‘Is Gio in the training session too?’ Bess’s boyfriend Gio had returned to work as a firefighter recently following an accident that had left his future career in doubt.
‘Not tomorrow. He’ll be on the opposite training day to me.’
‘Doesn’t his boss think he’ll be able to concentrate with you around?’
‘We’re professionals, thank you very much.’ Bess waited a beat before adding, ‘We’re moving in together.’
‘That’s wonderful! What happened to taking it slow?’
‘I guess it feels like the right time.’
‘His place or yours?’
‘Mine. We thought about getting somewhere new that’s both of ours, but it makes more sense to move into my house; it’s plenty big enough now Marianne has found a flat of her own. He’ll rent his place out for a while. Not as a safety net – at least I hope not,’ she joked, ‘but it’s another income stream.’
Nadia opened the window to let in some fresh air. The cloud from yesterday had cleared and today they’d been blessed with the warmth of sunshine dazzling from up above.
She turned to find Bess watching her.
‘What?’ she asked. There was definitely something she wasn’t sharing.
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, out with it.’
‘Just thinking about Gio and how quickly things happened – makes me wonder whether you’ve been out on any dates lately.’
‘No, and no plans to.’ And she was pretty sure that wasn’t what Bess needed to say. It felt like she was grasping at anything else other than what was really on her mind.
‘You know, there’s a guy at the fire station, a colleague of Gio’s I think might?—’
‘I’m too busy for a love life.’
‘Rubbish. Nobody is too busy for love. Talking of love…’ She picked up her phone, scrolled through to find a picture and turned the phone to face Nadia.
‘Well, he or she is gorgeous.’ She was looking at a puppy, a chocolate-coloured labrador retriever, its head tilted to one side, eyes wide in wonderment.
‘He… and yes, he is.’
Hudson came into the office. ‘So, you didn’t back out?’ he asked Bess when he saw the picture on her phone screen.
‘What am I missing?’ Nadia looked between them both.
Bess explained, ‘A couple of months ago, Hudson let me know of someone selling puppies – gorgeous puppies – and Gio and I toyed with the idea of getting one. We committed but then changed our minds, then changed them back again.’
‘You almost left him homeless,’ Hudson teased.
‘So dramatic,’ said Bess.
Hudson handed a file to Nadia. ‘Can you take a quick look through this for me? Check whether you think there’s more to be done? I’ve coordinated a meeting with a brain-injury charity for Melanie, the little girl who came off her bike a few weeks ago.’ Melanie had a brain injury as a result of her accident and it would take some adjusting for her and the rest of the family as she faced new challenges.
‘Well done. The family will need some guidance.’
‘I’ll attend as well, but at least it’s been set up, finally. There just aren’t enough people working there unfortunately so it’s been quite a wait to get this meeting.’
‘At least the delay has given the family a bit of time to get their heads around what has happened and where they go from here.’ She briefly perused the information. Hudson had done a good job as always, provided all the help that he could for the Scott family.
‘They’ll have a lot of questions.’
