Alison did the stock ordering. Working around them, she climbed up on footstools to count packets of gauze, and to everyone else Nick appeared not to notice her. He did notice, she knew, because she could feel his lingering eyes at times, or a smile that was there waiting every now and then when she looked up and turned round.
He was brilliant with each and every patient that came through the doors, but during the many, many lulls that filled this quiet night Nick scrolled through his social networking site—there was no registrar’s office bulging with a backlog of work for him.probably because there was no backlog when you were just passing through.
‘Moira,’ Alison asked, ‘can you put these boxes away?’
‘Sure.’ Moira jumped off her stool. ‘Where do they go?’
‘In the second storage room.’
And she was willing, but by the time Alison had shown her where it was, and when for the third time she had to borrow Alison’s ID to gain access, it was just far easier to do it herself. There was just a touch of a martyred air to Alison as an hour later she took a gulp of cold tea in the nurses’ station and found out all the biscuits she’d brought in were gone.
‘I’ve bought earplugs,’ Moira chatted on happily, ‘but hopefully everyone will be so hungover, no one will be up before midday and I can get some peace and quiet. I’m a shocking sleeper on nights. What about you, Nick?’
‘Sorry?’
‘How do you sleep on nights?’
‘Like a log,’ Nick said, without looking up from the computer, and Alison realised that despite being pleasant, despite the good-natured bantering, there was no flirting from Nick, that he gave nothing back to Moira, as he hadn’t to Louise. It was aimed all at her, Alison realised as now he did look up from the computer and gave her a very nice smile, those green eyes turning her pink as she gave a small smile back.
‘Is there anything you need me to do?’
‘Nothing,’ Alison said. It was five a.m., the board was clear and as Nick checked an X-ray with the resident he stretched and yawned. ‘I’m going to lie down—call if you need me.’
‘Lucky,’ Alison grumbled, hauling out the trolleys to be cleaned, and for just a moment their eyes met and Nick felt as if he was back in far North Queensland, standing on a platform with a piece of elastic around his ankle, wanting to jump, knowing it was reckless, ridiculous, that there was no rhyme nor reason to it, yet wanting to all the same.
‘What time do you finish?’
‘By the time we’ve given handover—about seven-thirty.’
‘I’m here till eight, if you want to hang around—I’ll be quicker than the bus.’
He would be, there wasn’t one till ten minutes to.
‘Thanks,’ Alison said.
She cleaned and polished the trolleys, and tried not to think about it as she dealt with the occasional patient, who was seen by the resident and didn’t require Nick.
In the morning, when Moira was still teasing for a loan of his bed and he was skilfully deflecting her thinly disguised offer, the rest of the night team, apart from Mary, sped off on the dot of seven-thirty. Alison hung around for a quick chat with Ellie, put her name on the list for the lifting refresher course and then, when Sheila asked if she had five more minutes to go over some annual leave requests, she nodded. When there was nothing else to linger for, except Nick, he walked down the corridor, blonde, tired, offering a lift. Alison smiled and said thanks.
When with him, when it was just them, the doubts that plagued her when they were apart were silenced as always.
‘Better than the bus?’ Nick asked as she sank back into the passenger seat.
‘This morning—yes,’ Alison admitted.
‘Do you drive?’ He glanced over.
‘Sometimes—I just prefer the bus for work. The traffic getting in and the staff car-park is impossible sometimes so it’s nice just to sit and read the paper.’
‘It’s been nice not driving,’ Nick admitted, ‘but I can’t stand the thought of a bus ride after being on all night—I’d fall asleep.’
‘It’s always happening to me,’ Alison said. ‘I end up being woken by the driver.’
He was so easy to talk to—about the complicated, about the mundane—but even though they chatted easily, there was a definite charge in the air, which had a sleepy Alison on the alert. He must have shaved yesterday morning, rather than before coming to work, because he was clearly unshaven now, she noticed. Just as she noticed when he pulled on dark glasses against the glare of the morning sun. Just as she noticed his long tanned fingers tapping on the steering-wheel as they sat in heavy traffic.
‘Do you sleep well?’ Nick asked, because he had heard about the whole nursing crew’s habits and he wanted to find out about hers.
‘Depends,’ Alison said. ‘Mum’s at work so the house is quiet…’ And her voice trailed off, because somehow that charge in the air intensified, and there was this pause, this silent pondering, a false night that stretched ahead and a shining window of opportunity.
‘Do you want to go somewhere for breakfast?’ Nick asked as the bay came into view.
‘No, thanks,’ Alison said, because she wasn’t thinking about breakfast.
Just bed.
Bed.
And though they were both tired and sleepy and longing for bed, as he pulled up outside her door, there was no denying it—they were longing for each other too—and as naturally as breathing she turned to him. There was no awkwardness, no will he, won’t he, just the bliss of a night spent looking and thinking and pretending you didn’t want to, all melting away now that no one else was around. It was a really nice kiss, a slow, morning kiss that could tip easily to more, but there was no way she was asking him in because Alison knew where his kiss could lead and probably there was no chance of her mum coming home, but she just couldn’t put herself or her mother in that situation.
‘Have a good sleep.’ She pulled her mouth away, but she wanted to dive back in.
‘I doubt it,’ Nick said, and Alison doubted she would either.
She was a kiss away from his bed, Nick knew that, and for the first time in his quest for freedom Nick felt as if he needed to spell out the rules, needed to be very sure that she knew, and so he said it.
He made himself say it.
‘I can’t stay…’
And she smiled and was very brave, even managed a little joke. ‘I didn’t ask you in.’
But he wasn’t talking about that—she knew he wasn’t talking about that as she climbed out of his car.
He watched her walk up the garden path and for the first time in a long time, at least where women were concerned, Nick was confused—Nick the one almost willing her not to turn round—because of how much he wanted her, and for the foreseeable future, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
Except this was how it was.
She was exhausted, utterly and completely exhausted, but though her body ached for bed as she walked up her garden path, she ached for him too. It was just criminal that a few streets apart he’d be in bed and she’d be in bed and they had a whole day, a whole wonderful day, if only she would take it. She had her key in the front door, and she opened it, turned round to give him a wave, and he just sat there, looking at her, and she stood there, looking at him, and wished he’d drive off, would just go, except he didn’t.
Then she panicked that he would drive off, that he’d pull off the handbrake and she’d miss her chance.
Her one lovely