Falling For His Best Friend

‘How did he come to be on his surfboard in a shipping lane six kilometres off the east coast of Australia?’ the reporter asked, and Kitty was sure she could see a blush colouring her throat as Joe looked directly at her.

‘As far as we know, he got dragged out to sea in a rip and was unable to paddle back in as the waves were too big.’

‘And how did he end up in your ambulance?’

‘He was spotted by the crew of a container ship and they were able to pick him up. It was fortunate his surfboard was yellow as they may not have seen him otherwise. The coastguard retrieved him and we met them and transferred him here. He’s a very lucky man.’

The reporter asked a couple more questions, but Kitty’s mind wandered as she watched Joe. She could tell he’d had enough of being interviewed. He was still being pleasant but the set of his shoulders had changed. He was angled away from the reporter now and although Kitty couldn’t see his feet she suspected he had shifted his weight. He’d be getting ready to move. She could read his body language, knew his movements. She had spent so much time with him, watching him, she knew the set of his head, the curve of his cheek, the exact position of the dimple in his chin. She didn’t want to be cross with him. She acknowledged that it stemmed from being irritated with herself. It wasn’t his fault she was hormonal.

She felt a flutter in her belly as the baby stretched and moved and reminded her of what was important. Family. Friends. Joe was as important to her as anyone. She’d mend the bridges.

She didn’t get to choose who Joe spent his time with. That was all up to him and he’d obviously not wanted to kiss her. Thank God when he’d bent his head towards her that night at the pub she hadn’t met him halfway—she would have died of embarrassment. As it was, it was bad enough that he’d hooked up with Victoria. Had that been his plan all along for that night?

She remembered he’d asked her not to talk about pregnant sex. Did he think her pregnancy made her unattractive? Undesirable?

Had she just imagined that he was going to kiss her? Had she wanted him to?

She knew she had. Did.

But perhaps it was best that she hadn’t. She needed him in her life and she couldn’t afford to jeopardise their relationship. He was one of the few people she could rely on to have her back. She couldn’t risk altering the status quo.

So she’d better stop being in a huff about Victoria. She didn’t need to socialise with them as a couple but she should stop ignoring Joe.

Even Jess had noticed that Joe hadn’t been around for the past few days. Kitty’s birthday was next week and she had always celebrated it with Joe. Jess and Cam had been pressuring her to invite him for dinner. She checked the roster. She wanted to know which nights Victoria was working. She could invite Joe and feign ignorance that Victoria had a shift.

She went out to the ambulance bay, anxious to catch Joe before he left. Suddenly she felt it was important to fix things. To act like an adult.

She waited until the reporter signed off on her segment and the news crew had started packing up their gear before she hurried after him.

‘Joe? Can I talk to you?’

‘Hey.’ He turned around with a smile. He looked pleased to see her. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed she’d been avoiding him. He was probably too caught up in Victoria to have time to think about her. She pushed those thoughts aside. She didn’t want to think about Victoria any more than she had to, and basked in the warmth of Joe’s smile instead. ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘How’s our patient?’

‘Hungry.’ She smiled back. ‘Toshi, I mean,’ she clarified.

‘That’s a good sign.’

‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘I saw your interview.’

‘Is that what you came to tell me? Was it terrible?’

She shook her head. ‘You know it wasn’t. I wanted to ask if you are free for dinner tomorrow night? Cam is going to make a barbecue,’ she said, reminding herself she’d have to remember to tell Cam. ‘It’s an early birthday celebration for me. Would you like to come over?’

‘Sounds great.’

‘You’re welcome to bring Victoria,’ she offered, hoping that Joe would already know she had a shift and wouldn’t ask her to swap it.

‘Thanks, but I don’t think we’re at that point in our relationship yet.’

‘OK.’ Kitty did a mental fist pump. That had worked out well—she’d looked gracious while still getting what she wanted. Joe hadn’t even thought about checking Victoria’s roster. ‘See you at seven.’

That was good. He didn’t seem out of sorts with her. She didn’t want to push him away, to give him a reason to abandon their friendship, abandon her. Everyone left her eventually but she really wanted to keep Joe in her life for as long as possible. She needed him.

* * *

Kitty answered Joe’s knock on the door. She was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen before. She looked good. Pink suited her. She was glowing, making him wonder suddenly if she’d had the sex she’d been seeking out the other night. Had sex put the sparkle in her eyes and the glow on her cheeks?

He didn’t want to think about Kitty having sex. Not if it wasn’t with him. But that wasn’t going to happen, and thinking about it wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

‘New dress?’ he asked as he kissed her cheek and handed her the gifts he’d brought.

‘I had to go shopping. I don’t fit into my clothes any more,’ she said as she led him into the house. His gaze dropped to her hips, which were swaying tantalisingly in front of him. This pregnancy had filled her out, rounding her bottom, in a good way, and Joe felt a corresponding tightness in his groin.

He greeted Jess and Cam and handed Cam a six-pack of beer as he tried to ignore the stirring of lust that threatened to destroy his concentration.

‘Good man. I’m living in a teetotaller house these days. I’m trying to be supportive and it’s no fun drinking without company,’ Cam said as he cracked the tops of a couple of the small bottles and handed one back to Joe. ‘Jess isn’t drinking either.’

‘I’m keeping Kitty company,’ she said.

‘How many weeks are you now?’ Joe asked Kitty. ‘Twenty-two?’

‘Twenty-four.’

His question had purely been conversational. He knew exactly how many weeks she was.

‘We had a scan today,’ Jess told him. He thought it was strange that she said ‘we’. He knew that genetically the baby was hers and she obviously felt a connection but Kitty was the one who was pregnant. ‘Would you like to see the picture?’ Jess asked.

‘Sure.’

‘I’m not sure that Joe is as interested in our baby as we are,’ Cam told his wife.

‘It’s fine,’ Joe said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Jess went to the fridge and removed a small square black and white picture from where it had been held in place by a magnet. She held it out to Joe.

This was OK. He’d seen plenty of ultrasound scans before. It was just a baby. As long as he didn’t think that this baby was responsible for the change in Kitty’s shape and the subsequent change in his perception of her it was all good. At this stage, it just looked like any baby. With a perfect profile, sucking its thumb.

‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’ he asked.

Jess shook her head. ‘We can’t agree. I want to know, but Cam—’

‘I want a surprise,’ Cam said, finishing Jess’s sentence for her as she started coughing. Cam fetched her a glass of water and Jess drank it in fits and starts, between coughs, until she could speak again.

‘I want to know because I want to decorate the nursery. If we’re only going to do this once I’d like time to be prepared.’

Joe suspected that meant that they would find out the sex. In his experience the woman got her way in these things. But who would have the final say? Who would the doctor listen to? Technically, Kitty was the mother. What would she say? He didn’t want to ask that question. He decided to stick to a safer topic. ‘Only once, you say?’

‘I’d be happy with one,’ Cam said. ‘It’s one more than we thought we’d have.’

‘I’d like more, but I’m not going to be greedy,’ Jess admitted.

‘Let’s just get this one here safely,’ Cam said.

‘I know, I’m not going to get ahead of myself but I loved growing up with a sister. I couldn’t do this without her,’ Jess said as she took the ultrasound picture back from Joe and hugged Kitty, ‘and I’d like to think of my own children having the same relationship with a sibling.’

Joe had brothers and sisters, but none of them were full siblings, and he certainly didn’t share the bond with any of them like Kitty and Jess had. ‘There’s no guarantee that they’d get along, you know. I’ve got five siblings and I don’t really get along with any of them.’ In fact, he had always thought Kitty was more like a sister than his real ones. Until the past week at least, when he’d started having very unfamilial thoughts about her.

‘I find that hard to believe,’ Cam said. ‘I picked you as one of those blokes that gets on with everyone.’

Joe laughed. ‘Maybe that says more about me than them.’

Kitty came to his defence. ‘You’re not really close in age to any of them and you didn’t really grow up together. That makes a difference.’

‘I guess what I’m saying is that I grew up virtually as an only child, and in a lot of ways I think I had a happier childhood for it.’ His teenage years maybe hadn’t been quite so happy, but that was because he’d been old enough to realise that he didn’t really fit in with any of his families. But that wasn’t because he didn’t have siblings—that was because his mum and dad hadn’t been able to stay married. To anyone. And that had meant he’d constantly had his boundaries and his living arrangements changed around him, completely out of his control. He hadn’t like that and had become rebellious, which had made him difficult to live with. Not just for his parents but probably for some of his brothers and sisters, too. It was circumstances that had made him.

‘I didn’t know you were one of six,’ Jess said.

‘Two half-siblings and three step-siblings. In some ways I’m surprised it’s not more. My parents divorced when I was four. Mum was Dad’s second wife, but they’ve both been married three times now. That’s a lot of families to juggle and a lot of different dynamics. I think I preferred it when I was on my own. In a lot of ways it made life easier.’

Joe didn’t think much of a typical family unit but he knew his reservations were due to watching his parents struggle to keep marriages together. Although struggle wasn’t the right word—neither of them really seemed to put much effort into making their marriages last. They both seemed to prefer just to give up and move on to the next one. Joe knew that Kitty and Jess had grown up in a stable family unit, at least until tragedy had taken both their parents when Kitty had been nineteen, and he could understand why they expected to have the same stable environment. But in his experience that was virtually impossible. The impossible dream.

‘I think we’ll just take this one step at a time. One baby at a time,’ Cam said as he kissed his wife. ‘And see how we manage.’

Joe thought Cam’s logic was practical and sensible. There were a lot of unknowns in Cam and Jess’s future. The new baby was only one of them.

* * *

Dinner was finished—steak and a glass of red wine for Cam and Joe, fish and lime-flavoured sparkling mineral water for Jess and Kitty. Cam cleared the plates and said to Joe, ‘Come and join me for a beer while I clean the barbecue.’

Joe followed him over to the grill and took a swig of his beer. ‘Do you think this surrogacy thing is a good idea?’ he asked as he stood watching Cam work. ‘Actually, scratch that. You must.’

Cam didn’t answer immediately. ‘It’s what Jess wanted. I love my wife. I want her to be happy and this is what she wanted. I didn’t have the same burning desire to have children. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the idea, but if it didn’t happen for us I was OK with that. But Jess wants kids. I’m doing this for her. That’s what love is all about.’

Joe figured he wouldn’t know anything about all that but all the same his gaze was drawn to Kitty. He could see her through the window. She was standing by the kettle, pulling mugs off the shelf.

‘Speaking of love...’ Cam’s voice made Joe jump. He dragged his eyes off Kitty and back to Cam, wondering where he was going with this topic, but Cam was scraping the barbecue, seemingly disinterested in who or what Joe was watching. ‘Kitty tells me you’re seeing someone. Is it serious?’

Joe almost choked. ‘God, no. I try to avoid serious relationships.’

‘Maybe you just haven’t met the perfect girl yet,’ Cam said, echoing the words of so many of Joe’s friends, but Joe thought differently.

‘No one’s perfect,’ he said, ‘and nothing lasts for ever. I don’t see the point in starting something that won’t last.’

Even Cam and Jess’s relationship, as perfect as it might look from the outside, had its downsides in Joe’s opinion. Jess’s cancer and inability to get pregnant was far from their idea of perfect. But Joe wasn’t about to make an example of Cam’s own marriage as his argument.

‘What about Kitty?’

‘Kitty?’

‘Is that so hard to imagine? You and Kitty? You must like her.’

‘Of course I like her, she’s my best friend.’

He’d been trying to remind himself of that every day since he’d nearly succumbed to temptation and almost kissed her. He continued to tell himself he was glad he’d resisted. That would have been disastrous.

‘C’mon, Joe. You don’t think Jess and I haven’t talked about this? We think you guys would be good together.’

Joe wasn’t so sure. As tempted as he had been the other night, he was still convinced that a quick tumble between the sheets would have been a sure way to ruin their friendship. But that hadn’t stopped him thinking about it. And opting to take Victoria home that night instead hadn’t stopped him thinking about it either. But thinking about it was one thing, acting on it was another thing altogether, and there were dozens of reasons why he would steer clear. Starting with the biggest one—he and Kitty wanted different things out of relationships.

‘I’m not the right man for her,’ he said. ‘Kitty is looking for someone who can commit to her, someone who will promise to never leave her. I don’t believe in happily ever after. We’d be a terrible combination.’

‘You think?’

Joe nodded. He’d given this a lot of thought over the past couple of weeks, and no matter how much he might wish things had turned out differently he knew he wasn’t the right man for Kitty. He was not what Kitty needed. ‘Trust me, I’m not the man she needs and I really don’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship.’

Cam laughed. ‘There’s no such thing as a friendship between a man and a woman. You’ve heard that saying. Men will always muck it up by wanting sex.’

Cam definitely had a point, but Joe couldn’t agree with him. He was desperate to bring this conversation to an end before he admitted to something that had disaster written all over it. ‘Wanting and having are two different things, my friend,’ he said, ‘and it’s the having that mucks things up. Better Kitty and I stick to what we do best. It’s worked for us so far.’

‘OK, mate, whatever you say.’ Cam’s expression was sceptical as he covered the barbecue and knocked the lids off a couple more beers.

Joe knew he didn’t believe him, and he couldn’t blame Cam. Even Joe was not convinced, but he knew he couldn’t give in to his desires no matter how much he wanted to. He really couldn’t risk ruining his relationship with Kitty over his crazy ideas. Surely, given time, he’d get this ridiculous feeling out of his system and life would go on with Kitty being none the wiser.

* * *

Twenty-eight weeks. Only twelve to go.

Kitty was no longer thinking of her life in terms of days of the week or even months of the year—everything had been reduced to weeks of her pregnancy and the associated milestones. At twenty-eight weeks she was two-thirds of the way there. The baby was putting on weight, her skin was filling out and she was constantly on the move.

Last week she had volunteered to be a patient at one of the student sonography clinics held at the hospital and she had asked to find out the baby’s sex. She was having a girl.

But she had hugged that knowledge to herself. She’d had to share every little piece of this pregnancy with Jess and Cam, and for the most part she’d been happy to do that, but it was nice to have something that was hers alone. She felt a little guilty about keeping the secret, and on occasion she’d had to be careful with her language to ensure she didn’t use ‘she’ in reference to the baby too often. An occasional mention could be passed off as a figure of speech but she had to remember to use ‘he’ at times too. But in her opinion there was no harm in having this one secret. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

Cam didn’t want to know the baby’s sex and Kitty knew it was better to keep her secret than to risk spoiling the surprise for Cam. And not knowing hadn’t stopped Jess from starting to decorate the nursery. She had gone for a white palette with pretty pale apple green accents, which she said she could team with pink or navy depending on whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

The baby kicked as if knowing Kitty was thinking about her. She put a hand on her belly and smiled. She was happy. She was doing a good thing for her sister, growing a beautiful baby—and she’d even patched things up with Joe. Things were back on an even keel with him since her birthday dinner. As far as she knew, he was still seeing Victoria but she was trying not to let that bother her. She’d avoided going out with the hospital staff since that night. She used fatigue and the fact that she wasn’t drinking as her excuse, but she really didn’t want to put herself in a situation where she would have to see Joe and Victoria together. As long as she didn’t have to see them together she could pretend it wasn’t happening. Ignorance might not be bliss but it was better than the alternative.

And she was finding work tiring. Being on her feet for hours on end while carrying around an extra six kilograms was exhausting. She hadn’t put on a lot of weight but six kilograms was just the beginning and it felt like a lot on her small frame, meaning she was happy to spend most nights on the couch.

She was due for a break and, unlike her pre-pregnancy days when she’d often skipped or shortened her breaks, now she looked forward to them and made sure she sat down for a few minutes to give her feet and ankles a rest. Her Saturday night shift had been busy and she didn’t expect it to get any quieter. She grabbed a sandwich and a piece of fruit from her locker and took it outside.

To her left she spotted Joe, sitting on the retaining wall that separated the garden bed from the ambulance bay. Victoria was standing in front of him, partially obscuring Kitty’s view, but she only needed a glimpse to know it was him. Kitty tried to ignore the feelings of jealousy that swamped her. She hated feeling jealous, but she hated seeing Joe with Victoria even more. She was still blaming her hormones even though she knew it was really about the almost-kiss. She was having trouble forgetting that.

She’d been an idiot. She’d nearly ruined their friendship. Of course he’d hesitated. She’d crossed their boundaries. She was relieved that he didn’t seem to be holding her faux pas against her, but she couldn’t forget it and she couldn’t deny that she wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him properly. She’d been dreaming about it. All her searching on the internet had reinforced the idea that her hormones were running wild in this trimester but she couldn’t help but think it was more than that. She couldn’t get the idea out of her head. She wasn’t having fantasies about any other men. Just Joe.

She contemplated going back into the hospital but she really wanted some fresh air. She bit into her apple as she turned right, away from Joe. She didn’t think he’d seen her and she certainly didn’t want to see the two of them together. It made her feel lonely and diminished her happiness. Jess had Cam and Joe had Victoria, but she had no one.

As if to cheer her up, the baby somersaulted in her womb. She was active tonight, Kitty thought as she put her hand on her stomach. She wasn’t alone, not right now, but even the baby was only hers temporarily. This pregnancy was of her choosing, it was what she wanted, but she knew that, ultimately, she wanted to be part of a couple. She wanted to be loved. She wanted a family of her own one day. But for now she needed to focus on the pregnancy and hope that her time would come.

She finished her sandwich and wrapped the apple core in the left-over packaging, then with one final glance in Joe’s direction she went back into the hospital. She threw her rubbish in a bin at the triage desk and went to wash her hands, glancing around the waiting area as she dried them. The ED waiting area was empty, the ED quiet; Lisa was the only staff member Kitty could see, which meant that all the other staff were busy in treatment rooms or were taking their breaks. Kitty was walking towards the desk when the entrance doors slid open, admitting a very thin, dishevelled man in a pair of dirty jeans and a grubby T-shirt. Scabs covered his forearms and he was scratching at them agitatedly. He scanned the department as he entered. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, and his movements were jerky and frantic. Kitty recognised that look. The familiar look of a methamphetamine user.

His gaze landed on Kitty and he started yelling as he advanced towards her in an unnatural, nervous gait.

‘Help me! They’re tracking me, they’re going to kill me!’ His scratching gathered intensity and he had picked off several scabs. His arms were now bleeding.

Kitty was stranded on the wrong side of the desk. The desk was separated from the waiting area by a glass window and access to it was via a pair of doors that needed a security code to open. The desk resembled a bank counter. Lisa was the teller, safely barricaded behind the glass, but Kitty was exposed and vulnerable. She wanted to seek refuge but she was afraid to move, worried that any movement might trigger a reaction in this man. A reaction she wasn’t at all keen to witness.

She reached slowly into the pocket of her scrubs and retrieved a pair of surgical gloves, pulling them on carefully as she glanced at Lisa, knowing they needed back-up and knowing Lisa would push the button to call for help.

She reached out a hand, silently begging him to stop, praying that back-up would arrive before he got to her. ‘It’s all right, no one is going to hurt you here. You’re safe.’

He continued to look around but he stopped walking. He’d stopped almost level with the door that Kitty could have escaped through. If he took one more step in her direction he would effectively block her access to safety.

Kitty had to risk it. She knew Lisa could push another button that would open the door and let her in, once Kitty got close enough. She looked at her. Lisa nodded and moved towards the button as Kitty moved towards the door. Towards the man.

‘Stay away from me!’

Kitty froze. He’d taken her movement as a threat.

She raised her hands, intending to convey she meant him no harm. Her heart was in her mouth and she could feel every beat echoing through her body. Adrenalin coursed through her, triggering her fight or flight response. She wanted to flee but there was nowhere to go. This man was blocking her escape route, and the only thing between him and her was her pregnant belly.

She couldn’t risk it. She had to get out of there. She was terrified, afraid to turn her back, but she had no other option. She was trapped. She couldn’t go forward. She could only go back.

Kitty slid back a step, but he took another lurch forward.

‘What are you doing?’ he yelled at her.

She hesitated. She didn’t want to upset him. He was drug fuelled, erratic and unpredictable. Who knew what he was capable of?