‘Joe? Can I talk to you?’
‘Hey.’ He turned around with a smile. He looked pleased to see her. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed she’d been avoiding him. He was probably too caught up in Victoria to have time to think about her. She pushed those thoughts aside. She didn’t want to think about Victoria any more than she had to, and basked in the warmth of Joe’s smile instead. ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘How’s our patient?’
‘Hungry.’ She smiled back. ‘Toshi, I mean,’ she clarified.
‘That’s a good sign.’
‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘I saw your interview.’
‘Is that what you came to tell me? Was it terrible?’
She shook her head. ‘You know it wasn’t. I wanted to ask if you are free for dinner tomorrow night? Cam is going to make a barbecue,’ she said, reminding herself she’d have to remember to tell Cam. ‘It’s an early birthday celebration for me. Would you like to come over?’
‘Sounds great.’
‘You’re welcome to bring Victoria,’ she offered, hoping that Joe would already know she had a shift and wouldn’t ask her to swap it.
‘Thanks, but I don’t think we’re at that point in our relationship yet.’
‘OK.’ Kitty did a mental fist pump. That had worked out well—she’d looked gracious while still getting what she wanted. Joe hadn’t even thought about checking Victoria’s roster. ‘See you at seven.’
That was good. He didn’t seem out of sorts with her. She didn’t want to push him away, to give him a reason to abandon their friendship, abandon her. Everyone left her eventually but she really wanted to keep Joe in her life for as long as possible. She needed him.
* * *
Kitty answered Joe’s knock on the door. She was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen before. She looked good. Pink suited her. She was glowing, making him wonder suddenly if she’d had the sex she’d been seeking out the other night. Had sex put the sparkle in her eyes and the glow on her cheeks?
He didn’t want to think about Kitty having sex. Not if it wasn’t with him. But that wasn’t going to happen, and thinking about it wasn’t going to do anyone any good.
‘New dress?’ he asked as he kissed her cheek and handed her the gifts he’d brought.
‘I had to go shopping. I don’t fit into my clothes any more,’ she said as she led him into the house. His gaze dropped to her hips, which were swaying tantalisingly in front of him. This pregnancy had filled her out, rounding her bottom, in a good way, and Joe felt a corresponding tightness in his groin.
He greeted Jess and Cam and handed Cam a six-pack of beer as he tried to ignore the stirring of lust that threatened to destroy his concentration.
‘Good man. I’m living in a teetotaller house these days. I’m trying to be supportive and it’s no fun drinking without company,’ Cam said as he cracked the tops of a couple of the small bottles and handed one back to Joe. ‘Jess isn’t drinking either.’
‘I’m keeping Kitty company,’ she said.
‘How many weeks are you now?’ Joe asked Kitty. ‘Twenty-two?’
‘Twenty-four.’
His question had purely been conversational. He knew exactly how many weeks she was.
‘We had a scan today,’ Jess told him. He thought it was strange that she said ‘we’. He knew that genetically the baby was hers and she obviously felt a connection but Kitty was the one who was pregnant. ‘Would you like to see the picture?’ Jess asked.
‘Sure.’
‘I’m not sure that Joe is as interested in our baby as we are,’ Cam told his wife.
‘It’s fine,’ Joe said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
Jess went to the fridge and removed a small square black and white picture from where it had been held in place by a magnet. She held it out to Joe.
This was OK. He’d seen plenty of ultrasound scans before. It was just a baby. As long as he didn’t think that this baby was responsible for the change in Kitty’s shape and the subsequent change in his perception of her it was all good. At this stage, it just looked like any baby. With a perfect profile, sucking its thumb.
‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’ he asked.
Jess shook her head. ‘We can’t agree. I want to know, but Cam—’
‘I want a surprise,’ Cam said, finishing Jess’s sentence for her as she started coughing. Cam fetched her a glass of water and Jess drank it in fits and starts, between coughs, until she could speak again.
‘I want to know because I want to decorate the nursery. If we’re only going to do this once I’d like time to be prepared.’
Joe suspected that meant that they would find out the sex. In his experience the woman got her way in these things. But who would have the final say? Who would the doctor listen to? Technically, Kitty was the mother. What would she say? He didn’t want to ask that question. He decided to stick to a safer topic. ‘Only once, you say?’
‘I’d be happy with one,’ Cam said. ‘It’s one more than we thought we’d have.’
‘I’d like more, but I’m not going to be greedy,’ Jess admitted.
‘Let’s just get this one here safely,’ Cam said.
‘I know, I’m not going to get ahead of myself but I loved growing up with a sister. I couldn’t do this without her,’ Jess said as she took the ultrasound picture back from Joe and hugged Kitty, ‘and I’d like to think of my own children having the same relationship with a sibling.’
Joe had brothers and sisters, but none of them were full siblings, and he certainly didn’t share the bond with any of them like Kitty and Jess had. ‘There’s no guarantee that they’d get along, you know. I’ve got five siblings and I don’t really get along with any of them.’ In fact, he had always thought Kitty was more like a sister than his real ones. Until the past week at least, when he’d started having very unfamilial thoughts about her.
‘I find that hard to believe,’ Cam said. ‘I picked you as one of those blokes that gets on with everyone.’
Joe laughed. ‘Maybe that says more about me than them.’
Kitty came to his defence. ‘You’re not really close in age to any of them and you didn’t really grow up together. That makes a difference.’
‘I guess what I’m saying is that I grew up virtually as an only child, and in a lot of ways I think I had a happier childhood for it.’ His teenage years maybe hadn’t been quite so happy, but that was because he’d been old enough to realise that he didn’t really fit in with any of his families. But that wasn’t because he didn’t have siblings—that was because his mum and dad hadn’t been able to stay married. To anyone. And that had meant he’d constantly had his boundaries and his living arrangements changed around him, completely out of his control. He hadn’t like that and had become rebellious, which had made him difficult to live with. Not just for his parents but probably for some of his brothers and sisters, too. It was circumstances that had made him.
‘I didn’t know you were one of six,’ Jess said.
‘Two half-siblings and three step-siblings. In some ways I’m surprised it’s not more. My parents divorced when I was four. Mum was Dad’s second wife, but they’ve both been married three times now. That’s a lot of families to juggle and a lot of different dynamics. I think I preferred it when I was on my own. In a lot of ways it made life easier.’
Joe didn’t think much of