Page 46 of Beg, Borrow or Steal
‘Yeah,’ Toby said, lounging back on the sofa with a smug grin on his face. ‘Leave it up there,Ki-Ki. Let’s all see what Little Miss Perfect does in her spare time.’ He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen, after which the large space filled with the sound of Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirty’. ‘Why don’t you give us all a demo, huh?’ The bloody loser had synched his phone to the speakers in the mess to set this whole thing up; in that moment he struck Libby as more than a little sad.
‘Fine,’ she told him. Her rage was so extreme it felt like a physical force inside her: hot and uncontrollable. Holding eye contact with him, she ditched her bag and kicked off her crocs. After shaking her hair out of its elastic band she took a few steps back. Toby, who obviously hadn’t anticipated anything more than a tearful reaction from Libby, was starting to look a little unsure.
She sprang up onto her toes, and then launched into a front flip until she was standing on the back of the sofa. She proceeded to flip almost casually in a flight serial from hands to feet along the sofa, until she launched herself forwards and landed on her feet on the coffee table in front of Toby, in the centre of the mess. Toby noticed too late the exact replica of his position from two nights before, and didn’t have time to react as she tipped his can of coke all over his crotch. He fumbled his phone as he jumped up from the sofa, but Libby snatched it up and dropped it into a conveniently placed pint glass full of water, which the pathologist had been having with his now trodden-in cheese sandwich. Toby leapt up and took a swipe at her, but she was too quick for him. She ducked down before stepping gracefully off the table and jumping back.
‘Mummy and Daddy pay your fees, right? Am I right?’ Libby asked. Toby’s face was bright red and so furious that he was beyond speech. ‘Well, I have a child to support, exams to study for (which by the way I kick your pathetic arse in every time and you know it), and goddamn rent to pay. So you can take your smirking and your judgement and go fuck yourself, because I’m pretty sure you’re the only human up for the job.
‘Yeah I dance to support my family, I’d dance buck-naked in front of a packed O2 stadium if it achieved my dreams for me and my daughter. I’ll take money from stupid men like you who’ll pay the ridiculous cover charge and then drink overpriced drinks just to see the likes of me shake my arse, and I’ll do it all with a smile on my face if it gets me what I want.’
When Libby had finished there was a shocked silence for a few moments before someone started clapping. Before long the entire mess was clapping and cheering her, even the friends of Toby’s who’d been with him at the club.
Toby, however, did not clap. He focused on her with hate-filled eyes as the applause gradually died down. ‘You … you bi – ’ He made a lunge for her but a large body stepped in between them, and a big hand on Toby’s chest stopped his progress so abruptly that his head snapped back.
‘That’senough,’ Jamie said, his voice low and vibrating with anger. ‘You’re done. You come within ten feet of her again and I’ll have you thrown out of the student programme.’ Toby’s nostrils flared and his face stayed so red it looked almost painful.
‘Are you threatening me, Dr Grantham?’ Toby asked.
‘No,’ Jamie replied. Toby looked up at Jamie for a long moment before he grunted and stepped back, grabbing his bag off the sofa and stalking past all his mates, whose smirks had faded into looks of embarrassment.
‘You okay?’ Jamie asked as he turned to face Libby. She blinked at him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Generally the consultants didn’t venture into the doctor’s mess too often; they had their offices and their own coffee rooms.
‘Libs, don’t be mad, okay?’ Kira said. ‘I may have sent him alittletext when I saw that poster. I thought – ’
‘I can look after myself,’ Libby told them, taking a step back from them both. She felt the burning behind her eyes but she refused to cry. None of these people would see her break down. A low murmur of noise had returned to the mess. ‘I can look after us by myself,’ she whispered as she wrapped her arms around her middle. When she looked up, two sets of concerned eyes were fixed on hers. Jamie made a move towards her but she dodged around him.
Once out in the corridor she started jogging.
‘Libby, wait,’ she heard him call out, and slowed to a walk as he caught up with her, resigning herself to this discussion.
‘It’s my half day,’ she told him as she carried on walking with him beside her. ‘I’m getting Rosie early and we’re going home.’
‘Hey,’ he said gently, his warm hands reaching for her arms, which were still hugging her middle tightly. ‘Hey, slow down. Give yourself a minute before you see the squirt, okay?’
Her head was pounding, anger and humiliation still burning through her. Maybe he was right. She took a deep breath and slowed her steps. He had a hand to her back now and was directing her forward. Before she knew what was happening they were both in his office and the door was shut behind them.
‘Right, sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ He put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her into his big comfy leather chair. Her throat felt tight but she swallowed down the emotion that threatened. This unfortunately provoked a coughing fit. By the time she’d recovered from it he was crouched in front of her, holding a steaming mug.
‘That cough’s been there a while now,’ he said, and Libby shrugged.
‘Just the remnants of a cold I picked up from Rosie,’ she told him, reminding herself again to replace her inhaler. ‘It’s fine.’ She took a sip of tea with hands that she realised were shaking slightly. ‘How much did you see?’ she asked as he sat on the edge of his desk in front of her.
‘I arrived to see you flip off the back of the sofa,’ he said. ‘Which, by the way, is about thirty years old and you didn’t know if it was safe.’
She shrugged again. ‘I had a point to make.’
‘I think you made your point, baby,’ he told her; and his voice, maybe because of how gentle it was or the still suppressed rage in it on her behalf, broke something in her. Her hands started to shake in earnest, tea sloshing over the sides of the mug until it was taken from her and she was lifted up. Suddenly it was Jamie sitting in the leather chair with her in his lap, his big arms holding her to him. Her face, which was tucked into his neck, crumpled and for the first time in what felt like a decade she allowed herself to dissolve into gut-wrenching tears. For a long time they just sat there, her soaking his shirt and him stroking her back and murmuring about how everything was going to be okay, telling her to hold onto him.
But she knew … she knew she couldn’t hold onto him. She couldn’t fall down. She had to rely on herself.
So after the sobs had died to silent tears, she pulled her face out of the comfort of his strong jaw and sat up, wiping the backs of her hands under her eyes.
‘I’m okay now,’ she said, starting to pull away, but his arms tightened around her and drew her back in. ‘Seriously, Jamie, I don’t want to waste any time I could be spending with Rosie. I’ve got to go.’
‘Rosie’s a bright little girl, Libby,’ he told her – something she already knew.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
