that's not for me at all.

Motherhood and marriage, I'm happy for Hetty to have both those things for herself. Yup, she can keep them.

"Anyway, cheer me up...tell me about Mitch Heston?" From out of nowhere, Hetty suddenly throws that whopper of a question at me.

"You heard he was at the school reunion, then?" It's not often I lose my composure, so it's real hard not to show that I have lost just a little bit of it, particularly in front of Hetty. It's not that I get all gooey and doe-eyed whenever Mitch's name is casually mentioned—it's just that in some strange and unfamiliar way, he does have a distant effect on me.

"I sure did. I think just about every local person has heard or seen that he went to that school reunion." Getting herself and her heavy pregnant belly into a more comfy position on my sofa, Hetty then happily continues. "So, did you see him? Did he talk to you?"

During our friendship, I have vaguely mentioned to Hetty only once that Mitch attended the same Secondary school that I was at. And when I say vaguely mentioned, it really was vague. I didn't even tell her about how annoying he used to be or how him and his friends always used to tease me, there never seemed to be any point in talking about it all. So with her bringing him up now, I still feel like I want to be just as vague. "Of course I saw him, it was pretty hard not to."

Waggling her dark brown eyebrows at me, Hetty is now being stupid. "Ahhh, so even my little ice queen noticed the very fine Mitch Heston, huh?"

"I'm not an ice queen!?"

"You're not exactly a warm fairy either, are you?" Hetty quips, with a half-hearted grin. "Okay, so it was pretty hard not to notice him?" She's now asking, but she's oh so teasing.

Sitting stubbornly taller, I nod. "That's right. What I meant by that, was that he was causing quite a reaction when he was at the reunion."

Hetty is blinking, nodding her head annoyingly slow with pursed and thoughtful lips. "Mhmmm...okaaaaaay...and?"

Stubbornly, I go on. "And, so that is why it was pretty hard not to notice him."

Rubbing her chin, her stare on me becomes more curious by the second. "And did he talk to you at any point in the evening?"

Okay, she's really annoying me now. I love her, but she is still so utterly annoying. "Briefly." That's all she's getting. There is no way in hell am I telling her about him apologising and then asking me out for a drink, and then about what happened at The Fort Lodge. Nope, no way in hell.

"Mhmmm...okay...and what was briefly said?" Hetty isn't giving up, not giving up at all.

"Just stuff." I say, huffing just a little.

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, just stuff."

"Like what stuff?" Hetty persists, with a smile now creeping up around the edges of her mouth.

"How are you? Nice to see you! See you around! That kind of stuff." I huffily state, feeling all of my composure beginning to evaporate from me.

"Yoooou like hiiiiiiiim!" Hetty sings it out, so stupidly and immaturely sings it out.

"I do not! I don't even know him! Annnnnd, he's crazily famous!" Excuses, fly from out of my mouth.

But Hetty, completely ignores them. "Rebecca Adams, I do believe you have developed a little crush."

Gasping, with my mouth dropping wide open, I grimace. "I do not have a crush!"

"You do!"

"I don't."

"You do!"

"I bloody don't!"

"You bloody well do!"

With that, I just look to the ceiling of my living room, wanting it to just beam me up to somewhere else. "I think your pregnancy hormones are making you delusional?" Ever so slowly, I bring my gaze back down to my annoying and heavily pregnant, and quite possibly, my soon-to-be-ex-friend. "I don't have a crush. Crushes are for teenagers."

Hetty just starts smirking, a continuous and goading kind of a smirk. "I know you. As soon as I mentioned Mitch Heston, you did that dippy chin thing."

"What dippy chin thing?" My voice suddenly becomes higher, pitched with perturbed alarm.

"When you like someone, your chin dips down and your eyes look to the ground because you're avoiding something or someone. As soon as I mentioned Mitch Heston, you did that dippy chin thing." Looking all pleased with herself, Hetty clasps her hands together high on her dumpling bump.

More perturbed. More alarmed. I am shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head at the very same time. "I don't do a dippy chin thing."

"You do." Hetty immaturely states.

"I don't."

"You do."

"I bloody don't."

"You bloody do."

Thank goodness, I feel like I have literally been saved by the bell. "That must be our pizza." Rising quickly from off my sofa, I'm keener than keen to just answer the door, if only to just end all talk of Mitch and my dippy chin thing.

"That was quick, wasn't it?" H says, looking pregnantly eager and ready for her ham and mushroom pizza.

Going out into the hallway, I hurry to grab our food from the delivery person. When I casually swing open the door, my throat and my heart instantly constricts to the unbelievable sight of Mitch Heston standing there on my doorstep. "Mitch? What are—"

Not allowing me to even finish what I was going to say, he just grabs my face and pushes me back further inside of my hallway, before my back is firmly pressed up against the wall opposite of the front door. "Don't say anything, I've travelled over five thousand miles because I really just need to do this!" Then, his lips smash against mine. His kiss is feverishly unrefined, almost brutish, but my mouth accommodates his aggressive and assaulting kiss. It accommodates it, because it wants it. God, it really does want it.

So, we kiss.

Impatiently.

Primally.

Crudely.

Lustily.

We just kiss.

Encircling his arms all around me, Mitch breathes in hard while his mouth becomes more gentle and more affectionate. Until, eventually prising his cushioned lips completely away from mine. "I hate unfinished business." Inhaling slow and controlled, he then smiles at me while keeping our faces so intimately close. "And you, Rebecca, you were unfinished business for me."

Staring into the blue eyes that I didn't think I would ever see again, not unless they had come to me in my most pleasurable of dreams, I am trying to think of something to say, I am also thinking whether or not I should just feverishly kiss him some more...sooooo much thinking going on!

"Well, I'd say that kiss was better than any ham and mushroom pizza, right B?" In the doorway, stands a delighted looking Hetty.

So completely caught up with Mitch and his thoroughly passionate kiss, I had completely forgotten that my very hungry and very pregnant best friend was still in my living room. Lowering my chin, I'm just smiling. I have been so utterly rumbled.

Mitch looks at me, also smiling, then with that knee-trembler of a smile that he possesses, he turns to use it on Hetty. "Hi, I'm Mitch...it's lovely to meet you." His hand is held out, charmingly waiting to meet with hers.

And my amused friend is more than happy for her hand to quickly connect with his. "I'm Hetty, her hungry and pregnant friend, it's a joy to meet you, Mitch."

What amuses me, maybe even charms me? Is the fact that Mitch doesn't seem bothered that Hetty has just witnessed him gloriously snogging my face off. He is acting so damn casual about it, you could be forgiven for thinking that he actually greets all women in that way. "How much longer you got to go?" Asks Mitch, his eyes now looking down at Hetty's pregnant belly.

Caressing it, H grins. "Well, after what I've just seen, I'm surprised I didn't go into spontaneous labour." She's now giggling, holding her stomach while she does.

But again, it doesn't faze Mitch. He simply turns to look at me, then holds out his hand because he wants me to take it. "Your friend here, she has already got me doing crazy things."

And just as crazy, I take hold of his hand, because I crazily so want to. "H, I just need to have a quick word with Mitch...we'll join you in a minute, okay?"

"Sure. Myself and dumpling both need to sit down, anyway." She smiles at us both, before manoeuvring her pregnant belly safely through the doorway of the living room. "Wide vehicle coming through!" She jokes, before disappearing back into the lounge.

Once alone, I pull Mitch into the kitchen, where we can both have a little more privacy to talk. "What are you doing here?" I'm delighted that he is here, but I'm just a little confused as to why he is here.

Slipping both of his arms around my waist, Mitch's smile branches out across his face. "I've not been able to stop thinking about you. I've been in LA, moment by moment thinking about only you, Rebecca Adams. I couldn't ignore it. I'm not the kind of man who gives up so easily...so, here I am."

"How did you get my address?" I ask, finding myself actually enjoying still being held around the waist by him.

Tilting his head slightly, Mitch grins some more. "Well, I know people, who know other people—"

"Who can find people...am I right?" Is my amused question to him.

Pulling me nearer to his body, he nods. "Right."

All at once, I am happy, flattered and still slightly stunned that Mitch is here. Here, in my kitchen, with his hands on my waist and a smile that is only for me. "So, what now?"

Leaning in to rub the tip of his warm nose against mine, his answer is said with an affectionately soft whisper. "First, you and Hetty have pizza, then you and I have the next 24 hours to decide what now?"