Page 5 of Love, Accidentally

‘Sorry,’ I continue. ‘None of my business. Right, shall we get back?’

‘We’ve got a couple of minutes still,’ he says, checking the clock on the wall. ‘I didn’t mean to be odd just then. It’s just my mother. She lives on her own in a flat on Monson Road and, well, she’s not coping so well any more. I’ve moved back down here to help her out a bit.’

‘What a lovely thing to do. I bet she’s glad to have you around. So, did you grow up here?’

‘I did. Moving to Milton Keynes was supposed to be my big gesture of independence, but…’ He tails off.

I touch his arm lightly, savouring the sensation. ‘I’m sure she appreciates it.’

He smiles. ‘I’m not so sure.’ Another unidentifiable look crosses his face before he speaks again. ‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way but most of my friends from back in the day have nine-to-five jobs, so it’s not always easy to meet up with them. I’d like to get to know a few people from the hospital and you seem friendly. Do you fancy going for a quick drink after work?’

If I wasn’t flushed before, I definitely am now. Does he mean drink as indrinkdrink? Just the two of us, talking quietly in a dimly lit booth in a pub? Is he coming on to me? I slap myself mentally. Of course he doesn’t mean that. He’s just said he’s keen to get to know people, so he obviously means me and the rest of the team, irritatingly. I’ll admit that the idea of it just being the two of us was rather appealing.

I force a bright smile on to my face. ‘That sounds fun. I’ll ask around and see who else is free.’

‘Thanks.’ He smiles but there’s something behind it. Is it disappointment?

3

‘Your dinner’s in the dog,’ Mike announces from the sofa as I shut the front door behind me just before 10p.m.

‘We don’t have a dog,’ I reply.

‘Fine. It’s in the oven then. It’s been there a while, so it might be a little crispy around the edges. It’s lasagne. At least, it was when I put it in there. God only knows what it is now. Nuclear waste, probably. Where have you been? Your shift finished ages ago.’

‘I’ve been to the pub,’ I tell him smugly. ‘We had a new junior doctor start today and he invited me for a drink.’

This has the desired effect. I can practically see Mike’s ears pricking up.

‘A new junior doctor,’ he repeats slowly.

‘That’s right.’

‘And he invited you for a drink on his first day?’

‘Yup.’

‘Just you, or was it a general invitation?’

I sigh. ‘I’m not sure. I think I may have misread the signals.’

‘How so?’

‘I assumed it was a general invitation, but when I said I’d ask the others, I could swear he looked disappointed.’

Mike laughs. ‘Oh, Tilly. I thought it was us guys who were supposed to miss the non-verbal cues.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m out of practice. Anyway, everyone else had other stuff going on, so it was just the two of us in the end.’

His expression turns thoughtful. ‘If he was genuinely inviting you on your own, that’s a bit predatory, isn’t it? Especially on his first day. Calm down, horndog.’

‘Says the man who’s slept with half the nurses in the hospital? Bit rich, Mike.’

‘I wouldn’t say half. A few. A handful. Some.’

Technically, there are three of us that share this flat. There’s me, Mike and Lena, who owns it. We found it because Lena was advertising for tenants on the hospital SharePoint site that staff use for all their wanted and for sale posts. The odd thing is that, as far as we could work out, Lena didn’t actually have any connection to the hospital. She certainly doesn’t work there, so how she got the advert up on an internal website was a mystery.

The second oddity where Lena is concerned is that, although she owns the flat and has a bedroom that she keeps securely padlocked, she’s pretty much never here. We met her when she interviewed us, and we’ve probably seen her no more than a handful of times in the years since. She pays her share of the bills and everything as if she were here, so we don’t really mind, but we came up with various theories about her in the early days, from extended stays in rehab to her being an undercover agent. As it turned out, the truth was both more mundane and more impressive: she’s a doctor with an NGO, and spends most of her time in disaster zones.

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