No One But You

“Not just any key, my sister’s key. She gave it back to me after you gave it back to her, she said it should be yours, and I completely agree.”

Her face fell serious as she cleared her throat and took the key from the box. Her breath hitching at the small book charm with her favourite quote—they forgot everything the minute they were together again.

“I never forgot you, Quincy, but the moment I saw you again I forgot about everything else. I think that at some point that made me a bad person. It made me a bad husband and even though you brought out the worst in me then, you are the best part of me. And I know that’s nonsensical, but so long as I’m with you, I’m a better person. You make me want to be a better person for you. Nothing else mattered back then, nothing but you, and so long as we’re together nothing else will matter.”

“But our girls.”

I lifted her hand between us pointing at the dots and dashes as I said the words, “You, me, we…us. Everything that makes us. Our girls. Our home. Our love.”

?

?So much cheese…” She teased as she dotted and dashed her fingertips over the beads and bars. Her smile bright and radiant.

“That’s what you do to my brain.”

Quincy

“Oh my God, Beth, I wanted to tease him so badly but when I looked at that quote it was like my brain froze and try as hard as I did I couldn’t get the right words to form in my head let alone send the message down to my mouth. I’ve known him all my life and somehow he still manages to render my brain completely useless with his romantic cheese.” I sighed as I tied the surgical gown at my waist.

Beth and I were both scrubbing in whilst the eight-year-old that had been transferred in via Air Ambulance after sudden cardiac arrest was being prepped. She’d collapsed during a horse riding lesson. She’d been perfectly fine until she wasn’t. Heart attacks in children weren’t exactly your everyday occurrence, but I’d seen enough to know what we were about to walk into.

“So did you give him an answer?” Beth gave me one of her looks that told me not to leave her hanging.

“Not at first. He said all those amazing and beautiful things and I was just stunned into a silent stupor. Have I said how perfectly romantic he was?”

“And he let you in his walk-in wardrobe, babe?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s so lush, tell me you are going to pack all your shit and give him what he wants.”

“Everything was great, until we sat for breakfast and I started thinking. What if things don’t work out? I mean both of us don’t have a great track record. And then there’s the girls. This whole situation must be so confusing for them. Can you imagine what it must feel like when you live with your best friend’s dad and your best friend lives with your dad?”

“I expect it feels a lot less confusing and a whole lot better than finding out that your parents are siblings and being an abomination to all the other kids in the playground and everyone else in the whole cocking village.” She shrugged.

That was why I loved Beth, she was Welsh through and through. Her bedside manner was impeccable, but her tongue was sharp, brash and to the point.

“Your parents are related?” What on earth?

“Yes, well, no. They’re not blood relatives, they’re step-siblings but at that age you don’t really understand the difference and neither do the kids around you.” She said very matter of fact as we readied to go into the sterile room. “My point is that both of the girls are already used to your romantically dysfunctional relationship. Do you really think that living together is going to change how they already see things?”

Would it?

That was the problem, I didn’t know, and it was playing havoc with my head.

“Let me answer that for you,” She pushed the door open with her back as her bright green eyes met mine. “It won’t and you already know that because I know you said yes.”

“How do you know I said yes?”

“Because I know everything. You know that Donna woman in the series with Prince Harry’s lady?”

“Suits?”

“Yes, that’s the one. I’m the nurse equivalent of her. I know everything. I see everything. I hear everything. I’ve got more little birdies than Lord fucking Varys.”

“How much television do you watch?”

She looked over her shoulder at me as she checked the supplies one more time. “Unlike you, I don’t have a sexy hotshot neurosurgeon keeping me otherwise engaged. But if you change your mind about the whole thing, I’ll gladly swap with you and take him up on his offer for you.”