Page 37 of Dr. Off Limits

Sutton

I tugged on the handle of my overnight case, pulling the unwilling wheels over the uneven surface of the hospital road. I’d never heard of foundation doctors going on an offsite before. When we’d been emailed about it, Jacob had sent the message; the sight of his name in my inbox had felt like butterflies in my vagina.

But obviously the email had been work related. I certainly hadn’t been hoping it was anything else. Absolutely not.

But an offsite? Some of those butterflies had taken up residence. They were interlopers. Squatters. They needed to be on their way. I just couldn’t shift them.

“You want me to take your case for you?” Andy, one of the FY1s who had been assigned A&E, came up behind me as I headed up the steep hill toward the car park where we’d been told to meet the coach.

I nearly laughed but I saw he wasn’t joking. “I’m good, thanks. We’re only going for one night. I’ve not brought anything too heavy.”

“It’s exciting, right?” he asked.

“Sort of,” I said. Honestly, if they hadn’t needed us in the hospital, I would have been happier to spend the day in bed. I wouldn’t even need Netflix. As a hairdresser, I’d been used to being on my feet all day, but studying had turned the soles of my feet into wimps. I just wanted an extended period of time lying down.

“It's good to get out of the hospital,” he said. “And the weather’s great. Did you fill out your survey about the thing we’d most like to change?”

“I did.”

“Are they going to pick the one most people talk about, do you think? And what are they going to do? Tell us they’re going to fix it to improve morale?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. The tail end of the coach came into view and I wondered if I was going to get stuck with Andy the whole ride to the hotel.

“I’ve put it into Google,” he said. “The drive is less that forty-five minutes. Even in a coach.”

“Good to know.” Fact was, I’d Googled it too. I needed to know what I was walking into. I still wasn’t sure. All I knew was that the hotel had a pool, so I packed my costume and tried not to think about Jacob being assigned a bedroom next door to mine.

As we climbed the hill, the rest of the coach came into view and I saw Jacob standing by the open door. Kill me now. He looked even more gorgeous than he usually did, wearing a bright white polo shirt and dark blue jeans, the casual attire topped with wayfarers. Why couldn’t I have had sex with a really ugly, short, greasy man? Why did the guy I was set up on a blind date with have to be... Jacob?

“Andrew,” he said, glancing from me to Andy and back again. “Sutton.”

“Excited to be here,” Andy said.

“We’re here,” a woman called from behind me. Gilly and Veronica came rushing toward the coach.

“What are you wearing tonight?” Gilly asked me the moment she was close enough to talk without yelling.

I looked down at what I was currently wearing and wondered whether or not I’d missed something in Jacob’s email about a fancy dinner or something.

“There will be no need to change,” Jacob said. “We’re just having a barbeque in the gardens.”

Thank goodness for that.

“But I have this beautiful one-shouldered top I bought especially,” Gilly said.

Jacob’s gaze flitted to mine. What was he thinking? Was he remembering that I’d worn a one-shouldered top on our date? Or how he’d almost ripped it off me before taking my breast in his mouth and—

I needed to stop thoughts like that immediately or I wasn’t going to be able to make it through two days of being so close to Jacob outside the hospital.

Gilly gazed up at Jacob, practically stroking him. “I wouldn’t want to waste it.”

“On the coach,” Jacob said. “There’s plenty of room to spread out. You don’t need to share seats.”

I smiled as I climbed the coach steps, fantasizing to myself that Jacob had made the point that we could spread out because he didn’t want me sitting next to Andy. But it wasn’t like he was jealous. He could have any woman he wanted.

Anyone who didn’t work at the Royal Free.

I bagged a seat on my own about halfway down the bus, behind Veronica and Gilly. Within a few minutes, the coach had pulled off on our way to the hotel.

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