Margaret enters the room. “Joshua,” she runs to him and breaks into tears and I know the fun conversations are over. This is about to get heavy. “You could have died. What were you thinking you stupid boy?” She nervously smiles at me and I fake a smile in return. They embrace as she cries. “I thought I was going to lose you. Don’t ever put me through that again. You have no idea how terrifying the flight was, not knowing if you were going to be alive when I got off at the other end.”
“Sorry, it was an accident. I didn’t mean it,” he replies.
She pulls back from the embrace. “Why were you taking cocaine, Joshua?”
Joshua hangs his head. “I don’t know.”
“Dear god, Cameron, do you take cocaine?” she stammers as her eyes flick to him.
“No, Joshua has never done it before either. It was a one-off thing. It just got out of hand,” Cameron sighs.
Mmm, even I can see he is lying. What the hell? Cameron too. This partying lifestyle is coming to a stop right now for the both of them. Cameron is now a doctor for heaven’s sake and Joshua is a frigging millionaire. This is just ridiculous. My mind flicks back to that asshole Carson. I hate him even more now if that’s possible.
I give a weak smile. “I will give you some privacy and get some coffee. I will be back later.”
Joshua looks at me and frowns. “Ben can get you that. You are not leaving the room every time my mother enters it. I thought we were in this together.” His eyes challenge me.
Shit, I swallow uncomfortably. “We are but … Josh, spend some alone time with your mother. I want to go and see Max and ring the girls anyway.” He holds out his hand for me and my eyes flick nervously to Margaret who is watching me attentively.
“Natasha, dear, we need to talk,” Margaret says quietly. I bite my bottom lip and look at the ground. I so don’t want to talk to this bitch, I despise her … every damn thing about her, and now I know she is a lying adulterer, I hate her even more if that’s possible. Joshua picks up my hand and kisses the back of it as his eyes plead with me to make peace with his mother.
I give a resigned smile. “Yes ok, I will make some calls and be back in about fifteen minutes.” Joshua smiles warmly and kisses my hand again. “Take Max with you baby. I don’t want you walking around here on your own.” I roll my eyes, Cam smiles and pulls me into a headlock.
“Come on Marx I will show you the hot nurses on level four.”
I pull a disgusted face. “Jeez, I can’t wait.”
An hour later I am in the lounge area talking to Max. “So have you called Holly?”
He smiles. “Yes, but she worked last night and now it’s the middle of the night there, so I have just left her a message for when she wakes up.” I nod. Max has met an Australian woman and is really quite smitten with her. She is thirty-four and widowed with two kids. She lives in the building next to mine. They would speak when they ran into each other in the front garden and it went from there. I have met her and she seems nice, and very attractive. She’s a radiologist at the hospital and does shift work. I hope it works out for him. His first wife left him because he worked too much. He came home one day and the house was wiped out with a note saying she had met someone else. Poor guy, he says she was obviously the wrong woman anyway if that’s how she respected marriage. I can’t imagine how horrific that would be. We have actually become quite good … I don’t know what you would call it … friends maybe. He’s cranky but honest with a dry sense of humour and I hate to admit it but I kind of like having him around. If the truth be known I would have told Max to return to America weeks ago if it wasn’t for this little romance he has going on. I figure Joshua has the money to pay him so why not stretch it out and see where it goes. It is weighing heavily on my mind now though, because I will obviously be moving back here.
“How are things going?” Max asks as we walk up the corridor to the room together.
I hunch my shoulders like a little kid. “Pretty good, I feel like we haven’t been apart.”
“And that’s good?” He smiles.
I smile and widen my eyes. “Yes, that’s very good.”
He nods his crooked smile.
I knock tentatively on Joshua’s hospital room door. The door opens in a rush as Joshua opens it. “Here’s my girl,” he smiles as he bends to kiss me. My eyes glance around the room. “Mother has left.” I blow out a breath in relief and put my hand up to my chest. Joshua narrows his eyes at me. Oh shit, busted … mother hating.
“Where did you go?” he asks as he raises his eyebrows.
“Cam gave me a tour of the emergency department where he is working and introduced me to the head of the psych ward,” I reply as I walk into the room.
He nods and sits on the bed. “I don’t really want you working when you move here.”
I drop my handbag onto the chair and put my hands on my hips in question. “What do you mean?” I frown.
“I thought I would take six months off and we could go travelling.”
I smile in excitement. “Really? Where would we go?”
“Where wouldn’t we go is the question.” He smirks.
“I thought you said you were in the middle of a big project and couldn’t leave work,” I reply.
He hunches his shoulders. “My priorities have changed.”
“What does that mean? What are your priorities now?” I ask.
He bends and gives me a gentle kiss. “You … making you happy is my only priority.”
Relief fills me. I like that answer … I like it a lot. “If you want to make me happy, Josh, can you please not take cocaine again,” I murmur into his chest.
“Don’t worry about that. I scared the hell out of myself. I will never touch the shit again.”
“And Cam, can you tell him not to do it either,” I ask.
He bends and kisses my neck, “Stop worrying presh. Cameron is a big boy and he is only young. I’m not being a fun cop for him.”
“Well I’m going to be and I don’t care what you say,” I scowl.
He raises an eyebrow at me in silent disapproval but keeps his opinion to himself.
“You don’t think I should work for six months to secure a good job before we leave?” I question.
“No,” he answers deadpan. “I don’t want you doing sexual psychology at all Natasha.” I frown and step back from him in question.
“Tash, I don’t want you dealing with sexually fucked-up deviants that are just dying to bang you and add you to their sex addiction,” he replies flatly as he takes a sip of his water.
“Is that a joke?” I snap. “How dare you say that to me? I did six fucking years at university, Joshua. It is my chosen career and you will have no say in what I do!” I snap. He raises his eyebrows in a silent dare and sits on the bed. “We’ll see.”
I scowl at him and head into the bathroom. He’s bloody lucky he’s in hospital because I feel like chucking a total wobbly right now. I take my time going to the bathroom while trying to calm my anger and reminding myself about compromise. When I come out there is a young man sitting in the chair next to Joshua’s bed.
He stands. “Hi, I’m Peter. I’m from the rehab team. I will be working with Joshua for the next few days. Joshua just told me you are also a psychologist.”
I fake a smile at Joshua. “Yes I am. Sexual psychologist actually.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, asshole.
Peter raises his eyebrows, “Wow, interesting line of work.”
I smile again. “Yes, very.” Joshua purses his lips in disapproval. “I will leave you two to it then,” I smile. I give Joshua a brief kiss on the lips and go to head out the door.
“Tash, my mother is coming to take you out for coffee at four.”