truth, because aside from work, aside from the age difference, a relationship between them was the last thing he could consider now. There was so much hurt, so much blackness in his soul, he couldn’t darken such a lovely young thing with it. ‘We’d never work.’ He turned to her.
‘I know,’ Ruby said, because, well, they couldn’t. ‘You’re going to stop for a burger on the way home, aren’t you?’
‘Probably.’ Still he looked at her. ‘Are you going to go in tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ruby admitted.
‘Try talking to your friends,’ Cort said. ‘You don’t always have to be the happy one.’ He saw her rapid blink. ‘If they’re real friends—’
‘They are,’ she interrupted.
‘Then you can turn to them. Go on in,’ he said.
‘Don’t I get a kiss?’
‘Ruby, please …’
‘One kiss,’ Ruby said. ‘Just one …’ And she made him smile. Not a big grin, but there was lightness where there had been none. ‘Then you can go back to ignoring me.’
‘I’m ignoring you now,’ Cort said, and went to turn on the engine.
‘Just a kiss on the cheek.’ Ruby’s hand stopped him. ‘End it as friends.’
He leant over and went to give her a peck, just to shut her up perhaps, but his lips had less control than he did and they lingered there. He felt her skin and her breath and she felt his, felt the press of his mouth on her cheek and then his lips part and he kissed her skin, traced her cheek with his mouth and traced it again. He held her hair and then removed his mouth and kissed her other cheek till she was trembling inside and her mouth was searching his cheek. If her friends were kneeling up on the sofa, watching, they might wonder why they were licking cheeks like two cats, but it was their kiss and their magic and she wanted his mouth so badly that torture was bliss.
‘‘Night, then,’ Ruby breathed, and she turned to go then heard the delicious clunk of four locking car doors. She turned to him, to the reward of his mouth and a proper goodnight kiss.
And as it ended, he did the strangest, nicest thing. He pulled down her top just a little, and kissed the top of her chest, just above her breast but not on it, he really kissed that little area, so hard and so deep that as she pressed into the seat, as her hands buried themselves in his hair, she thought she might come, and then he lifted his head to hers.
‘I missed that bit last time,’ Cort said, and it would be so easy to accept the invitation in her eyes, to follow every instinct and step inside, except their one night together would turn into two and that was more than Cort was ready for.
‘Now, you really had better go.’
‘I had,’ Ruby said, because getting involved with the senior registrar of the department she was struggling so much in wasn’t the most sensible mix.
Sensible.
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ Ruby mused. ‘I mean, it wasn’t supposed to be this good.’
Cort gave a very wry smile. ‘You make a terrible one-night stand,’ he said, and it was very much a compliment, because she was more in his head than she was supposed to be.
‘So do you,’ Ruby said.
And that was that.
It had to be.
‘WHAT time do you call this?’
They were all sitting at the kitchen table, three witches around a cauldron, three mothers to answer to, but Ruby loved them all.
‘I just went out for dinner.’
‘With?’ Jess demanded.
‘Cort,’ Ruby said, ‘but it was just dinner.’
‘This morning it was supposed to be just one night.’ Ellie beamed. ‘And now dinner. It sounds like …’ Ellie always did this, an eternal Pollyanna. Cort could have simply been giving her a lift home and she’d have them walking down the aisle in a matter of weeks, but Ruby halted her there.
‘He’s a nice man,’ Ruby said. ‘But it’s not going to turn into anything.’
‘Why not?’ Ellie asked.
‘Because it can’t,’ Ruby said.
‘You look happier,’ Tilly said, and Ruby smiled and nodded just as she always did. She really didn’t need to trouble them with it, because she’d made her mind up that she was going back to do her shift tomorrow, but Ruby took a deep breath because as much as Cort was on her mind, he wasn’t the only thing, and maybe her friends did have a right to know. After all, she’d expect it from them.
‘There was a problem at work today. That’s why he took me out. I didn’t just come home because I was upset. I ran off in the middle of my shift.’
‘Because of Cort?’ Ellie asked.
‘No! I ran off because I hate it there. I mean, I really hate it there and they’re talking about making me repeat it …’ She was close to tears as she said it, more than close to tears because she had to keep sniffing them back. Stupidly she kept saying sorry and trying to smile and apologise for how she felt, but there were arms around her, and the shocked voice of Tilly.
‘Ruby, why on earth haven’t you said?’
‘I just …’ Because she was the positive one, the one who told them all over and over that they could lift their mood and change their energy. Yet it wasn’t that, it was more that she didn’t want to trouble them with this, didn’t want to burden them with her problems.
‘I couldn’t face another day like today, and who’s to say it won’t happen again? Or worse,’ Ruby said, though she couldn’t really think of anything that could be worse. ‘Sheila’s going to fail me if I don’t pick up. Then I’ll have to repeat the placement and I can’t.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘I cannot repeat it.’
‘Then you can’t fail.’ Jess was firm. ‘How long have you got left there?’ She went over to the calendar and checked Ruby’s shifts. ‘You’ve only got tomorrow left on days, the rest of your shifts are agency on the psych ward …’
‘Then I’ve got nights.’ Ruby crumpled. ‘It’s bad enough during the day.’
‘I’m on nights that week,’ Tilly said. ‘I’ll make sure we have our breaks together.’
‘I’m on an early tomorrow,’ Ellie offered. ‘And if I can get away, we can meet in the canteen on your break. If I can’t then Jess will. We’ll get you through this, Ruby.’
‘I know.’ Ruby smiled, because that was what they
