not empty, Cort thought as he squeezed his way back to the table, it just felt pointless, he decided as he sat down to wait it out.
‘We’re going to Adam’s,’ Geoff said a little while later, when Cort really was about to head for home. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Adam?’ Cort asked.
‘Adam Carmichael.’
‘Oh!’ He’d worked with Adam in the past and even if they kept only loosely in touch as Cort commuted between Melbourne and Sydney and Adam roamed the globe, working for Operation New Faces, Cort considered him a friend. ‘Is he back?’
Geoff didn’t answer. Everyone was drifting off and Cort was about to do the same, but that morning, before he’d pulled on the brown suit and chosen a lighter tie, he’d walked along a beach just a couple of suburbs from here and he’d made a promise, not to his sister, but to Beth, to say yes.
To live this life.
Except, now that he was starting to, Cort so did not want to be doing this.
One drink and he’d be out of there, Cort decided as they turned into Hill Street.
It was a nice house, Cort thought as Geoff opened the creaking gate. Sure, it needed a bit of work, but it was a lovely older building and just a two-minute walk from the beach. Who cared if it was in need of a little TLC?
There was a small decked area and the front door was open. Suddenly the music was turned on and wafted out to greet them, and as he walked in through the hall Cort wanted to turn around and walk back out, because there was a dangerous vision walking towards him.
She looked the same from the waist up as she had in the pub, though instead of a beer she was holding a glass of milk and a bag of pistachio nuts and her auburn, or rather titian, hair was now loosely clipped up.
He noticed, he really noticed, because if he didn’t then his eyes would flick down and he really didn’t want to notice that her sandals and skirt were off, that she was wearing lilac boy pants and that there was a gap between the top of them and her top, which showed a soft, pale stomach.
She’d been crying—her eyes were red and the tip of her nose was too.
‘Are you okay?’ her friend asked.
‘I’m fine, Tilly, just watching a sad movie. I didn’t realise there’d be a home invasion tonight—I’ll go and get dressed.’
She slipped past him and up the stairs and Cort headed through to the lounge—a large area with lots of sofas and magazines and a little pile of tissues. Emergency registrars sometimes made good detectives, because for reasons that shouldn’t matter to him, as someone handed him a beer, Cort put his hand on the turned-off television and confirmed what he suspected—it was cold.
And why should it even matter to him that Ruby was sitting at home crying Cort would rather not explore, he had more than enough troubles of his own to be dealing with.
No, he didn’t, Cort told himself, at least, not any more.
‘Where’s Adam?’ Cort asked Ruby’s friend.
‘He’s away.’ She smiled. ‘He’s hardly ever here …’ She must have seen him frown, and she took a moment to explain. ‘I’m Tilly, there’s Jess.’ She pointed to a blonde and then to another one. ‘And that’s Ellie.’
‘And …’ Cort started and then stopped, because what business of his was it if there had been a redhead in her underwear in their lounge just a few moments ago?
‘Oh.’ Tilly smiled. ‘There’s also Ruby—she’s the one who’s just gone to get changed. We rent the house from Adam.’
He was at a student nurses’ party.
He so did not need this.
Okay, they weren’t all students. Tilly was telling him now that she was a graduate midwife and that she’d had her first breech today, and as he tried to stop his eyes from glazing over as she went into detail, Cort decided to excuse himself and leave just the second that he could—he’d done enough ‘must get out more’ for one night.
He was just about to slip away unnoticed when Ruby came downstairs.
Whatever had been upsetting her had clearly been taken care of because there was no evidence of tears and she was back to happy now. She turned up the music and started dancing, and Cort was determined to leave, except she really was lovely to watch, all sort of loose limbed and free, and what’s more she was dancing her way over to him.
‘You look how I feel,’ Ruby said, because if ever someone didn’t want to be there it was Cort Mason. He belonged in that suit, Ruby had decided before their encounter today. He belonged behind a stethoscope, or peering down his nose at minions, except he hadn’t been like that today and she’d revised her judgement. Though she loathed Emergency and most of the staff that came with it, Cort wasn’t like the others, he was just aloof.
‘You look like I never would,’ Cort said in return, and he wasn’t sure if that made sense, but even without the hellish last five years, even a decade ago, when he had belonged at student parties, he’d been the boring one. He would never stand in a room and dance alone with others watching, had never been as free as she appeared tonight. She must have caught his words because she smiled up at him.
‘Takes practice,’ Ruby said, and she picked up one of the many little bowls that Tilly was dotting about the place and offered it to him. He should have just said no, should have made no comment, or just taken a handful, but he screwed his nose up at the Bombay mix, and maybe her attitude was somehow catching because a teeny, tiny corner of it seemed to have worked its way over to him.
‘I’d rather have some pistachios,’ Cort said, which told her he’d noticed her when he’d walked in.
‘Ah, no.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘They’re not to be put out for the general public, you get the Bombay mix. I’ve hidden my pistachios.’
‘Sensible girl,’ Cort said, and he wanted to pause time for a moment, have a little conversation with himself to ask himself if he was flirting. But he wasn’t, he quickly told himself, because, well, he just didn’t do that and certainly not with student nurses.
‘Not generally.’
‘Sorry?’ He was too busy thinking to keep track of the conversation.
‘I’m not generally considered sensible.’
‘So why?’ Cort asked, when really he shouldn’t, when really he should just leave. ‘Do you feel how I look?’
‘You first,’ Ruby said. ‘Why do you look like you’re about to head off?’
Cort didn’t answer.
‘Why should I tell you what’s upsetting me, only to have you leave five minutes later?’
‘Fair enough,’ Cort said, because what right did he have to ask her what was on her mind when soon he’d be out of there? Anyway, he knew she was in trouble with work, but would that really matter to a flighty little thing like her?
‘How
