Page 7 of Love, Accidentally

‘Oh, do knock it off. You’re obsessed, you know that?’

‘You wait. I’ll be the darling of the medical world when I’ve finished collating my evidence and published my findings. I might even get a Nobel Prize.’

I sigh deeply. ‘Delusional fantasies. We ought to get you assessed.’

‘That might be fun, depending on who did it and what they were assessing. Anyway, lovely but lonely Luke stares at you. Anything else?’

‘No. As I said, he seems nice, if a bit intense. Dr Patel tore him off a strip because he was late this morning, so he’s frightened of her.’

‘She’s a frightening woman.’

‘Have you met her?’

‘I’ve passed her in the corridor a few times. She has a consultant walk.’

‘A what?’

‘You know, as if they’re elevated beings and the rest of us are just a nasty smell under their noses.’

Although I think he’s generalising massively, I can’t disagree with him where Dr Patel is concerned. I like her, but that is exactly how she walks. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it. The funny thing is that she’s really not like that. At least, not with me.

‘How was your day then?’ I ask, deciding it’s time to change the subject. ‘Discharge anything interesting?’

‘The usual litany of cock-ups and miscommunications,’ he says, ignoring my barb. ‘One of the wards sent a patient down to the discharge lounge first thing this morning without informing me, so I didn’t organise transport or anything for them. At half past two, I got a phone call laying into me because the patient was still there! Cheek of them.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I explained, very carefully and patiently I felt, that the process only works if people tell me what’s going on. The charge nurse didn’t like that at all, and tried to imply it was my fault, but I caught him in the classic Mike trap.’

‘Which is?’

‘No new patient in the vacant bed. We’re always flat out, and yet he didn’t think it odd that the room was just sitting there empty? He was also strangely unable to locate copies of the paperwork that should have come to me. It was a pretty short conversation after that.’

‘What happened to the patient?’

‘Oh, we got her home eventually. I don’t think she minded, actually. She’d been having a lovely time chatting to the other people who came through. Sometimes you forget how lonely some people are. Which brings me neatly back to your doctor friend. What are you going to do about him?’

‘I’m not going to do anything about him.’

‘Good. Stick to the dating apps and steer clear of the needy doctor, that’s my advice.’

‘He’s needy now?’

‘Needy, intense – it’s all the same thing.’

‘I’m really not sure it is. Anyway, the apps are giving pretty slim pickings at the moment.’

‘I did wonder. It must be over a month since your last date.’

I shudder at the memory. My last serious relationship fizzled out quietly a year ago and, despite my best efforts since, all the men I’ve met through the apps have been disasters of one kind or another. The last one, Eduardo, seemed promising on the first date, but evidently felt that date two was going to end in my bedroom, dropping so many lewd innuendos that he gave me the ick and I had to invent an emergency to escape him. I launch one of the apps on my phone and hand it to Mike, who begins swiping through the profiles.

‘I see what you mean,’ he observes after a while. ‘I wouldn’t date any of these either.’

‘To be honest, I’m losing faith in the apps anyway. Even the guys I’ve liked enough to meet in real life turned out either to be chancers or just interested in casual sex. I’m thirty-four, Mike. Is it wrong to be looking for more than that?’

‘I think you’re probably asking the wrong person. Anyway, you’re off tomorrow, aren’t you?’

‘Yup. Four days off and then three night shifts.’

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