‘She’s constantly due!’ Shelly said through gritted teeth. ‘She never finishes a bottle, she screams as if I’m pouring acid down her throat instead of milk…’ The young mother bit back angry tears as her baby lay on the mattress, screaming. ‘I know she’s got reflux, I know it will get better.’
‘Okay,’ Nick said, and when Shelly didn’t, Alison started to dress the baby again. She waited for him to suggest she get a bottle, that he observe the babe feed, or a little bit more of what had taken place on and off for the last four hours, but he did none of that. He gave a brief smile and nodded and said he’d be back in a moment as Shelly blew out a long breath.
‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Alison said, as the baby’s screams quadrupled. ‘Here,’ she said, when Shelly sat down beside the cot and put her head in her hands, ‘would you like me to take Casey for a little walk? I’ll see if I can find out what’s happening.’
Casey did stop crying, the motion, the bright lights, the activity all distracting her enough as Alison walked through the department and found Nick perched back on his stool.
‘What’s happening?’
‘She’ll be admitted,’ Nice said. ‘I’ve just paged the paed reg.’
‘He’s happy for her to go home and be seen in Outpatients…’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Nick said. ‘Which means that she’s going to be admitted.’
And he told the paediatric reg the same when he picked up the phone. Yes, he was friendly and perfectly reasonable at first, and then Alison got her first glimpse of a different Nick, an extremely assertive Nick who, despite the smile and the easygoing banter, took his job very seriously and would not be argued with.
A Nick who was going to go far.
‘It’s not even an option,’ Nick said, turning his pen over and over between the desk and his fingers, clearly in no rush. ‘She can be transferred to another hospital if there are no beds here, but I’m not happy to send her home, so either ring your intern and tell her to come and do the paperwork, or I can ring your consultant to discuss it further. But whatever comes of it, this baby isn’t going home.’
‘That told them,’ Alison said.
‘I don’t see why everything has to be an argument—it’s the same everywhere,’ Nick added. ‘I know there are hardly any beds, I know she’s not acute, but.’ He glanced down towards the bay. ‘I’m going to have a word with Mum.’
He was nice and practical and explained that Casey should be monitored and was upfront about Shelly’s tension. ‘We need to be really sure we haven’t overlooked anything and if everything checks out, we need to make sure you get the support you need with Casey.’
He just dealt with things, without fuss or drama, and he didn’t moan as he did so.
‘He’s nice, that doctor,’ Shelly commented as Alison took her up to the ward, the porter wheeling the mother and baby in a chair.
‘He is,’ Alison agreed, and then she remembered.
She was having dinner with that nice doctor tonight.
Taking the bus simply wasn’t an option. By the time she had taken Shelly up to the ward and dashed back, it was already well after nine and she’d missed her bus, and as much as Nick might be expecting her to change quickly and dash back out, and as much as Alison wanted to look as if she’d changed quickly and dashed back out, there was no girl facing such a prospect who would. Which was why, despite now being a responsible, soon-to-be homeowner, Alison splurged on a taxi, though she made sure that it dropped her off at the end of the street to avoid even more questions from her mum.
‘Out?’ Rose frowned as Alison flew in the door.
‘For dinner,’ Alison said. ‘To celebrate getting the flat.’
‘Who with?’
‘Friends from work,’ Alison said, and it wasn’t a lie, she consoled herself as she dashed up the stairs. It was just a slight exaggeration, or rather playing the situation down, because friends from work was safe, a friend from work a bit different.
A male friend from work.
A gorgeous, blond, funny, sexy, ‘here for a good time, not a long time’ male friend from work.
Getting ready for Nick was rather like getting a patient quickly prepared for Theatre. Alison went through a rapid mental checklist, cleaning her teeth, shaving her legs, even cleaning her ears, body lotion, perfume, subtle make-up, hair gloss, nice underwear, really, really nice underwear—not that he’d be seeing it, but just because, because, because.
She was simply meeting a friend from work, Alison told herself over and over as she trawled through her wardrobe till the contents lay on a heap on her bed, wondering how she could have nothing to wear when her entire bed was covered. She settled for a pale grey tube skirt that she’d had for ever and a cheap but cheerful top she’d bought the previous week, pulled on some bracelets as she dashed downstairs, wished her mum goodnight and flew down the street, rather surprised to find Nick waiting for her at the end.
‘Don’t want you walking on your own.’
‘I do it all the time,’ Alison said.
‘You look nice.’ His eyes told her that he meant it.
‘Oh.’ She gave a casual shrug, one that said it had been no effort at all! ‘Thanks.’
He was just a friend, Alison told herself as he went to kiss her on the cheek.
Or maybe not, because very deliberately he avoided her cheek and met her mouth, and it was slow and deliberate and its meaning was clear, crystal clear, that this was more than just friendship.
And for Nick it was confirmation too.
He felt first her hesitancy, her guardedness and then he felt what he knew, or rather had guessed at. Felt this gathering of passion on full lips and despite self-issued warnings he wanted to unleash it.
‘Just so we don’t spend the whole night wondering,’ Nick said, and pulled back, even though he wanted more. And she smiled because now, instead of wondering, she knew.
So she kissed him, just to confirm it, and despite Nick’s best-laid plans, now they would spend the whole night not just wondering but wanting too, because one taste of his tongue and Pandora’s box opened and it was passion that slithered out. Alison could feel the press of brick wall on her back, feel the silk of his hair on her fingers, and ten doors from prison he turned the key and she flew, her body just flew to his, met his, wanted his, and she’d never kissed or been kissed like this, his hands on her hips and his mouth drinking hers. And it was absolutely right that he stop, that he look into her eyes, pupils so dilated he might have put in atropine drops, and she watched him taste his own lips, taste her again and try to get his breath.
‘Let’s eat,’ Nick said.
Let’s not, Alison wanted to reply as his forehead met hers as they rested just a moment to regroup, because, as Alison had just found
