LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘MUM!’ SIMON SAID it more clearly than he ever had before, and Jasmine scooped him up and cuddled him in tight the second she got to her mum’s.

      ‘You’re early,’ Louise commented. ‘I said you didn’t need to be here till five.’

      ‘I didn’t sleep very well,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘I’m going to go shopping at the weekend for some decent blinds.’ Not that that was the entire reason! ‘How has he been?’

      ‘Okay. He’s been asking after you a lot,’ Louise said, when Jasmine rather wished that she wouldn’t as she already felt guilty enough. ‘Right, I’d better get ready.’

      Louise appeared a little while later in a smart navy suit, with heels and make-up, looking every bit the professional real estate agent. ‘How did you do it Mum?’ Jasmine asked. ‘I mean, you had evening appointments when we were little.’

      ‘You were older than Simon when your dad left,’ Louise pointed out. ‘Penny’s a good bit older than you and she was born sensible—I used to ask the neighbour to listen out for you. It was different times then,’ she admitted.

      Maybe, but nothing was going to fill the well of guilt Jasmine felt leaving Simon so much and it was only going to get more complicated for him when she added a babysitter to the mix.

      Still, she did her best not to worry about next week or next month, just concentrated on giving him his dinner, and when he spat it out she headed to her mum’s freezer and, yes, there were chicken nuggets. He could eat them till he was eighteen, Jasmine thought, and let go of worrying about the small stuff for five minutes, just enjoyed giving him his bath and settling him, and then got herself ready for work.

      There really wasn’t time to stress about facing Jed, especially when her mum didn’t get back till after eight, and by the time she raced into work the clock was already nudging nine but, of course, he was one of the first people she saw.

      It was a bit awkward but actually not as bad as she’d feared.

      As she headed to the lockers Jasmine met him in the corridor and screwed up her face as she blushed and mouthed the word, ‘Sorry.’

      ‘Me too,’ Jed said, and possibly he too was blushing just a little bit.

      ‘Upset, you know,’ Jasmine said.

      ‘I get it.’

      ‘So it’s forgotten?’ Jasmine checked.

      ‘Forgotten,’ he agreed.

      Except it wasn’t quite so easy to forget a kiss like that, Jasmine knew, because through a restless sleep she had tried.

      So too had Jed.

      He was a master at self-recrimination, had been furious with himself all day, and that evening, getting ready for work, he’d braced himself to face her, to be cool and aloof, yet her blush and her grin and her ‘sorry’ had sideswiped him—had actually made him laugh just a little bit on the inside.

      ‘I got you a present.’ Vanessa smiled as, still blushing, Jasmine walked into the locker room and peered into the bag being handed to her. It was a bottle with ribbons tied to the neck. ‘I think it should be real champagne, but sparkling wine will have to do. You can open it when you’re ready to celebrate.’

      ‘Thank you!’ Jasmine was touched. ‘I’ll have a drink at the weekend.’

      ‘I mean properly celebrate.’ Vanessa winked. ‘You can’t pop that cork till …’

      ‘It will be vintage by then.’ Jasmine grinned.

      It was a very different night from the one before.

      It was quiet and the staff took advantage. Greg, the charge nurse, put some music on at the work station and when at four a.m. there were only a few patients waiting for beds or obs, instead of telling them to restock or reorder, he opened a book as Jasmine and Vanessa checked each other’s blood sugars. They were low enough to merit another trip to the vending machine, they decided. Then they came back and checked each other’s BP.

      ‘It’s so low!’ Vanessa pulled a face as she unwrapped the cuff and Jasmine grinned, proud of herself for keeping her pulse and blood pressure down, with Jed sitting at the station.

      He noticed how easily she laughed.

      She noticed him, full stop.

      Noticed that this time when she cracked open her chocolate he took a piece.

      ‘Do you want your blood pressure checked, Jed?’ Vanessa asked.

      ‘No, thanks.’

      Vanessa pulled a face at his grumpy tone. ‘Do you work on it, Jed?’ It was ten past four, well into the witching hour for night nurses, a quiet night, lights blazing, the humour becoming more wicked. ‘Do you work on being all silent and moody?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just work.’

      ‘And that beard you’re growing,’ Vanessa pushed as Greg looked up and grinned, ‘is it designer stubble?’

      ‘No,’ Jed said patiently. ‘I went for a run when I got in from work and I was too tired to shave afterwards, and then I overslept.’

      ‘You’re sure about that?’ Vanessa said. ‘You’re sure you’re not a male model on the side?’

      Jed had forgotten those times of late. He hadn’t partaken in chit-chat and fun for a very long time, he’d been too busy concentrating only on work. Maybe he needed a coffee, maybe his blood sugar was down, because he was kind of remembering the harmless fun he had once had at work before it had all become a nightmare.

      He sat there recalling the laughs that had been part of the job and he was almost smiling as Vanessa chatted on. There was such a difference between playing and flirting. Jed had always known that, he’d just forgotten how to mix the two of late, had lost one for fear of the other, but the atmosphere tonight was kind of bringing it back.

      ‘When you go to the hairdresser’s, do you ask them to leave that bit of fringe?’ Vanessa teased. ‘Just so it can fall over your eye?’

      As he turned, Jasmine waited for a frown, for a sharp word, for a brusque put-down, but her smirking grin turned to a delighted one as he flopped his fringe forward, pouted his lips and looked over their shoulders in a haughty model pose.

      And then as they screamed in laughter and even Greg did too, Jed got back to his notes.

      Enough fun for one night, Jed told himself.

      Except he’d set them off and now they were walking like models.

      Greg was joining in too as he filled in the board, standing with one hand on his hip and talking in deliberately effeminate tones. Jed tried not to smile, not notice as he usually managed to—he had just blocked out this side of Emergency, had chosen to ignore the black humour and frivolity that sometimes descended.

      And yet somehow it was coming back.

      Somehow he was starting to remember that it wasn’t all just about work.

      And Jed knew why.

      It was just that he didn’t want to know why.

      ‘I’m going for a sleep.’ He stood.

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