She twisted to face me and stood right in front of me. So close I could feel her exasperated breaths. “You’re not at blame. Please tell me you know that. Promise me you understand.”
“I do, Quincy, but I was remaining objective. Remember?” I sighed as I cupped her face, tilting it up to mine. “I know you were trying to protect me. I love that, but you need to put your claws away from now on. I get that the situation with the parents upsets you, but it isn’t about you. Tell me you understand that.”
She nodded as her eyes rimmed with shining tears. “He’s going to die.”
“Maybe. Probably. But, that positivity you mentioned, have some. We need all we can get.” I traced her bottom lip with my thumb before I gave her a soft kiss.
Her sigh seeping between my lips.
“I was thinking that on Monday you could come over to my place and we could have that date?”
“I’d love to, but I have Pippa.”
“I know, I’ve already spoken to Gwen and she said she’ll stay the night.”
“The night?” I felt her perk up as a smile stretched across her face.
“Well, I thought we could watch a movie and have some food and wine…you don’t have to spend the night. We don’t have to do anything on that front.” I tugged her to me and kissed the top of her head before the lift doors opened and I let her go.
“I’d like that.” She smiled as she turned and walked in the opposite direction to me.
Quincy
I never minded Mondays, probably because it was just another day. It usually wasn’t the first day in my week, so I didn’t have that common grudge others had. Except that I’d started my impromptu shift at seven thirty this morning after one of the other consultants called in sick.
I’d had a pep in my step and way too many butterflies in my stomach with mine and Jamie’s date tonight. I’d been so looking forward to it…until I got called into theatre four hours ago when I was meant to be getting in a cab to his house. He’d been so great about me cancelling. I thought he’d at least sound disappointed. I thought he’d been as excited as I was after yesterday.
Yesterday had been the most amazing and frustrating day ever. We’d taken both of the girls out for brunch at some over the top hipster place where Jamie managed to get a table because he was friends with the owner’s brother. The girls loved their fancy pancakes, seeds and all, and even though I was normally happy to stick with the high street coffee shops or the little cafés everyone seemed to forget about, I was still drooling over them too. It’d been a little colder than usual for early November with sporadic rain spells, so we ended up spending the best part of our afternoon waltzing around the Natural History Museum. I’m not quite sure who loved it the most—Jamie or the girls? I actually think that their favourite part was the shop, with the whale exhibition a close second.
By the time we’d made it out of the museum the girls were so tired that when we’d offered to take them to the cinema, it’d been a resounding “next time”. Both Pippa and Molly had fallen asleep the moment we got in the cab home. It’d been one of the best days I’d had in a long time. Even though we often took the girls out together, it’d felt different knowing what was happening between us. We may not have openly held hands or kissed or done any of the normal things that other people did on dates, but the small stolen moments we’d had were us. They were perfect for us.
With yesterday and the high that I’d been on before I rushed in to theatre on a trauma call, I was left shattered to the point I couldn’t even sign my name straight. I’d just about managed to keep it together as I sat with the young girl’s parents. Explaining that everything that could’ve gone wrong had gone wrong for their child was painful and unfair. It made me angry because as her mother sat there with her arm in a sling and a few butterfly stitches above her eye, her daughter’s little body was laying on a theatre table cut, battered and shattered, waiting to be cleaned up and bagged.
I’d thought about going home, but I didn’t even have the energy to last the whole taxi ride there. So, I settled on one of the on-call rooms, the one that I always ended up in with its small bed and barely enough room to move. I checked my phone as I walked over and set it on loud again, just in case I fell into a deep sleep. I did not want to miss a page, especially considering how badly my surgery had gone. I should’ve known it was a bust, but instead I kept going, trying to plug every hole I could along with the vascular surgeon. Even though every time we did, we found another one. I couldn’t help but wonder what the car looked like and how her mother had been spared.
I opened the door and locked it behind me. I just about stopped myself from screeching when I turned around and Jamie was sat on the edge of the bed.
“Jesus, you frightened the life out of me.” I leaned on the door, trying to hold myself up. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, since you couldn’t make it to our date, I thought I’d bring it to you.” It was only when he gestured next to him that I saw his laptop and two wine glasses and a bottle of Appletizer next to it. “It’s not the amazing wine that your mum spent hours helping me pick, but I figured you’d love fizzy apple juice almost as much.”
My heart squeezed in my chest as his eyes ran over me from head to toe. His face softening as he searched mine.
“What if I’d gone home?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“What if I’d used one of the other rooms and some other poor unexpecting person walked in?”
“No one else likes this room, in fact, I don’t think anyone else uses it.”
“That’s why I like it. It’s probably one of the only beds that no one has used for anything other than sleeping.”
“I don’t know; people can be resourceful…”
“Can they now?” I couldn’t help but smile at the face he pulled.
I looked around him again and I was completely taken aback. No one had ever done something like this for me. It was so sweet and unexpected. I pushed myself off the door and walked over to the bed where I plopped down next to him. He wrapped his arm around me and cuddled me into him.