‘I think you should come with me for the rest of the day,’ he told her, making sure not to drop his gaze down to her mouth again but finding that her blue eyes surrounded by thick, dark lashes were just as disconcerting. ‘Okay,’ he said briskly, breaking eye contact and turning on his heel. ‘Let’s start the ward round.’
Moving through ICU with Libby in tow was a new form of torture for Jamie. He’d worked with attractive women before, but somehow this felt different. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful; it was other stuff, small stuff: the way she shoved tendrils of dark hair, when they escaped from the mass on her head onto to her cheeks, behind her ears; the focus she employed when watching a procedure or listening to anything he or the nurses had to say (unlike other medical students, Libby did seem to appreciate that the nurses had just as much to teach her as he did); the way her cheeks flushed when she answered a question correctly (which, considering her propensity to fall asleep sitting up, was surprisingly often).
Despite all this, Jamie managed to be studiously professional … that was until he heard her sing to herself under her breath whilst doing a practical procedure. He’d listened in during the second cannula, when she thought he was still reading the notes. ‘Ice, Ice baby – putting on the tourniquet, Vanilla Ice, Ice, baby – tap along the vein, Ice, Ice, baby – open up the packaging, Vanilla Ice, Ice, baby – swab the area…’ and so on. When she’d finished, having sung throughout the entire thing about what she was doing, to the worst rap in recorded history, she turned and gave a little start to see him standing right behind her, smiling a totally inappropriate smile.
She rolled her eyes (which unfortunately was goddamn adorable as well). ‘I’m not used to doing this stuff, okay? I read that it helps cement memories if you sing what you’re doing as you’re going along.’
Jamie nodded, his grin still very much present as he said, ‘Yep. Totally normal.’
She gave a little cute huff of annoyance but her lips tilted up in amusement.
‘Tell me though – does ithaveto be Vanilla Ice? Or do other dodgy nineties rappers get a look-in? Could you mix it up with some Dr Dre instead? Maybe some Snoop Dog?’ he asked, and then sucked in a breath at her answering smile. That smile was dangerous; it should have been quarantined immediately for the safety of mankind. He took a step back, his own smile fading rapidly as he shook his head to clear it.
It wasn’t just her beauty that was throwing him though; it was her intelligence, her quirkiness, her complete disregard for her appearance … But okay, the fact that she was unbelievably, mind-blowingly hot didn’t help either.
The next day Libby was allocated to his list again and, unlike before, she was early. By the time he arrived she had already reviewed all the patients’ notes and was ready to go round with him to assess them. She listened in theatre, did her cute little rap whilst she cannulated each patient (by this stage Jamie was pretty much addicted to hearing it and moved closer as soon as he saw her approach the equipment). She even managed to soften the big man: Mick had cracked a smile with her that morning (Jamie could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen that bastard smile) and he’d taken to plucking pens out of her hair to write on the charts, apparently pleased with the convenience of such a ready supply.
She was good with the patients – she told a particularly nervous one that Jamie could put her to sleep with just the power of his voice, so adding in a little propofol would knock them right out. This earned a bark of laughter from Mick so rare that Jamie actually thought Mick had aspirated on a Malteaser and was fighting for air; until he realised that the snort/wheeze was his best version of an amused giggle.Giggle.From Mick? Insane.
Jamie caught the SHO that Libby was supposed to be working with staring at her arse the day after that, so he kept her with him again. This was a little irrational seeing as Doug was a great bloke and would never make any woman he was working with feel uncomfortable. But for some reason the thought of thoroughly amiable and inoffensive Doug having a jolly old time with Libby, whilst intermittently staring at her arse, was not acceptable. So Libby stayed with Jamie for another day, and a day slid into a week, then into another. He started to relax around her and to get used to the low hum of almost painful physical attraction in her presence. She was on time every day and there were no more drowsy episodes. Indeed, she was one of the most attentive and quick students he’d ever come across. He was sure that when he and Pav were in their first year clinical they didn’t know their arses from their elbows, leave alone the appropriate vertebral level for a spinal anaesthetic.
He met her small, outrageous friend Kira again that week. She plonked herself down at the table he was sitting at with Pav for lunch, turned to Jamie, and pouted her lips, saying: ‘Well, hello there, Dr G. Care for my spongy fingers … or maybe a custard crème?’ The way she breathed the words, her eyelids half-mast and the hand that wasn’t holding the plate of biscuits pushing her hair up off her neck, it was like she really was asking him to perform something sexual right there in the canteen. When her hand fell from her hair and onto his knee, giving him a firm squeeze, he nearly jumped up from the table, and caused Pav (a man not easily shocked) to drop his fork. She pulled her hand away and laughed in a maniacal way that suggested mental ill health, then slapped Jamie on the back.
‘I told you I could make him blush,’ she said, turning to look at a horrified Libby, who was standing next to the table, holding her tray with a white-knuckled grip. ‘Oh, for badger’s sake, close your mouth and sit down before you catch a fly, Hot Mess. My spongy fingers are going stale as we speak.’
‘Kira,’ Libby said through gritted teeth, her own face flushed bright red. ‘Get. Up.’
‘Sure now, these here fellas don’t mind us squeezing on here – do you?’
Pav barked a laugh and slapped the table. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m in love. And Idefinitelywant one of your sponge fingers, baby – custard creamed or not.’
‘That’s what they all say, darling,’ Kira told him, blowing him a kiss across the table and pushing the plate towards him, before taking one of the sponge fingers herself, closing her eyes and moaning as she bit it in half.
‘Awesome,’ Pav whispered, and Jamie looked at the ceiling.
‘It’s fine,’ Jamie said to Libby, who was making big eyes at her friend and jerking her head to the side to get Kira to follow her. ‘You ladies are welcome to sit here.’
He ignored Pav’s raised eyebrow as he waved Libby to sit on the opposite chair; Jamie had never sat with any students before, or encouraged any sort of friendship he felt was inappropriate, despite some of the less than subtle approaches made over the last two years since he’d been put in charge of simulation training. It wasn’t as if he was a teacher and they were in school, but it was unethical. Not to mention they were practically teenagers. Jamie had always done everything by the book. No exceptions.
‘I’m sorry,’ Libby muttered, reluctantly taking the chair and glaring at Kira as she did. ‘I’m afraid I have no control over her.’
‘Well, any woman who eats sponge fingers and custard crèmes for her lunch, succeeds in making sexually based jokes around them, and uses “badger” as a swear word, is a genius in my book. I’m Pavlos.’ Pav reached across the table to shake Kira’s hand, but she offered him a closed fist instead. ‘And she fist-bumps,’ he added as their knuckles made contact. ‘Where have you been all my life?’
‘Hello, Kira,’ Jamie cut in. ‘I think we’ve met in teaching.’
‘Indeed,’ Kira said around a mouthful of sponge finger. ‘Loved the partial pressure co-efficient calculation by the way. Riveting stuff.’ Pav snorted and Jamie’s mouth pulled up into a reluctant smile. ‘And this one,’ she indicated Libby with a sponge finger, ‘has been on about you non stop. “Dr Grantham says …”, “Well, Dr Grantham doesn’t think …”, “Dr Grantham told me to …”. You’ve made quite the impression, my man. She makes you out to be some sort of medical Einstein-slash-Terminator, totally unfazed by any situation, ready with your healing hands whenever the need arises.’ Kira’s eyes flicked down to Jamie’s hands and then she looked back up to wink at him.
‘Kira. Shut. Up.’ Libby hissed, her face glowing now, with red spreading from her cheeks down her neck to her chest – another goddamn adorable trait which Jamie strove to ignore. He stifled a grin at Kira, ridiculously pleased that Libby had talked about him.
Pav groaned. ‘Please don’t inflate his ego any more than it already is. Now, let’s get back to the use of the word badger and the sexual nature of custard crèmes.’
Once Libby had managed to control the blood flow to her face and stopped glaring at Kira, lunch was … fun. Unlike Jamie, Pav had never cared about convention or blurred lines, and he had always been effortlessly charming. Seeing Libby relaxed (well, as relaxed as anyone could be at a table with a loose cannon like Kira) added yet another layer to her attraction. Thanks to Pav, Jamie learnt that Libby was not in fact a teenager. Both she and Kira hadn’t started their medical degrees until they were twenty, making them both twenty-two. Kira had done a science conversion course to apply for medicine, followed by a year out to ‘find herself’: this spent ‘communing with my spiritual side and rearranging my chakras’. Jamie presumed that Libby must have followed that same sort of path, as Kira had told them they’d been best friends since school – although she deftly changed the subject when it arose.
By the time they left, Pav was staring at Jamie with a smug smile on his face. It took a punch in Pav’s stomach in the safety of Jamie’s office before he would tell him why he was smirking.
‘You like her,’ he told Jamie, his voice still smug despite being winded.
‘Bugger off,’ Jamie muttered, his ears feeling hot, the traitors.
