if the Trust says no?’
She shrugged. ‘Then I’ll have to look for another job or go back to my old one, and you’ll have to put Tilly into childcare, but let’s just hope it doesn’t happen.’
There was a long silence, punctuated by the creak of the swings, and then he said, ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this, Em? Because I don’t want to set this all up and then you change your mind because it’s too big a commitment or you want your own space back—or even your old job, because it’ll be gone, so it has massive implications, especially for you. If we can do this, it’ll be great, but I want you to be absolutely sure before it goes any further because there’s no way back to where we are now, for either of us.’
She met his eyes, read the conflicting emotions of hope and concern, and shut the lid on her doubts.
‘I am sure,’ she said, to convince herself as much as him. She owed Jake so much, and if she could do this for him and make it work, it would go at least some way towards repaying him. She wouldn’t even think about failing, because it wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be.
His eyes held hers. ‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly,’ she said, her voice firmer now. ‘If the Trust says yes, I’ll move in with you properly and let my house, but in the meantime Zach will have a chance to get used to you before I need to leave him. Don’t worry, Jake. We’ll get there.’
‘We could split the house, if you’d rather. It’s easy with the bathrooms, I’ll just use the shower room, but if you want your own floor, or a separate sitting room—’
‘I don’t. If you do, just say the word and we can sort it out, but as I’ve told you, I like the company.’ She smiled at him. ‘And sure, you’ve got a few irritating habits, but I’ll just have to turn a blind eye to those.’
‘Irritating habits?’
His voice was indignant, but his eyes were smiling, and she stretched up and kissed his cheek and felt it dimple under her lips. He smelt of soap and Jake with a hint of chocolate muffin, and there was something vaguely disturbing about it.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll soon get you trained,’ she quipped, and gave Zach’s swing another little push while she tried to work out why her heart was beating just that little bit faster.
* * *
He downloaded the job-share protocol and applications forms from the Trust intranet once the children were in bed, and after they’d finished eating they sat at the dining table scrolling through all the endless pages.
‘I hate this kind of stuff,’ he muttered, as if she was having such a great time.
‘Whereas I just love it,’ she mocked, rolling her eyes. ‘Do you have a copy of your timetable?’
‘Yeah, I’ll print it and we can squabble over who does what. And don’t even think about dumping me with all the routine gynae.’
‘It says in the protocol—’ she began, but he threw a pen at her and disappeared to the study, leaving her grinning. She’d forgotten what fun he was to be around, even when he was grumpy. Forgotten what fun was, even, but her enduring memory of their time at uni had been laughter, and Jake had been at the centre of that, always.
It seemed so long ago now...
She was just reading through Points to consider when becoming a job-sharer when he came back, dropped three copies of the timetable and a packet of highlighter pens down in front of her and opened the fridge.
‘This calls for wine,’ he said, and sat down again with two glasses, the bottle they’d started last night and a giant packet of hand-fried crisps.
‘Right. Let’s do this.’
* * *
Three hours, the entire packet of crisps and most of the bottle of wine later, they’d thrashed out a workable timetable that gave both of them what they wanted, shared out the tasks equally and wouldn’t let any of the patients down, and they’d built in capacity for another three sessions.
He sat back, let his breath out in a whoosh and gave her a high five.
‘Sorted. Now all we have to do is write a load of appropriate twaddle about how well we’ve thought it through and what makes us think it’s not going to crash and burn.’
She chuckled and stood up. ‘Not tonight. Come on, let’s watch a bit of mindless TV and go to bed. It’ll still be there tomorrow and we won’t sleep if we don’t have a break from it.’
She was talking sense, but a huge part of him wanted to sort it now, because he knew it wasn’t twaddle and Ben had made it perfectly clear how important it was.
‘I bought chocolate earlier,’ she taunted, heading for the sitting room.
‘As if we haven’t just eaten enough rubbish. What sort?’
‘Oh, it’s healthy. Fruit and nut. Two of your five a day—and it’s dark chocolate, which is positively good for you,’ she said over her shoulder, and he dropped his pen, stood up and followed her.
‘There could be disadvantages to working with someone who knows me quite so well,’ he growled, plopping down onto the sofa beside her and picking up the TV remote. ‘Hand it over, then.’
* * *
He was up at five to fill in the application form, putting his case for wanting to job share and how he saw it working for the patients in his care, and he heard the stairs creak and Emily walked in in her pyjamas, hair tousled, one cheek rosy from having slept on it.
And looking as sexy as hell.
‘Tea?’ she asked, and he nodded, his head draining of coherent thought.
‘Please. With caffeine. Why are you up?’
‘To help you? I heard you go downstairs, and I had an idea you’d be doing this while the children are still asleep.’
He gave a wry grunt. ‘Absolutely. If we can, I want to give it to Ben today for his thoughts so we’ve got time to tweak it before he puts it to the Board tomorrow. Are you OK for me to go to work tomorrow, by the way?’
‘Of course I am. I have to be. It’s the new reality, Jake.’
She filled the kettle and came and sat down next to him, the drift of warm, Emily-scented air and the crazy pyjamas doing nothing for his concentration.
‘I’m a bit worried we might have a timing problem. I have to give eight weeks’ notice if I’m not going back to my old job after mat leave, which means by the end of next week, but if I hand in my notice there and they say no to the job share here, I could end up with a break in my continuous NHS employment and have to give back my maternity pay, and I just don’t have the money.’
He stopped thinking about her pyjamas and let his breath out on a long, low whistle.
‘I hadn’t realised you were so near the end of mat leave, but you’re right, that could be tight. I’ll make sure Ben knows, but as we don’t
