I barely have time to lather on my SPF before I’m planting one last kiss on his lips and running out of the door.
Everything’s the same at work. The same Wednesday staff do the same jobs in the same order, and I’m called in to help with a couple of difficult patients, like always.
Cam finds me while I’m on my break and slides a couple of full blood bags towards me with the most ridiculous eyebrow waggle I’ve ever seen.
‘Hepatitis again?’ I ask, but he shakes his head.
‘Syphilis, actually.’
I almost fall off my chair. ‘Syphilis? Have I gone back in time.’
‘Newlyweds who just came back from travelling in sub-Saharan Africa.’ Cam grins, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘By all accounts one of them enjoyed the localdelicaciesmore than the other. But he was only too happy to share with his new wife.’
I wince. ‘Awkward.’
‘Yeah.’ He chuckles. ‘Try being the one who had to explain the whole thing to them.’
I hold up the blood bags. ‘Do you want one of these? Sounds like you earned it.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m good. There’s another where that came from.’
I raise an eyebrow in a question.
‘The husband’s long-time side piece is also a prolific blood donor,’ he explains, before adding, ‘andnow has syphilis too.’ Like that part wasn’t obvious.
‘Wow,’ I say, sliding both bags of blood into my backpack, ‘sounds like a bad day all round.’
I won’t know, not until a little later, how right I actually am.
* * *
Everything starts to go south around lunchtime.
It’s little things to begin with, just everyday annoyances. A patient calls me every name under the sun. Another throws up on my shoes. I get trapped in an awkward eight-minute conversation with my least favourite colleague about her daughter’s ballet show. Her daughter only learned to walk earlier this year, so I’m baffled as to what ballet skills she can possibly have acquired in that time that might warrant such a showcase.
I sneak five minutes’ break in the afternoon and text Quinn about it. Apparently, I’m such a lovesick fool that the mere act of telling him about my day makes the everyday annoyances vanish into nothing like a morning sea mist under the sun’s rays.
I don’t think anything of it when he doesn’t reply straight away. I just put my phone back into my bag, ram both back into my locker, and carry on with my shift.
It’s Cam’s face that tips me off.
He’s such a preternaturally upbeat character that the mere sight of his stony face makes my stomach fall. And when I catch his eye and he swallows so hard that I can see the lurch of his Adam’s apple from across the room, cold fingers dance up my spine.
‘Florence,’ he calls, nodding towards one of the consultation rooms. His lips are pressed tightly together, a grim line across his usually sunny face. I’ve known Cam for so long that not only have I seen that expression before, I’ve seen iton himbefore. More than once.
‘Who’s dead?’ I hiss as I pass him, panic raising the pitch of my voice.
‘Florence,’ he says again, in that tone I can’t quite decipher. It’s not a question, not a warning. It’s almost like he doesn’t know what else to say, and for a person like Cam, that’s about as bad as it gets.
I hold my breath and walk into the room. My eyes jump to the figure who’s leaning against the back wall, his fingers twisting into knots. I think I know it’s Bram from the start but he’s out of context in the clinic, so it takes me a while for it to fully register that he’s here. He does that same swallow as our eyes meet, and I feel it like a fist in the face.
‘No,’ I say, reaching a hand for the wall as tears begin to blur my vision.
It can’t be Quinn. It can’t. I was in his bed less than nine hours ago. If I concentrate hard, I can still smell the fading traces of his aftershave on my skin. He can’t be…
I can’t even bear tothinkit.
‘Florence,’ Bram says, and then he says nothing.