Summer in Sydney. Fiona McArthur

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       CHAPTER TWELVE

      ‘TELL me again!’ Ellie said.

      ‘I’ve told you four times.’ Ruby laughed. Jess and Ellie were home when she tumbled into the house, though Tilly, who was working that night, had left early to help with an antenatal class. ‘Once I’m finished in Emergency, once I’ve got through nights, well, it’s not written in stone, but I think we’ll be more open, able to show our faces together in public. I don’t know …’ she admitted, because at the time it had seemed obvious what the other was saying—that once they’d got through this bit, they had a future, but under the scrutiny of her friends, she wondered if she was clutching at straws, and she certainly wasn’t about to discuss the absence of condoms.

      So she played it down instead, toned it down, tried to calm things down in her heart, and after a good gossip she wished her friends goodnight and headed for bed. Except despite a tired body her mind wouldn’t quieten down and Ruby found herself staring out of the window, knowing she had work tomorrow and wishing she could sleep. She eventually did, but only for a little while, she was quite sure of it, when at eight a.m. she staggered into the kitchen.

      ‘What are you doing up?’ Tilly was nursing a huge mug of tea. ‘I thought you’d have a lie-in.’

      ‘I heard the kettle.’ Ruby smiled. ‘I’m going back to bed soon.’

      ‘So where did you get to yesterday?’ Tilly asked, and Ruby told her, well, some of it, but even though she sounded upbeat and happy she could see the worry in her friend’s eyes.

      ‘You haven’t known him very long,’ Tilly gently pointed out.

      ‘I know.’ Ruby ran a hand through her hair and tried to apply logic to a heart that had made up its mind. ‘I’m not doing an Ellie—I’m not convincing myself this is “the one”. I just can’t believe how he makes me feel and I know he feels the same.’ She could see Tilly wasn’t completely mollified. ‘What?’ Ruby demanded, because she could do that with her best friend. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Tilly was honest. ‘I don’t know a single thing about him. I remember him when I did my emergency rotation and I don’t think I said two words to him in the time I was there. He was just “Call Paeds. Organise a social worker …”’

      ‘He’s actually not like that at all,’ Ruby said, ‘once you know him.’

      ‘Good,’ Tilly said, and she would never meddle, but she was concerned about Ruby, knew she was struggling at work and knew that her friend didn’t give her heart away easily.

      ‘Oh, I got your payslip … you said you were worried …’

      Ruby peeled it open and groaned as she scanned the little slip.

      ‘I knew they’d paid me too much. I was hoping it was back pay or something.’ But instead they’d put her down as working on a night that her shift had been cancelled. ‘I’ll ring them later,’ Ruby said. ‘Right now I’m going back to bed.’ But she still couldn’t sleep. Tilly’s unvoiced concern had her thinking—what did she know about him? She knew that he had family in Melbourne, that he had worked with her brother, there hadn’t exactly been time to take a history. Still, as the morning stretched on, and sleep remained elusive, and as a couple of hundred dollars extra in her bank account niggled, a walk into work to clear her conscience seemed like a good idea. Though she’d held little hope of bumping into Cort, as the lift doors opened on the admin floor and she saw him standing there, it was certainly an added bonus.

      ‘Hi.’ She smiled and he remembered Sheila’s warning.

      ‘Hi.’ He stepped aside to let her out, as was the polite thing to do, but Ruby just stood there, temptation beckoning, and he stepped into the lift. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

      ‘I wish I was.’

      So did Cort. He glanced to the lift panel, wished he knew how to stop the lift, but one push of the button and he’d no doubt get it wrong and they’d come up for air, to find half of security gathered and watching.