Rex yelped and staggered backwards, giving her a clear view of the open doorway, in which stood…
‘Noah? Erm, hi. I’m right here.’ She peeked over Rex’s shoulder. ‘Give me two seconds and I’ll just wrap up this meeting.’
11
NOAH
‘So, on a scale of one to a million per cent awkward, where are we sitting?’ Noah asked, laughing. He wasn’t sure what had shocked him more today – Anya pitching up out of the blue, or walking in on Tress manhandling that actor from the show. Although, in fairness, he should probably have texted Tress to let her know he was stopping by, but he dropped in so regularly, he didn’t think it was a big deal. Neither did Bob, the security guard at the front door, mostly because Tress had given him the authorisation to let Noah in any time, but also because Noah had taken out Bob’s grandson’s burst appendix and he’d made a full recovery.
Thankfully, Romeo had made a swift escape when Noah had interrupted them, so now, Noah was sitting on the old, battered armchair in the corner of Tress’s office. She’d once told him it had been a staple of Agnes McGlinchy’s living room, before she treated herself to a recliner when her storyline had her winning a thousand pounds on a lottery scratchcard.
Tress was in the chair behind her desk, head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with laughter. ‘Oh, we’re dinging the bell at the top of the awkward scale. And I know it didn’t seem that way, but I’m so glad you walked in. It was about to get highlycontentious, because I was about to stage a retreat and ask for a rain check.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he teased her with a tone of cynicism. ‘Had you told your hands that? Because from where I was standing, you were hanging on to his arse for dear life.’
‘Nooooooooo,’ Tress wailed, her head on the table now. ‘And by that I mean, yes. You’re right. What kind of mother am I? My son’s first birthday and I’m at work, feeling up one of Scotland’s Top Ten Hogmanay Hotties?’
That memory came back to Noah. A few weeks ago, between Christmas and New Year, Tress reading a newspaper and pointing out that number two on the Hogmanay Hottie list was in her show. Number one was Sam Heughan, but according to Tress, he got his kit off regularly inOutlander, so he had an advantage. Noah had just been confused and more than a bit surprised that they still ran features like that in 2023. That said, when he was a junior doctor, he’d been persuaded to do a calendar of ‘Dishy Docs’ to raise money for new play equipment for the hospital. Noah had been Dr June, and he had barely left the house from May until the first of July, for fear that someone would recognise the doctor in the blue scrub trousers, who had remembered his stethoscope but appeared to have misplaced his top.
‘Somehow I don’t think Buddy will be scarred for life. Nancy and Val are probably on their 2436th rendition of “Wheels on The Bus”. So this is a thing?’ His curiosity got the better of him. At least he thought it was curiosity. Maybe a bit of protectiveness too. Tress had been through so much in the last year, and he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else hurting her. Not that she was the type of person to make impulsive or dodgy choices. No. She was smart, and she took her time to make the right decisions – which made it all the more fucking infuriating that Max had turned out to be a cheating dick in the end. Max hadfooled them both, the two people who’d loved him unreservedly – his best mate and his wife. Tress deserved so much better and Noah wasn’t sure if this hottie was it.
Tress lifted her head. Shrugged. ‘I have no idea. Yesterday, he kissed me in the lift and asked me out. I told him I’d think about it. And then today… that just happened. What am I doing, Noah? I’m a single mother…’
‘Eh, as your best mate I’d like to add “gorgeous single mother”. I’m just trying to be as suave as Mr Smooth Moves with the muscles.’
He had to duck when she picked a brush up off her desk and launched it at him. ‘Don’t take the piss!’ she objected, but at least she was laughing. ‘I’m in an emotional dilemma here and you’re not helping.’
He held his hands up in surrender. ‘Okay, okay. Right, I’m listening. I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.’
‘I know, I know. I was just… processing it. I mean, I’ve been totally closed off to any kind of entanglement for the last year, and then this happens. It just caught me off guard.’
‘Yep, me too. I thought I was in the wrong room.’ He was playing with her again, and she was still trying to act indignant.
‘Stop! Did you not hear the bit about the emotional dilemma? Don’t pick on the chick with the issues.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. Okay, give it to me – what’s the dilemma?’
She reached up and grabbed two bottles of water from the shelf behind her, then tossed one to Noah, before going on, ‘I just don’t get the point of starting something with a man who is clearly at a completely different place in his life than me. That’s an accident waiting to happen. And I don’t get why he’s interested. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not fishing for compliments or doing myself down, but come on.’
‘I know. He’s a Hogmanay Hottie.’
‘Can we stay on track here?’ she demanded, with a touch of amused exasperation.
Noah cleared his throat, swapped his grin for his very best serious expression. ‘Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Okay, then looking at this objectively…’
‘Yes?’
He was almost afraid to say it. ‘Could you not just use him for sex?’
Tress gave him her very best death stare. ‘You’re not helping, you know that? No. I couldn’t. I’m way too fricking terrified for that. And besides, much as it felt great in some bits, it also felt… weird. Awkward. Self-conscious. It never felt that way with Max, not even in the beginning. I’m a lost cause. I am. I’m destined to grow old and haggard and never have sex again. They’ll find me at eighty, prowling the corridors of the old folks’ home, looking for a date for Saturday night karaoke.’
‘Nah, I’ll be there too. I’ll take you to the karaoke as long as you’ll do Dolly Parton and I can be Kenny Rogers. We’ll sing “Islands In The Stream” until all the choruses about running water make us want to pee.’
It was an inside joke that had kept them going in the aftermath of the nuclear explosion that had detonated in both their lives. They’d never be able to face another relationship, but they’d have each other, and in decades to come, they’d pass the time racing their Zimmers in the garden. Somewhere along the line, for him, things had got better. A few months ago, when his decades-long friendship with Cheska became something more, he’d worried that Tress might resent him moving on, or feel sad that it was no longer just the two of them – plus Val and Nancy – against the world, but, of course, she hadn’t minded in the least. She’d been happy for him. Told him he deserved it. Much as he wanted that for her too, he wasn’t sure this hottie was the right one, but whatever Tress decided, he’d get right on board.
Tress’s mobile began to ring and saved him from having to express that. Probably just as well. She checked the screen and then answered it, putting it on speaker. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, ma love, it’s me. Don’t panic, your boy is well and nothing is on fire.’ Nancy started every call with a variation of that announcement. ‘I’m just checking in on you and letting you know that me and Val are taking Buddy, Oliver and Gerald to the petting zoo at the park.’
