‘A balloon?’ Billy’s eyes went round with amazement. ‘Will I go up in the air?’
Jenna clearly heard the slight panic in his voice because she said, ‘No, sweetie, I promise you won’t. You’ll still be sitting there right next to Mummy.’
‘And meanwhile you have a job to do,’ Lorenzo said, gesturing to the cards Billy was holding. ‘Have a look through these cars and tell me which one is your favourite.’
Jenna administered the gas and air, and Lorenzo put anaesthetic gel on the wound.
‘Can you feel me touching your head?’ Lorenzo asked.
‘No-o,’ Billy said, sounding surprised.
‘That’s good. Now, tell me about the cars you like best,’ Lorenzo said.
While Billy held his mum’s hand very tightly and looked through the car pictures, exclaiming every so often about one he liked, Lorenzo closed the wound with six neat, careful stitches.
‘The good news is that the stitches are dissolvable, so you won’t have to come and have them taken out again,’ Jenna said to Mrs Jackson. ‘I’ll run you through how to care for the wound and I’ll give you a leaflet as well, because obviously right now you’re worried sick about Billy and it’s hard to concentrate and remember things when you’re worried. Basically you need to keep the area dry for the next two days, but you can wash it quickly with soap and water and pat it dry after that. If the wound opens up or looks red and swollen, or there’s any kind of discharge, bring him straight back.’
‘Thank you. I will,’ Mrs Jackson said.
‘So which one’s your favourite out of the ones you liked, Billy?’ Lorenzo asked when he’d finished the last suture.
‘This one.’ Billy handed him a card with a picture of a red sports car.
‘Good choice. That’s my favourite, too.’
‘Because it’s red?’ the little boy guessed.
‘Because it’s Italian, like me,’ Lorenzo said with a smile.
Billy’s eyes widened. ‘Have you got a real car like that?’
Lorenzo chuckled. ‘I wish! Maybe one day.’
‘I want a car like that when I’m all growed up,’ Billy said.
‘That sounds like a good plan,’ Lorenzo said. He took a glittery sticker from his pocket with the words ‘I was THIS brave’ emblazoned across it. ‘And I’m giving you a special sticker so you can show everyone else how brave you were today.’
‘Thank you,’ Billy said. With a shy look at his mother first, he handed the rest of the cards back to Lorenzo.
‘Thank you,’ Lorenzo said. He smiled at Mrs Jackson. ‘Try not to worry. I know Jenna’s taken you through what to look out for, but if you’re concerned at all come back and see us.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for what you’ve done for Billy.’
‘Pleasure,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Take the stairs a bit more slowly from now on, Billy, OK?’
The little boy nodded.
‘Nice work,’ Jenna said when Billy and his mother had gone. ‘So you use car pictures to distract little boys?’
‘Not just boys. Girls like cars, too,’ Lorenzo said. ‘But I have a backup set of cards with puppies and kittens, to distract the kids who don’t like cars.’
‘Know your patient, hmm?’ Jenna asked.
‘Something like that.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost lunchtime. Are you already spoken for?’
Lorenzo felt his eyes widen. Was she asking him out? He didn’t have a problem with a woman taking the lead and asking a man out—but, considering they’d only just met, this was too fast for his liking. And he wasn’t in the market for dating anyway.
‘For lunch, that is,’ she added swiftly. ‘As this is your first day, if you don’t already have plans, then you’re very welcome to come to the canteen with me if you’d like some company and someone to show you where things are.’
Not a date, then: a colleague simply being kind and offering to show him around his new place of work. He could manage that. ‘Thanks. That’d be nice.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ she warned.
‘Why?’ he asked, confused. ‘Is the food not very nice here?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the food,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’ll buy your lunch as I have a proposition for you.’
Lorenzo was pretty sure that it was just a turn of phrase, but the word ‘proposition’ put all sorts of inappropriate ideas in his head. Jenna Harris was gorgeous as well as being bubbly, with her mop of blonde curls that she wore pulled back in a scrunchie on the ward, wide blue eyes and ready smile. He liked the way she’d been with their patients and their parents: kind, clear and sympathetic.
But, after what had happened with Georgia and Florence, he wasn’t up for falling in love again and getting his heart well and truly trampled on. This was his new start, and he intended to focus on his job, not his personal life.
‘Proposition,’ he said carefully.
‘I’ll explain over lunch. Meet you back here after your next patient?’ she asked.
‘OK,’ he said.
At the canteen, Lorenzo chose a sandwich, fruit and coffee, and Jenna did the same.
‘You really don’t have to buy me lunch,’ he said while they queued to pay.
‘Oh, but I do,’ she corrected, ‘because I want you to feel ever so slightly beholden to me.’
So she was being manipulative? That was pretty much how Georgia had been with him. Except Jenna was being up front about it instead of hiding secrets. Well, he’d try to keep an open mind and listen to what she had to say before he made any judgements.
Once they’d sat down, he asked, ‘So what’s the proposition?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Hang on, aren’t we supposed to be doing all the usual pleasantries first? Like, where did you train, what made you pick paediatrics, does your family live near, that sort of thing?’
He shrugged. ‘OK. I trained in London, I picked paediatrics because it was my favourite rotation when I was training; my parents, brother and sister all live in East London at the moment but my parents are thinking of moving back to their roots in Lake Garda when my father retires; and I’m single.’ Most importantly, he added, ‘And I’m not looking for a partner.’ He’d had completely the wrong idea about his marriage, thinking that he and Georgia were happy. But things hadn’t been what they’d seemed; he’d lived a lie for nearly two years before Georgia had finally cracked and told him the truth about Florence. Though he kept that particular black hole behind high walls and barbed wire. ‘You?’
‘I trained here in Muswell Hill, and I chose paediatrics for the same reason as you—I like kids and I really love making them better. My parents and my sister all live in London, about half an hour away from me; and I’m also single and not looking for a partner.’ She smiled. ‘Which means that you and I can be friends.’
‘Is this part of the proposition?’ he checked.
She laughed. ‘Absolutely not. But we’re a close-knit team on our ward and we do a lot of things together. Team nights out for pizza and ten-pin bowling, cinema, picnics on the beach in summer—that sort of thing. It’s kind of like having an extended family. Partners and kids come along to half the stuff and it’s lovely.’