Page 69 of Just One Look

It had been after eleven by the time he’d texted her, and it was eleven-thirty when he walked into the bursting-at-the-seams bar, the noise level at scream volume. Not exactly intimate, this place on Saturday night in rugby season. What had he been thinking? It was a sports bar as well, which meant people were staring. He checked around both dining rooms, headed out onto the back deck with its view of a brightly lit Sky Tower, and texted her again, but … nothing.

She’d told him that she didn’t keep dates. She could’ve been called back to the hospital. In fact, that was probably exactly what had happened. Also, he wasn’t some nineteen-year-old on debut, hooning around the city, hopped up on adrenaline after his first minutes on the field in a Blues jersey, sure that his life was finally starting, and that it would be full of excitement and money and fame and all the girls he wanted. He was thirty-three, sober, and a man whose body had taken too many beatings and been stitched up too many times, who watched his diet and his alcohol intake and his sleep, because this was his job, it wasn’t easy, and rugby careers almost never lasted as long as nineteen-year-old kids thought they would. Right now, for example, he should go to bed and rest his neck, which was burning a fair bit, not to mention every other part of himself, which was doing the usual dull ache.

He headed up the hill.

The dog heard him, because he started barking as soon as Luka came through the gate. There was a light on in there, but he couldn’t tell anything else. No shadows moving against the blinds, no surgeon-voice, that commanding tone in that disconcertingly soft accent, telling Webster to shut up, or maybe to bite the scary fella lurking around the windows in the dark.

He should leave. If she hadn’t come, she either hadn’t been able to come, or she hadn’t wanted to come.

He knocked on the door.

Webster barked louder.

A sound inside like something heavy falling, an exclamation. And, finally, the door opening.

Webster shot past her, nearly knocking her down, cannoned into Luka, and started his usual jumping-around, tail-wagging-ecstasy routine. Luka grabbed his collar, dragged him into the house, took him by the muzzle, and said,“Down.”

Webster lay down.

Webster bounced up.

Luka grabbed his muzzle again.

Webster lay down.

The sound of the door closing. Oh. He was inside, and he hadn’t exactly asked. Elizabeth’s hair was mussed, her eyeliner was smeared, and she was still in the jeans she’d been wearing at the game. Still in the red puffer jacket, too.

She said, “Sorry. What time is it? I fell asleep.”

“I see that,” he said, but he was smiling. “The second you walked through the door?”

“Pretty much. On the smallest couch in the world, too. I thought I’d grab a nap, since you’d be a while. But … on call last night, and never made it home. Lots of … lots of procedures.” She blinked some more and tried to smooth her hair.

“How long were you working?” he asked. Webster had army-crawled to him across the rug.Technically,the dog seemed to be thinking,I’m down.Luka should have put him back where he belonged. He gave him a pat instead.

“Uh …” Elizabeth said. “Around thirty-six hours. Not too bad.” She yawned, trying to cover it with her hand. “I’m fine. Four or five hours of sleep in there, counting just now. I’m ready to go. I seem to be wearing my coat already, in fact.”

“You had that tumor thing yesterday,” he said. “A long surgery, you said. And then more things? What else?”

“The usual stuff. Strokes, aneurysms, car crashes. Somebody hit too hard in the head in a bar fight, because nobody ever tells people how much damage a fist can do with enough power behind it, and some pretty obvious domestic violence, the kind where the guy’s acting worried and solicitous and the woman’s quiet and not saying, and you call the cops, hope somebody will care, and vow eternal singlehood. A nail through a man’s eye and into his brain today, though. That was interesting. ‘You know how a Saturday DIY project can go, doc.’ That’s what the friend said who brought him in. Don’t operate a nail gun while drinking heavily, that’s my advice.”

“Did everybody live?” It was a joke. Probably not a brilliant one.

“No,” she said. “Everybody never lives, if you’re a neurosurgeon. Sometimes, you don’t get in there at all, because you look at the films, shake your head, and go on to the next one. The guy with the nail lived, though. Didn’t even lose his eye.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me. With the brain and the heart? No time to second-guess.” She sank down on the couch. “If we’re going out, you need to tell me, because I’m fading again. I’m good at waking up, but it probably needs to happen now. And, yes, I realize that I’m not dressed right for a date. Again. Imeantto change, but …”

He spread his arms, revealing his jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie. “Nah. Have a look. So do I go home and let you sleep, or do we have a cup of tea first? Or a beer, possibly? Seems to me we need a Plan B.”

* * *

She should go to sleep.She was at that point of sleep deprivation where your head was buzzing and you were floating a little. She could still have operated if she’d needed to. Adrenaline could always give you that second wind. Walking, though, was harder. She should definitely go to sleep.

She said, “I don’t have beer, but I do have a bottle of wine that my house-exchange people left for me. No guarantees how good it is. Do you want to sit outside and drink it? If you ignore the motorway, it’s nice. Not quite a date, but oh, well.”

“Relaxed date,” he said.