He didn’t flee to the toilets like Alison had, but he made his way there, a little annoyed that he had come, but Amy had suggested it and it had seemed a bit rude to say no. He had sensed things were getting a little out of hand and had been about to head off, but had got talking to Alison and somehow forgotten that he was supposed to be heading for home.
And there she was, walking toward him right now, and here too was the very reason he hadn’t headed for home when he should have.
‘Hey.’ He smiled down at her and she stopped walking. They stood in the beer garden amidst the noise and the chatter.
‘I thought you were dancing.’
‘Not for me.’ He gave her a smile, but it was a wry one, a lying one, a strained one, because as the music tipped into something a little slower, he would at that very moment have danced, would have loved to do just that, because somehow she exceeded his limits, somehow he knew she could break his self-imposed rule, because all of a sudden work didn’t matter.
‘I’m just about to head off,’ Alison admitted, because even if her stilettos seemed glued to the floor her heart was telling her to run.
‘Do you want to go somewhere?’ Nick’s mouth said the words, though his brain insisted he shouldn’t. ‘Just us.’ And Alison’s eyes jerked down instead of up. Down to his forearm, to the blond hairs on it, to long-fingered hands that she wanted to wrap around hers. And maybe it was the overhead gas heaters in the beer garden, but the air was hot and her mind wasn’t clear because with the pulse of the music and the laughter from beyond, it would, at that moment, have been so very easy to just be twenty-four.
To just be.
And, of course, just a moment later she recalled why she couldn’t just be.
Alison looked up then to green eyes that awaited her response, that could never guess the inner turmoil inside her, who assumed, that for Alison, it was as easy as making a decision and grabbing her bag.
She shook her head and with good reason. Coogee was teeming with holidaymakers, with good-looking, testosterone-laden, ‘here for a good time not a long time’ males, and even if he was gorgeous, Nick could never be any different.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Hey, Nick!’ Moira’s radar located them and rather unsteadily she teetered towards them. ‘We’re heading into town…’
Alison didn’t wait to see if Nick was joining them. Instead she said goodnight, gathered her bag and walked, not along the street but along a beach that was dotted with small groups and some couples, and it was a relief to be out of there and a relief to be alone.
He was dangerous.
At least, he was to someone like her.
He had been flirting—oh, not anything major, but his glorious attention had homed in on her, more than a touch. She was quite sure that Nick did want to get to know her a little better—which, to Alison, just seemed pointless. He’d be gone in a few weeks, he was just there for some fun, which Alison didn’t readily do.
Why, she asked herself as she walked along the beach she knew and loved, couldn’t she be like Ellie, or Moira—just out there having fun, without worrying about tomorrow?
Her phone buzzed in her bag and she didn’t need to check it to know it was from her mother. It was fifteen minutes after midnight after all.
‘I just texted you!’ Rose said as she walked in the door. ‘I just wanted to know if you were going to be late.’
‘I said I’d call if I was.’
‘Well, it is after midnight.’
‘Well, it is after midnight.’ For a shadow of a second, she could almost hear Tim’s voice, could almost picture her brother standing right where she was in the kitchen, good-naturedly teasing Rose when he came in late at night and Rose complained.
Except there had been Dad then to argue his case for him and, anyway, Tim had a way to him that always won their mum around.
God, but she missed him.
And her father too.
Missed, not just the people but the family they had been then, the security the others had provided, unnoticed at the time, the certainty they were there for each other, which had all been ripped away. So instead of a smart retort Alison looked instead at the fear in her mother’s eyes and apologised for not texting and had a cup of tea and a chat with her mum, till Rose headed off for bed.
Then later, alone, when surely all her friends were still out, she went on the computer and checked her social network profile. She had one friend request and, yes, it was from Nick. He must befriend everyone, Alison decided, but she did click on his name, hoping for another little peek at his profile, except that, apart from his photo, all the rest of the photos and information were private.
She went to accept his friend request and for a moment her finger hovered, then she chose to ignore it.
Very deliberately she ignored it, even if they did have eighteen mutual friends between them.
It was one a.m. on a Saturday after all.
A girl had some pride.
‘ARE you okay?’
They were waiting for a multi-trauma at eight a.m. on Monday morning. The sky was black with a storm and the roads like ice after a long dry spell. Alison was in Resus this morning and so too was Nick. She’d said good morning at the bus stop, then moved to her regular seat. Ignored him in the staffroom that morning, her head buried in the crossword, but now they stood on opposite sides of the trauma bed, all set up and gowned up, waiting for the patients to arrive, though they were taking longer to get there than anticipated and Alison was quiet.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Look, about the other night…’
‘What about the other night?’ She frowned over her mask to him.
‘I got waylaid by Moira and then you’d gone.’
‘I’m not even thinking about that—I just hate getting kids in.’
Yes, it happened day in and day out, but some days you just hated it so and Nick, cool, confident Nick, actually coloured up a little bit, because for once, with a woman, it wasn’t about him. He’d awoken slightly disconcerted on Saturday, and had spent the rest of the day trying ignore a niggle. He’d swum, walked for a while, but had ended up at a cemetery that was, strange as it might sound, both fascinating and beautiful, and then back to the flat, where that niggle had developed a name as he’d checked his social network profile and, no, she hadn’t responded to that request either.
‘ETA five minutes!’ Sheila called, and he watched as Alison blinked twice.
‘They’re taking ages.’
‘Rush-hour.’
‘It’s still ages.’
‘It might not be that bad,’ Nick said. ‘We’re set up for everything; we’ll worry, if we need to, when they get here.’
It was actually very good advice and Alison gave a thin smile. ‘Is that what you do?’
‘I try to,’ Nick replied. ‘Right now I’m trying to work out seven down—begins with L, ends in E, recurring.’
‘Life,’ Alison said, and he grinned. ‘I’m stuck on it too.’
‘How’s