I could breathe again, and Jay brought me a strong coffee in a massive mug.
“Oh, perfect. Thank you.”
He smiled. “We don’t do caffeine much, but Claire loves her coffee and we made sure we bought a good machine so she could have whatever she wanted.”
He sat down next to her with easy confidence and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
It made me uncomfortable, the easy affection between them.
Happy couples often did that, and I wasn’t sure why.
“Hey, Jay, you okay if Nevaeh and I have an hour or so to chat?”
“Oh, yeah, cool. I’ve got some computer work to do. I’ll just be in my room if you need me.”
Jay walked away to a room off the lounge and shut the door.
“They all have their own rooms?” I asked, far too curious for my own good now.
“Sort of. They’ve kept their own bedrooms from before I came into the picture, but we’ve made the master suite our main room and we mostly sleep there together. But the men like having their own space, and when I go back to working nights, they’ll probably sleep alone then. There’s a fourth bedroom for the nursery too, which is nice.”
“That does sound nice, so much space.”
Claire glanced around. “Yeah, I kind of forget what it was like at my tiny apartment. I need to put it on the market soon.”
She was selling up? Already? That wasn’t very smart. She barely knew these guys.
“You’re planning on living here... forever?”
“Yeah, definitely. If I do sell the apartment, it’ll be to buy a bigger place in town, though. I like the idea of having somewhere to sleep after long shifts, but the apartment freaks the guys out, and I agree with them that a house would be better for all of us.”
That was better. I didn’t like the idea of Claire having nowhere to go if they broke up.
“Wow, sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.”
Claire nodded slowly. “Yeah, we kind of do.”
“What about work? Are you going to reduce your shifts… or?”
How could she want to give up working? After so many years of study, and struggling to become the best she could be? Claire was going to give it all up, for… men?
“I’ll have to come back slowly after my arm heals, and by then I may need to reduce hours because of my pregnancy, but you know… Work isn’t everything.”
I wanted to laugh, or cry—or both.
Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and found myself glaring at the woman opposite me.
“Maybe not for you, but it still is for me, Claire.”
She’d sold us out. And by us, I meant all the other single, work-minded women.
Claire cocked her head to the side, and I could almost see the bevy of questions whirling around in her mind.
“What’s up with you, Nevaeh? Why do I get the feeling that you want to tell me something?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I only came out here to visit and see how you were getting along after being away from work for so long. I kind of figured that you’d be going out of your mind with boredom.”
Claire cackled with laughter. “Oh, yeah, those were the days. When my whole world revolved around work, double shifts, and patients.”