Page 35 of Gideon
She shrugs. “I know, and the nice young policeman said exactly the same. For a few hours.” After a few seconds she stirs. “Fancy a joint?” she says casually, reaching into her Birkin bag and pulling out an old battered cigarette tin.
“What?” I gape at her.
She shrugs. “It’s medicinal, darling. For my arthritis.”
“You haven’t got arthritis.”
“Sweetie, I’m seventy. At some point I’m sure to have it.”
I start to laugh as she sparks up the blunt, inhaling lustily and holding it out to me.
“I shouldn’t,” I say. “Eli will kill me.” She looks at me unblinkingly and I square my shoulders. “I was always terrible with peer pressure,” I say sadly and grab the joint.
For a second I hesitate, but then I remember who I am. I’m my own boss. There is no one to care for me apart from my brother and two close friends, and they’ve all got their own lives to lead. The only person who I thought was concerned is paid to do that, and it’s blatantly obvious that the concern is surface deep because when he went off the clock he displayed his complete lack of interest by missing the boat and not checking in.I’m on my ownI remind myself.And I’m absolutely and utterly fine with that.
“Fuck him,” I say and take a long drag of the joint.
After all, he never banned dopeis my last coherent thought.
Chapter
Seven
What do you remember about last night?
Eli
I fidget about on the dock, stepping from one foot to another and feeling the nervous energy thrumming through me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Oliver says peevishly, leaning against a post as if he hasn’t got a care in the world.
“The same thing that I’d think would be wrong with you,” I snap. “The fact that we missed the boat and neither of us have checked in with our patients. Fuck knows what’s happened.”
“Oh relax, for Christ’s sake. Nothing will have happened more disastrous than Mrs Pritchard finally disappearing up her own arse, and Gideon dying from eternal grumpiness.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. Fucking hell, I fancied the pants off the man for years. I can’t tell you how disappointed I’ve been to find out that he’s a bigger mood hoover than a Dyson.”
I shake my head. “I value my job,” I say and stare as he laughs.
“You mean you value your patient.” He grins at me nastily. “I’m not saying I blame you. If he’d landed as my patient, the ker-ching signs would have gone off straightaway. I’d have bent over quicker than someone having a prostate check.” He looks at me eagerly. “You know you can tell me. Is he gay? Bisexual? There have been rumours flitting around for years that he swings both ways.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say sturdily and unrepentantly dishonestly, because I’ve seen the glances Gideon’s sneaked at me. I heard what his manager said. Jesus, I haven’t been able to get that out of my head.
I think back to this morning and seeing Jacinta on his lap. It had made my stomach feel funny, and I’d been desperate enough to get out of the suite and not be around them that I’d accepted this date and the ensuing debacle. It was only at the last moment that I’d looked beyond their stunning beauty and seen the way they sat together so comfortably. It had been like they were brother and sister.
Oliver’s whistle stirs me from my thoughts. “Are you sure you’re not going to hit that?”
I stare at him. “He’s my patient. Do you remember nursing college and that teeny insignificant thing called the Code?”
“Pah, that’s more of a guideline.”
“It’s a pretty serious guideline if you can lose your job over it.”
“Listen, Eli, I’ve known many private nurses, and well over half of them have fucked a patient at some point.” I shake my head and he glares at me. “I have to say that you’re another letdown. You’ve been shitty company all day.”
“I can’t imagine why. First I had to refuse your kind offer of a hotel room that rents by the hour, then accept with a smile the fact that you dropped my phone in the sea, and finally manage not to throttle you when we missed the tender because you were flirting with that waiter. It’s been the absolute best date I’ve ever been on.”
