Time and Space

Chapter 1

She was swiping through pictures of them taken as a couple from his slimmer days. He was sat next to her on the couch, enjoying a pint of ice cream, a nightly ritual.

“This was a good one.” She showed him her phone.

“How many months ago is that?” he asked.

“You mean how many pounds?” She glanced at his belly, but resisted the urge to give it a pat.

“That’s strange for a unit of time,” he replied.

“Not in my book,” she said, trying to think of her reasons, knowing he would probably ask, like the academic he was.

“Explain your reasoning.” He turned to look at her.

He was as predictable as his weight gain, given his habits.

“Too many to mention,” she tried his patience.

He scraped at the bottom of the pint of ice cream with his spoon. “Try me,” he said, looking across at her.

“Well,” she said, finally falling into temptation and placing her hand on his belly. “It took at least forty pounds until you weren’t embarrassed by eating ice cream any more. And then another thirty.” She tapped the side of the empty pint in his hand. “For this to become a nightly ritual.”

“I was just shy,” he said, trying to argue with her logic for the hell of it, before he continued, “To someone who always wanted to put on weight, eating ice cream felt kinda naughty, you know?”

“It is kinda naughty.” She winked at him. “When you’re doing it right.” She puffed out her cheeks.

“Isn’t this not naughty?” he asked, showing her the empty pint. She took it from his hand and inspected the empty container with her appraising gaze.

“This didn’t fill you up, am I right?” she asked, raising her head to look up at him.

“I could eat more,” he reasoned. “But I don’t want to be greedy.”

She prodded his belly and winked at him again. “You passed ‘this guy’s greedy’ ten pounds ago.”

He shifted awkwardly and tried to pull down his t-shirt, but it was already outgrown.

“See?” she continued, smiling at him. “Pounds are perfect as a unit of time. I win.”

He rolled his eyes at her lovingly. “I suppose I need to go get another pint?”

“Yes,” her eyes lit up and she leant over to shake his belly encouragingly. “Let’s put you into a new time zone tonight.”

“Ha!” He laughed at her humour, and got up from the couch, with more effort than had been the case a few pounds ago, but she resisted the urge to point that out. “I don’t suppose you can change the past too?” he asked, waving his hand. “With your new unit of time wizardry.”

“Nope.” She grinned at him. “I can only help with ‘personal growth’.” She picked up her phone quickly and scrolled to her online grocery order receipt. “But I can confirm that I can now predict the future,” she found the line she was looking for, “because I added more ice cream to our grocery order this week.”

“You’re the Nostradamus of our age,” he quipped back at her.

“Not quite,” she said, again swiping at her phone. “You’re actually five pounds early on my prediction of when I could convince you to try a second pint of ice cream.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” He curtsied mockingly, and turned for the door.

“No need to apologise,” she said, then wolf-whistled. “Because those love handles look mighty good from here … And will look even better in five pounds’ time.”

He slapped his ass jokingly. “Cool it, Nosty,” he shouted back down the hallway as he made his way to the kitchen, with a hunger that was growing like never before.

“I can’t promise that if you eat that second pint!” She shouted back at him, then nestled herself up on the couch and made a note of this most posthumous date on her phone.

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