"Sam, how do you survive?" I ask, straightening up having been staring into his fridge for the past five minutes. I've got major cravings and I will happily eat a cow if it crossed my path but Sam literally has nothing in his fridge- eggs, milk and a bit of cheese to go with the rotting mixed peppers but nothing edible. Turning to face him, I catch the end of a shoulder shrug as his lips pull into a downward frown. "Like, seriously, Sam, you have no food of any kind in this house. I'm surprised you haven't wasted away yet."

"I eat," he protests. When I scoff, he sighs and gives me a dismissive wave of his hand. "Why are you even raiding my fridge? You're here to help to help me get ready."

Putting aside my tummy grumblings, I walk over to where Sam's munching on some treats I'd brought with me and grab his hand, pulling him behind me as I lead us up to the master bedroom. It was still strange that Sam no longer lived with me but I'd made sure to visit him often enough that I was more than familiar with the layout of his house. 

The bedroom was strangely tidy and not at all how I remembered his room at my flat looking like. When he lived with me, he was the messiest housemate I'd ever had but as soon as he was in his own space and didn't have anyone to clean up after him, he was suddenly Kim and bloody Aggie. Wait, actually, he probably has a team of cleaners... that would make more sense. 

Not caring enough to actually ask him about it, I deposit Sam and his pâtisserie box on the bed and quickly go to his walk-in-closet. For a boy, he's got a boatload of clothes, more than I'm prepared to go through in the quest to help him choose an outfit. While he's rambling on and on about something boring outside in the bedroom, I take my phone from my pocket and search through the contacts until I find Sophie's name in the list. Hitting the green call button, I hold the phone up to my ear and wait until the ringing stops.

"Well, g'day, little sister," Sophie's voice speaks down the line. "How may I help you today?"

Rolling my eyes, I thank the heavens that Sophie is currently on the other side of the world because if she was in London, the fact that I'm calling her right now, would be enough to get her running over here and my patience is becoming ever more limited as my pregnancy progresses. Honestly, just seeing the colour green is enough to send me into a rage these days. 

"Hi, Soph," I say as I take a step away from the rail of shirts and let my eyes scan the rest of the wardrobe. "Sam has a date tonight with... someone... that's not important but I, uh... crap, I don't remember what I needed you for."

Aside from my increased lack of patience, I've now entered the phase of my pregnancy where I have permanent baby brain, you know, where you forget practically everything. On Thursday night, I woke up at two am and made my way to the kitchen only to get there and not remember why I'd even got out of bed. The confusion was becoming too much and the fact that I wasn't on my A-game was horrendous, so much so that it made me want to burst out crying all the time. 

"I hate being pregnant," I grumbled, feeling the tears stinging my eyes. 

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Sophie stupidly said. I could hear the humour in her voice but until she was going through all of this, so couldn't pass judgement on it. And the day she does end up going through this, I will take great joy in telling her that it's 'not that bad.' "Ok, so you're at Sam's house, yeah? Where exactly in Sam's house are you?"

"Wardrobe."

"Were you calling me to help you choose an outfit for Sam, by any chance?" Sophie queried.

"Probably," I answer, shrugging my shoulders. "That would make sense. Right, so he has lots of shirts and jeans and not a lot of shoes. God, how am I supposed to help him choose an outfit? Sophie, I must say, going to New York this weekend was not a good decision. It was a bad decision. Terrible! How dare you leave me to deal with stuff like this? I should totally make Emma Godmother to this baby. You are so irresponsible!"

Sophie laughed. "God, you make a terrible preggers lady," she tells me. I could just imagine her rolling her eyes at me before doubling over, clutching her stomach as she laughed at my predicament. "Charlotte, I'm going to do you a massive favour, alright? I'm going to send my protgégé over to assist you in picking out a date worthy outfit for Sammy. I'm also going to ignore the fact that you're choosing Emma over me. As for coming to New York, Charlotte, it's the Met Gala. The Met. Gala. I can't not not be here. I'm going to hang up now but rest assured, help is on its way. Now, go lie down and eat a macaron or something. You'll be fine."

When the line goes dead, I force the phone back into my pocket and follow Sophie's instructions. Returning to the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed next to Sam, dip a hand into the pâtisserie box to retrieve a macaron and bite down on it before throwing myself backwards and curling up and bringing my knees up to my chest. Mimicking my position, Sam lies down next to me and places the box between us, allowing me to take as many sweet treats as I wanted. 

Since Sam moved out, I hadn't seen him as often as I would like. Before, I saw him every day, but now I was lucky if I saw him once a week, not that it had been that long ago since he moved out. Seeing as he's been busy with the art gallery as well as cramming for finals, I was really excited when he called this morning, asking if I was free to hang out. My happiness was short lived because as soon as I turned up on his doorstep an hour ago, he told me that he didn't have long as he was heading out on a date tonight. 

I frowned at his announcement; after his break up with his ex-fiancée-slash-girlfriend, Sam had sworn off women so to hear that he was meeting another woman for dinner confused the hell out of me. Having witnessed the first Sam-Jasmine break-up, I've been super protective of him. I wasn't all too thrilled that I hadn't vetted his new fancy lady. What if she was psychotic? Or what if she was a mean girl? Or, God forbid, what if she was a Lib Dem supporter? 

"What time are you going out tonight?" I ask, planning something in my mind. "Also, what is the girl's name?

"At seven," Sam answered. He gave a small little laugh and shook his head awkwardly against the mattress of the bed. "Her name is Ioana Ionescu. I told you all this earlier, Char."

Nodding, I contort my body slightly so that I could grab my phone from my back pocket and quickly pull up all my social media accounts, searching for Ioana Ionescu. Facebook came up with a few random women with the same name so I closed that page down and moved on to Twitter. Again, not particularly reliable, unless she was known as IONESCUIOANARO. Instagram wasn't much better but having gone through all the accounts Sam followed, I finally found an IIonescu that looked promising.

"Huh," I commented, shocked by the profile photo that matched the account name. I clicked through and went down her photostream, scanning each picture carefully until I landed on one that made my eyes narrow. "Really, Sam? She's a teenager!"

Sam's dark Courtenay eyes quickly darted to meet my stare. "Wha- How... Charlotte, you did not Google my date, did you?" His hand made swift work of snatching my phone from my hand, scanning the page that was open, before passing it back to me. "She's in my Economics class and she's actually twenty-one. She's Romanian."

Sam proceeded to give me the lowdown on his date, even going so far as to tell me where they were going. I teased him that he'd given me all the details I'd need to stalk him on the date but he didn't seem worried. In fact, he didn't seem at all worried about any of it. When I questioned him on his lack of seeming enthusiasm, he simply told me that he wasn't putting all his eggs in one basket when it came to women anymore. If the date went well, they'd go on another but if tonight was a disaster, then it wasn't meant to be. 

"It's not like we're taking it seriously," Sam says, licking the crumbs of a éclair from his thumb. "She's not long out a relationship and after Jasmine, I'm not looking for anything serious, either. We're going to have fun and see where it goes."

"Yeah, but-" My words were cut off when the doorbell rang. I didn't move to answer the door because let's be honest, it's not my door to answer. Still, from the way Sam was looking at me expectantly, I knew better than to think he was going to get up, walk down the stairs and greet his visitor. With a heavy sigh, I force myself to sit upright and skip down the stairs. I just hoped whoever Sophie had called upon as backup was half decent. If they brought some food with them, too, that'd be good. When I finally reached the door and pulled it open, I frowned. "Really? She called you?"

My cousin, Keira Delaney, beamed sadistically at me. "Hello, Charlotte. Wonderful to see you. Did you get fat?"

Knowing that she was only saying it to piss me off, I didn't give her the satisfaction of replying. Instead, I moved aside and allowed her to pass me. Like myself, Keira knew her way around this particular house because before Sam owned it, it belonged to my brother-in-law, Daniel; he and Sophie had lived here before they bought their marital home and we'd visited on more than one occasion. Being younger and not pregnant, Keira managed to get up the stairs quicker than I did and was already rummaging in Sam's wardrobe before I re-entered the bedroom and took up my place on the bed again. 

"Did Sophie really have to send Keira?" Sam huffed. He was as much of a fan of my ballsy Irish cousin as anyone else was. I think the only people that could stand to be around her was Sophie, Keira's boyfriend, Logan, and now Martha. We heard Keira shout something from the wardrobe but we chose to ignore it. Instead, Sam's amused eyes fell back on me. "Thursday night was Poker Night."

"Yeah, and?"

"Fletch was there," Sam said in a sing-song voice. When I ignored him, he nudged me with his foot and laughed. "He said some pretty, uh, fresh gossip."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "Gossip?"

"Apparently, you like him," Sam announced. He opened his mouth to say something more but was interrupted by Keira, who was now stood in front of us, holding up a crisp white shirt and a navy blazer. Sam shook his head at the proposed outfit. "We're not going anywhere that fancy."

"Well, where are you going?" Keira asked, clearly aggrieved that her choice had been dismissed. "You're not giving me much to go on here, Sammy."

Sam briefly explained to Keira where he was taking Ioana and armed with the details, Keira disappeared back into the wardrobe. "Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Sam continued when he turned back to me. "You like Fletch, huh?"

"I-"

"Ok, this is the one!" Keira's voice interrupted the flow of the conversation once again. In her hands, she held up a blue slim fit shirt and a pair of olive coloured trousers. "I've set out a white t-shirt for you to wear underneath and the dark grey sneakers that I found in a box in the corner of the wardrobe. Now, skedaddle, Sammy. I need to get Charlotte home now."

I frowned. "Why do I need to get home?"

Keira beamed. "Because I've got to get you ready for your date."

"What date?" I asked, mightily confused. When Keira backed out of the room without answering, I jumped up from the bed and followed her out into the hallway. Realising that I hadn't bid Sam farewell, I ran back into his room and gave him a thumbs up gesture. "Good luck on your date tonight, Sam. Text me later to tell me how it went."

"Sure," Sam nodded. "As long as you text me to tell me how your date went."

"Mhm," I absentmindedly agree. Suddenly it dawns on me that maybe Sam knows something about this date that I'm apparently going on. "About that, what do you know about it?"

Sam winks at me. "Wouldn't you like to know. Goodbye, Char."

Hi! How was your week?

Ok, so apparently, Charlotte has a date! I wonder who it will be with...

Do you like the added bonus chapters in the middle of the week?

I purposely didn't write an A/N for this weeks bonus chapter just to catch you all out. 

Next week's update (or maybe the week after) will be Charlotte's 20-week scan, which is usually the one that tells you what the baby's gender is. Here are 2 questions for you-

Boy or girl?

But more importantly, will I be nice enough to tell you? I may just keep you guessing until the end when the baby makes its entrance!

Also, thank you all for commenting on the names from last week's update- all I'm going to say is this- no one has commented on the chosen boy name or the 2 final girl names. Yay!

Last thing- any budding writers out there who think they could produce a One Shot for this story? Let me know if you think you're up for it! If there's enough interest, then I think I'll set up a competition.

Love to you all!

Sarah, xx