Soldier Boy Page 13

  She can’t think much of me. How strange it would be if she realised I was on her side.

  ‘What about this one? He looks cut,’ Melody begins. ‘What do you think?’ When Nell doesn’t answer, when she even doesn’t look at the screen, my sister’s gaze jumps between us. ‘I’ll read the bio to you, then. “James, 31. Looking for love. Our relationship should be easy and endless fun, like the classic game, Nintendo 64. And just the same, all our issues easily fixed by—p” ’

  ‘Blowing on it and shoving it back in,’ I interject flatly, address my feet before looking up. ‘Only a total wanker would use an unoriginal profile.’

  ‘You’ve read that before?’ Mel asks, more than a little put out.

  ‘A dozen times.’

  ‘People really do that?’ Nell asks, aghast. ‘Steal other people’s bios and stuff?’

  ‘Have you even looked what she wrote for your profile?’ At my retort, Nell’s worried gaze moves to Melody.

  ‘What did you say about me?’ she asks, her expression wary.

  ‘Looking for a badass because I already have a good ass.’ So I couldn’t resist. And the latter part is true.

  ‘Give me the phone,’ Nell says, shocked.

  ‘I didn’t write that,’ Melody argues, moving the phone out of Nell’s reach. As a tall girl, Mel has a pretty wicked wingspan. ‘What do you take me for? And why have you got to be such a dick?’ she spits in my direction.

  ‘Why spoilt the habit of a lifetime?’ I answer blandly before sending her a childish look. I’m only helping her cause. She knows the score. I’m not sure how she knows what’s gone on between Nell and me, but I’ll bet before she leaves this kitchen I’ll find out.

  ‘Give it to me.’ Palm up, Nell bends her fingers inwards in demand. Noting this time she’s serious, Melody hands over the phone.

  ‘I swiped left on the last one, but the next one looks good,’ Mel says, as the phone leaves her hand. “A muggle in the streets, a wizard in the sheets.” That’s got potential, hasn’t it,’ she adds eagerly. ‘And you like Harry Potter.’

  ‘Yeah, when I was twelve,’ Nell mumbles.

  ‘Let’s be honest.’ Ignoring the ball of cement that has currently taken up residence in my gut, I force a small smile into place. ‘All the cool kids are Potter heads.’ Nell mirrors my expression. It looks just as uncomfortable, but regardless, it still makes me want to Slytherin again. I’d settle for a cuddle right now. Actually, that wouldn’t be settling at all. It would be a privilege and one I can no longer allow.

  ‘He doesn’t look like a Potter-head,’ Mel’s adds, holding her hand over Nell’s as the pair consider the profile image of Malfoy Dickhead or whoever. ‘He’s not nerdy. He’s pretty hot.’ While Melody continues to stare at the profile, over the top of her phone, my gaze connects with Nell’s. She looks sad. Resigned.

  ‘You should give him a go, Penny.’ She winces at my use of this iteration of her name.

  ‘I think that’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all morning,’ my sister grudgingly responds. ‘Swipe right, Pen. Go on. You’ve got nothing to lose.’ All the while she speaks, Melody stares daggers at me.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not really sure I want to date.’

  ‘You’re not proposing marriage, for goodness sakes. Just saying you’d be open to chat.’

  ‘I don’t even know how this works!’ Nell almost yells.

  ‘He swiped right on your profile, you do the same, and if he’s as witty as his bio, you chat for a while. If he’s a complete knob, you don’t. That’s it. You’re not meeting him in a dark alley or tying yourself to him for life.’

  ‘Why are you so keen on me doing this now,’ Nell suddenly asks, her dark eyes swinging to Melody.

  ‘Because,’ my sister begins, resting one hand on her hip. ‘His bed hasn’t been slept in,’ she says, jerking her chin aggressively in my direction. ‘And your bedroom smells like sex. And that’s fine,’ she says, throwing up her arms. ‘You’re adults! You’re old enough to spell the word disaster! But I refuse,’ she continues, ‘refuse to be dragged into this fuckery. It will end in no good. I wash my hands of both of you.’

  And with that damning denouement, she stamps from the room.

  Chapter 18

  PENNY

  You should give him a go, Penny.

  I both wince and shiver as I recall Ben’s callous words, looking down unseeingly at the chart I hold in my hand. What was it Tammy just said?

  I’m back on dayshift, though not at my usual job. I’ve picked a couple of locum evening shifts up at XXX private Hospital over the next few weeks. I’m not hiding from Ben. Not much. More like preparing myself for him to no longer be around. I’m angry. No, I’m pissed! And I’m not sure why. I get what he said—I know he thinks his mansplaining makes sense, but it doesn’t. I get he’s frightened, but hell, I’m frightened to.

  I need to harden my heart to him. What else can I do? So I tell myself I’m not in love, that these things don’t happens so far. Maybe if I say it enough I might even begin to believe it.

  I’m so stupid for letting him in. Into my home. Into my heart.

  And I’m so stupid for letting his cool attitude and even cooler suggestion that I give him a go, I’m going on a date tomorrow with a dentist who has a great ass. According to his bio, at least.

  After Melody left on Sunday, I’d spent Sunday half-heartedly bantering back and forth over Tinder with Jarrod the dentist, just as a way to piss Ben off.

  You should give him a go, Penny.

  Oh, so I’m Penny now, am I?

  I wonder if he feels wretched or pleased that I’m now going out on a date with someone other than him.

  I don’t want to take you for dinner, Nell. I want you to be my dinner.

  Well, now neither of us will be eating!

  ‘You look like you’re having a mad conversation with yourself, girl.’ The sound of Tammy’s voice pulls me from my head.

  ‘What? Oh, I was just thinking.

  ‘I see you found the scrubs cupboard all right.’

  I look down at the blue ensemble I’m wearing. I might be in one of the poshest hospitals in the city, but childbirth is a messy business, whether your nightwear is labelled Agent Provocateur or Property of the Maternity Wing.

  This would explain why I’m in my second set of scrubs for the evening.

  ‘Hang on,’ I begin, my brain just catching up on her earlier words. ‘Did you just say . . . the staff call him Doctor Pussy?’ I can’t have heard that right, except Tammy appears to be nodding eagerly. ‘But why?’ I ask, a little horrified.

  Tammy opens her mouth, but an answer isn’t forthcoming. At least, not in her North London accent, but rather in a deep and cultured voice.

  ‘Care to have a guess?’

  The senior obstetrics consultant, aka my temporary boss, or Dr. Pussy as Tammy the midwife seems to think he’s called, places his elbow on the nurse’s station, his chiselled jaw supporting his hand.

  ‘Go on. Have a stab,’ he continues before turning a suddenly not-so-friendly gaze to Tammy. ‘You should run a book,’ he says,

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she almost whispers, sliding her paperwork from the desk. The squeak of her hospital grade shoes carrying her quickly away from, what I expect will turn out to be, a severe reprimand. The man is well dressed enough to be senior management. In fact, he’s well dressed and gorgeous enough to be just about anything. Plus, he has a gold Mont Blanc pen. I shove my chewed biro back into the pocket of my scrubs.

  ‘I mean, we are on a labour ward,’ he continues. ‘I get called it a lot, but I’ve never really found anyone who’ll say why.’

  Oh, no. That means . . . he’s Doctor Pussy? Surely not. He didn’t go there, did he?

  Is that irreverence or misconduct?

  ‘I . . . that is . . . ’ I’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. With the exception of the sound of the air currently escaping my flapping gums. I want to swallow my tongue along wi
th my earlier words. I’m not one for gossip—I don’t have the time or the energy. Yes, okay, I’m avoiding Ben, but I still need to earn enough to get the house in a state to sell. I can’t afford to bite the hand that feeds me. Or find out why the owner of said hand is referred to by the midwifery team as Dr Pussy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr P . . . Travers?’

  Shoot me now. Just. Shoot. Me. Put me out of my misery. This is what happens when you take locum shifts—extra shifts—on top of a regular workweek. And after spending most of your free time rolling around having sex. I’m so tired I can barely see, let alone make sense of what I’m saying.

  ‘Technically, it’s Mr Travers,’ the man adds in that smooth tone of his. Posh with a hint of something a little rougher. Scandinavian, maybe?

  And what is it with the UK medical profession? It takes at least fourteen years to get to the rank of consultant, and to mark the achievement, we get to go from being called doctor to plain old mister again. Or in my case, miss. If I ever make it that far. I’ve had my doubts recently.

  And what kind of senior consultant works overnight on a private ward, anyway? Doesn’t he have a “place in town” to go? Along with the cottage in the country and the villa he no doubt owns in the South of France? Doctors of his paygrade are supposed to be like the queen; only turning up at the last minute to cut the ribbon. Or cord, more appropriately. Most of his patients would be delivering on schedule at a much friendlier hour by a too-posh-to-push elective caesarean. And I mean posh—this is the hospital royal babies are frequently born.

  ‘Sir, I am so sorry. It was a momentary error in judgment—I meant no offence.’

  ‘I’m afraid sir isn’t right, either.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I repeat, this time in a completely different tone. Sir and Ma’am might not be as commonly used as back home, but I’ve never been told the address is wrong. Weird, yes. Wrong? Never.

  ‘The correct form of address is My Lord,’ he says, with a slight air of long suffering. ‘Sir is for someone much further down the peerage list. The bastard son of a Viscount or something,’ he says with a vague wave of his hand.

  Like a cartoon character, I shake my head, hoping to restart my exhausted brain. I have no idea what he’s saying, though I’m mostly certain he’s not flirting with me. Or trying to impress me. And then the realisation dawns.

  ‘You—you’re Lord Travers?’ The Lord Travers. I’d heard one of the hospital consultants was a Lord—an actual peer of the realm—but I’d expected someone in a three-piece suit, maybe holding a cane. Someone with a face like a wrinkled bulldog, not someone who’d look at home gracing the cover of GQ. And if he’s older than thirty-five, I’ll give up M&M’s!

  ‘You mean Tammy didn’t mention it?’ His wry response deepens the heat in my already scalding cheeks. As a reprimand, it’s pretty mild. Especially when I consider last week, one of the consultants at my permanent job yelled at me in front of a six-month pregnant patient while implying I should go back to medical school as if my life is somehow a game of Monopoly. Go straight back to medical school—do not collect $200!

  Yep, it was bad, but also why I feel more like a scolded child right now somehow. He must be the sadistic type, like a cat who likes to play with a mouse before tearing its head off and spitting it out. As he opens his mouth to deliver what must be my stinging reprimand, I mentally steel myself, but the only thing that sounds is the ear splittingly loud crash call.

  Dr Pussy—Dr Travers. I mean Mr Travers. Fuck, Lord Travers, takes off down the corridor, his long legs eating up the space between the nurses’ station and the patient’s private room with the ominous red flashing light outside of the door. It takes me a beat to realise I should be following him. I do so, almost tripping over the hem of my borrowed scrubs.

  ~*~

  ‘Ever seen a dystocia before?’

  Thirty minutes later, standing outside of the room, covered in my third lot of amniotic fluid and birth gunk for the day, I shake my head at Dr/Mr/Lord Travers’s question. The exhilaration of emergency work mode in assisting in the delivery has drained away, though I’m not sure if it’s awe or exhaustion that renders me almost mute this time.

  I’ve worked in obstetrics for a while. I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never witnessed a birth like that. His patient was delivering a big baby, eye wateringly big—the kid had a head like a watermelon, even if it was barely visible on account of her shoulder being stuck. As is often the case more times than you might imagine, one minute babe was fine, the next she was in distress. Dr/Mr/Lord Travers tried everything, including the McRoberts manoeuvre and Woods Screw, but that babe was not budging. The poor mom was on all fours, on her back, and I thought for one horrible minute he was going to have to perform a symphysiotomy, or in other words, break her pelvis. I’ve never felt as frightened or as ill as watching this scene play out in front of me, but Lord Travers? He was as cool as a proverbial cucumber. Sleeves rolled to the elbow, he didn’t seem to have a hair out of place. And then, with one last attempt, he somehow managed to move the babe, and she seemed to shoot out of her mother’s body, almost knocking my boss on his butt. I don’t know what was the better sound, his deep, surprised laughter, or that of the baby’s indignant bellow.

  ‘That . . . ’ That was amazing. Absolutely terrifying and amazing all at once. And those are the words my brain sends to my mouth. It’s just a shame my mouth fails to deliver. ‘That’s why they call you Dr Pussy.’

  His tentative smile turns to a barking laugh, which I suppose is better than being called an idiot. Even though I still feel like an idiot.

  ‘Absolutely. I’m like the proverbial snake charmer, only instead of charming snakes—’

  ‘You charm pussies.’ Oh, no. I feel myself physically recoil from the words. I don’t ordinarily have problems with my brain-to-mouth filter, but even I can tell these words are a step too far. My shoulders slump, and I think my eyes might have rolled closed were it not for the fact that my body is refusing to let them in case I go to sleep on my feet.

  ‘I think that’s the Red Bull talking,’ he says. Gone is his light-hearted tone, though I fancy that the glint of humour is still detectable in his gaze.

  ‘Oh, God . . . ’ The words come out on a pained sounding sigh. ‘That’s not what I meant.’ Despite what I think Tammy was implying. ‘I just meant you’re really good at what you do.’ I hope my tone sounds as sincere as I mean it to because I really do think this—how could I not after what I just witnessed. ‘And-and, look at me,’ I add, glancing down at my scrubs. I only hope he takes pity in the panic I’m clearly exhibiting. ‘A-and look at you. There’s something charmed about the fact that you could go to the theatre or a fancy dinner right now while I look more like an extra from a slasher movie.’

  ‘Go home, Dr Taylor, you’re drunk.’ Of course, because this day isn’t done with me, this is the point our new father chooses to leave his wife’s room. And his face? I may as well write malpractice all over it in Sharpie—get the lawyers down here right now. ‘Red Bull drunk,’ Lord Travers amends. ‘Those things will give you kidney stones, you know.’

  The father’s expression lightens. ‘I’ve heard passing kidney stones is no laughing matter,’ he supplies. ‘Though maybe a little easier than giving birth to a thirteen-pound baby.’ The man suddenly turns a shade of grey—a little like putty—sweat breaking out on his brow. ‘How do you do that?’ he asks, his words pained and a little warbly as his hand reaches out to grip my shoulder. ‘How do you do it?’ I get the sense that he’s not talking about my job, though I’m not absolutely sure as my gaze flicks from his glassy ones to that of my boss. ‘Where does all that strength and resilience come from?’ Tears trip over his lids, and I begin to wince as his grip tightens on my shoulder. ‘I’d have done anything to have taken the pain from her—watching the one you love suffer for something you’ve done is horrific.’

  ‘But look at the outcome,’ I say, catching his elbow as his body slumps.

/>   From bright and glistening, his glaze turns blank. I push him against the wall as it becomes clear to both Dr P and I that he might be about to pass out.

  ‘I helped make her—and I saw her take her first breath,’ he whispers . . . right before he vomits over my third set of scrubs for the day, passing out in a heap.

  Please, God, let this fuckstick of a day be done.

  Chapter 19

  BEN

  For three days we’ve barely spoken beyond curt greetings and her scarcely audible murmurs of thanks as she’d noticed one or two changes around the house. One or two? Try a dozen or more as I fill my days with manual labour so as not to think of her. The kitchen cabinetry is almost finished, the dining room floor sanded where it was only half completed before. While she worked last night, I stripped the ancient wallpaper from the chimney breast of her bedroom before hanging the roll depicting birds in cages I’d noticed propped against the wall. I’ve gardened—pruned thorny bushes and mowed lawns, though I doubt Nell has noticed even half of this as she barely seems to lift her head. At least, while I’m around. And as I’d lain in bed last night, staring into her empty room, I’d decided I really don’t like that there aren’t any doors in this house.

  A man should be allowed to be alone with his thoughts.

  A man also shouldn’t have to come home to find flowers on the front doorstep. If her tosser of an ex thinks he’s in with a chance, he’s way off fucking base. There was no card to confirm my suspicions, so I did what any nice neighbour would do. I gave them to Mrs H, then forgot to mention them to Nell

  ‘I was thinking,’ I begin Friday morning, as Nell bustles about the kitchen, a slice of toast hanging out of her mouth. I take some pleasure in seeing her eat though wonder if she thinks the grocery fairies have been stoking her kitchen.

  ‘What?’ propping her hip on the countertop, she looks at me for a beat before her gaze glides away as it meets mine. But I saw that—saw the way her eyes devoured the bulk of my thighs before crawling over my neck and chest, only moving once she realised she’d been caught. She clears her throat. ‘You were saying?’