Page 37

‘I take it your ex wasn’t much of a foot rubber.’

She snorts. ‘The only thing he liked to massage was his ego.’

Supressing a laugh, I try not to feel superior as my fingers work her toes from the front and behind and we don’t speak for a few minutes. Her eyes stay shut and she whimpers pleasurably while I rub her feet and I concentrate on my hands while willing my cock to not even think about twitching.

‘So, come on then,’ I say after she moans a particularly lusty moan and my dick is about to mutiny. ‘Tell me about this day of yours.’

Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it. Maybe she can’t. But I’m not going to be some bullshit chicken-ass too afraid, or too full of my own importance, to ask.

She sighs as her eyes flutter open and lock on mine. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

I nod slowly. Her days must be pretty full on. I glance at my hands as they knead her instep, giving her time to gather her thoughts. ‘Did something happen?’

‘Apart from not being fast enough to dodge a flying fist you mean?’

My fingers stop the massage abruptly and my gaze flies to hers. ‘Someone hit you?’

She shrugs. ‘It happens occasionally. Occupational hazard.’

‘What?’ The hot hiss of fury roils in my gut, broiling the contents.

‘It’s fine. It was an old woman with Alzheimer’s who was flailing around while we were trying to restrain her from running out into the street. I’m crankier with myself more than anything. Usually I see them coming and I can duck.’

Seriously? What the fuck. She seems so calm about it. Like she works at a boxing ring instead of a hospital. ‘Did she hurt you?’

‘Nah, just a glancing blow near my ear. Didn’t even leave a mark.’

I blink at her casual dismissal of violence in the workplace. ‘Still… didn’t it piss you off? You shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of thing.’

‘Sure, at the time it was a bit of a shock and I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being beaned by a little old lady, but…’ She shrugs again. ‘It wasn’t deliberate. She has dementia. The world’s a scary place for her. She was just scared.’

Her gaze is soft and her voice forgiving, and I marvel at that. ‘You’re a good person.’

‘Then why have you stopped massaging my foot?’ she asks with a smile as she wriggles it in my loose grasp.

I smile back and recommence. ‘What else?’ I ask as my fingers dig into her arch, eliciting a soft moan. I have a feeling being smacked upside the head was just one of the things Holly had to contend with today.

She sighs but it’s heavier this time and I sense that this is the thing weighing most on her mind as she stares at my hands working her feet. ‘There was this man. Ninety-two. End-stage cancer. Double pneumonia. In a really bad way. Knew it was the end. I didn’t know him but he’d been treated by oncology at the hospital on and off for over a decade. He already had an NFR in place but there was no next of kin, no loved one with him; he came in from home in the back of an ambulance. Sweet old guy apologising for making such a fuss. He said he thought he wasokay to go at home but that when it got down to it, he didn’t want to die alone.’

She takes a ragged breath which is so loaded with empathy I feel it as a physical weight against my skin. ‘So he came to us.’ She shakes her head and glances at me, her eyes glassy. ‘There were no beds in oncology and I knew he wasn’t going to last that long anyway. So we made him comfortable and took it in turns to hold his hand. He died a few hours later. But it’s so sad. He died surrounded by strangers. It’s just not right, is it?’

It’s fair to say that I feel wholly inadequate in this moment to be a comfort. I’m a drummer, FFS. I know how to beat a stick against something percussive. And I can massage her feet – that’s it. Maybe her ex knew what to say? The thought of that has me spurting out the first thing that comes into my head. ‘He wasn’t alone though, was he? He had you guys.’

Which is actually pretty damn good.

‘It’s not the same,’ she says dismissively.

‘Maybe not to you. But if he’s been in and out of hospital for a decade and he has no significant others, maybe you weren’t strangers. Maybe you were… home to him.’

A tear spills from one eye and tracks down her cheek before she dashes it away. ‘Yeah.’ She sniffles. ‘Maybe you’re right. I hope so.’ She rubs at her face. ‘Sorry. I know working in ER is what I want but sometimes I think I’m far too soft to work there.’

‘Don’t.’ I shake my head. Holly shouldn’t have to apologise for shedding tears over the death of an old man who’d found his way into her ER today because he didn’t want to die alone. She should be wearing that shit like a badge of honour. ‘I’d rather a doctor who has empathy than one who doesn’t.’

She gives a husky half laugh as she switches feet. ‘My boss would beg to differ.’

Bending her knee, she pushes the toes of the first foot under my thigh. A flaming arrow of lust shoots north about threeinches and buries itself between my balls. Her other foot lands in my waiting hands.

‘Well,’ I say as I ignore the fire in my crotch and pull off her sock, ‘he sounds awful.’ What the world needs is more doctors who empathise with their patients, not medical automatons.