looked at her and he wanted to look away, to walk away, to remember he was there for reasons other than this, except there was something about Alison that was hard to resist. Something about her that meant stern warnings could so easily be ignored.
‘Hey…’ Moira dashed past ‘…are you coming to the beach later, Alison?’ She gave a hopeful glance at Nick. ‘There are a few of us going—Amy…’
‘Not for me,’ Alison said.
‘Or me!’ Nick said. Moira shrugged and moved on. It was like sugar to artificial sweetener, Nick decided, because sugar was something he was trying to give up too. Yes, sweeteners tasted okay, once you got used to them, and for a while there they sufficed, but sooner rather than later you went back for the real thing…. And maybe he should just go to the beach, or a bar, or just home and have that takeaway that Amy had offered. Instead he found himself asking Alison if she wanted to go for a coffee.
‘I’ve got a dentist appointment.’
‘Ouch.’ He pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Hope it’s not too painful.’
‘Oh, it’s just my six-monthly check-up.’ And she smiled, but it sort of faded as she turned back to the computer, because it just about summed her up.
She had six-monthly check-ups, and when this one was done, no doubt, she’d do as she always did and while she was there make an appointment for the next one and write it in her diary, and she’d be there—she never missed.
Same as her eight-weekly trim at the hairdresser’s.
Same as she booked in the dog to be shampooed and clipped.
She bet Nick hadn’t spent ages on the computer, researching dentists to ensure he didn’t miss his six-monthly check-up.
The most gorgeous, sexy man was asking her for coffee and she’d turned him down for a dental appointment!
‘We could meet up afterwards, but not for long, I’ve got to look at that flat.’ She could hear her own words and inwardly reeled at them, and even as she mistyped the patient’s UR number she sounded almost blasé as she dipped in her toe and felt only warmth. ‘So long as I don’t end up getting a filling or something.’
‘Let’s just hope you’ve been flossing.’
She had been.
Alison lay in the chair with her mouth open as the dentist tapped each tooth in turn.
Not a single filling.
Again.
He cleaned them, polished them and they felt like glass as she ran her tongue over them. As she paid and headed out, she didn’t get why she was so nervous.
Why she wanted to just not show up.
Because it might just be coffee and strudel and then she’d be disappointed, Alison thought as she stepped out onto the street with her sparkly clean teeth. Or, worse, it might be more than coffee and strudel.
Maybe that was what he did—pick someone wherever he went, dazzle her with the full glare of his spotlight.
And he really could dazzle.
Since two minutes past six on Friday morning, he’d been on her mind.
She rang her mum, told her she was having coffee with friends before she went to look at the flat, and as she turned the corner he was there already and looked up and smiled as she made her way over and took her seat at the pavement café.
‘How was the dentist?’
‘Fine,’ Alison said, ‘I’ve earned my strudel.’
He ordered, and her nerves disappeared because, absolutely, he was still easy to talk to and easy to listen to, too. Not working for a few months, Nick said, was the single best thing he had ever done. ‘Because,’ he continued, spooning four sugars into his coffee as Alison tapped in a sweetener, ‘I actually missed it.’
‘Well, you love your job,’ Alison said. ‘That’s obvious.’
‘But I didn’t,’ Nick said, and Alison blinked at his admission. ‘That’s one of the reasons I took a year off. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do medicine any more, let alone work in Emergency.’
‘But you seem to enjoy it.’
‘I’m starting to.’ He was in no rush, just sat and drank his coffee as if he’d be happy to sit there all evening and told her a little about himself. ‘There was never any question that I’d be a doctor—preferably a surgeon. My dad’s one, my grandfather was one, my elder brother is, as is my sister…’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what we talk about over dinner?’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Homework monitor,’ Nick said, and Alison laughed. ‘There was no question and, really, I accepted that, right up till the last year of medical school—which I enjoyed, but…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I wanted to take a year off to travel, but I ended up taking an internship.’
‘I was the same,’ Alison interrupted, which was rare for her. Normally she sat quietly and listened. ‘I wanted a year off when I finished school, but Mum and Dad said I should finish my studies.’
‘I had the same conversation with mine.’ Nick groaned. ‘So I did my internship, decided I liked emergency work, met Gillian and it was all.’
‘Nice,’ Alison offered.
And they could hardly hear the other’s story for telling their own, or hardly tell their own for hearing the other person’s.
‘Work was okay about it—they gave me a year’s unpaid leave, but they made it pretty clear that there’d be no extension. I’ve no idea how bad divorce must be,’ Nick said, ‘because breaking up after four years was hard enough. I mean, there was no real reason—it was just the talk of mortgages and babies and if we’d hyphenate our names…’ He called the waiter and ordered another coffee and Alison ordered a hot chocolate. ‘I was having a midlife crisis apparently!’ Nick said. ‘At thirty!’
‘I had one too,’ Alison said, ‘and I’m only twenty-four.’ And she laughed, for the first time she laughed about the sorry situation she had found herself in a year ago. She told him a little about Paul, her one serious relationship—how well he’d got on with her mother, how hard it had been to end it—but there was something she wanted to know about him. ‘So…’ Alison was cautious, but terribly, terribly curious. ‘Are you two having a break…?’
‘No,’ Nick said. ‘I ended it and it wasn’t nice, but it was necessary. I just hope one day she can see that—four weeks later I’d got a round-the-world ticket and was flying to New York.’
And she sat outside a pavement café with a man who came from the other side of the world, but who felt somehow the same, and there was a fizz in her veins she’d never felt before, a glow inside as they chatted on, and she could have stayed and spoken to him for hours, except she had her real estate appointment at seven.
‘Do you want me to come?’ Nick asked. ‘I love looking at houses.’
‘It’s an apartment.’
‘It’s someone else’s!’ Nick grinned. ‘I love being nosy.’
And Alison smiled back because, even if flat-hunting was hell, yes, she liked that aspect of it too, loved that peek into others’ lives, the solace that wardrobes the length and breadth of Coogee were filled fit to bursting, that some people didn’t even make their beds when they had people coming round to view. And she told him so and told him some more. ‘One couple were rowing on Saturday,’ Alison said.
‘The owners?’ Nick asked, and she loved how his eyes widened in glee.
‘I think they were breaking up.’ Alison nodded. ‘They stood on the balcony and had this screaming