“She doesn’t need to. Her telling Nate actually made the whole thing a hell of a lot easier. I’m just sorry she missed her valentine’s meal.”
“Don’t be. She went somewhere after leaving you. But she won’t say with who, or where. Just that she went to a friend’s.” Genny had half devoured her muffin already. ‘I need coffee with this. Maybe I should take another one back to my office and have it with my eleven o’clock pot.”
Genny’s eleven o’clock pot was famous around the club. She had one cup of coffee in the morning before leaving home, then a second when she arrived at work. After that, there was a gap until eleven when she made a pot of it, and depending on how long that gap was, her mood could be changeable.
“Do. Have a second pot for me.” Because coffee was on the banned list too, along with soft cheese which I was missing badly.
“Do you want me to speak to Neva, or are you going to have a conversation?” She took a delicate bite of the muffin. “Because the air needs to be cleared.”
She was right. The problem was Neva was waiting for me to broach the subject, and I hated confrontation where something had actually happened. When it was in my treatment room, confrontation was different; I was always going to win.
“I’ll speak with her. We’ve got a meeting later – case conferences – so I’ll hang back after that to talk to her.”
Genny nodded, reached out and grabbed another muffin and stood up. “Good. You don’t mind if I take these two?”
“Not at all. Is one for Guy, by the way?”
“Fuck off. Only if it contained a razor blade.”
Neva looked like she was in a hurry to leave the meeting, gathering up the papers faster than Jude hoovered down chocolate.
“Have you got five minutes?” The only other person in the room besides us was The Count, and he was generally in a state of oblivion.
Neva looked over at me, a little bit like she was expecting to be taken to the firing range and shot at.
“Sure.”
“Thank you for the muffins. They were delicious.”
This time the smile was genuine. I knew she would’ve liked to have been a chef, but there was no way she would’ve managed in the environment of a kitchen, which could be brutal. Plus, she was a health nut, so she’d found her calling.
As well as working for the club as their senior nutritionist, which was a full time job on its own, she also looked at the diet of her private clients, many of whom were footballers’ wives and girlfriends. She was known, or rather it was a well-known secret – to be able to sculpt the perfect-for-you-figure without any faddy diets or cabbage soup.
“They were made with banana. I’m glad you liked them.”
The Count left, completely oblivious to any tension.
I waited for the door to close. “Thank you for swapping out for Nate on Valentine’s Day. I needed that push.”
“I thought you would be mad because it should’ve been you who told him – and I didn’t go out to tell him - ”
“He told me. It’s okay. And you did me a favour, because if I had told him myself, I don’t think he’d have had the same reaction like he did that night.”
“Because he’d had time to think about it. He worked it out, Amber. He knew you’d been sick and stopped teaching hot yoga. He isn’t stupid.” She sat back down, everything now nicely piled up.
“I know. He’s been great about the whole thing.” I couldn’t fault him. There had been no pressure, no rush on things. We’d told all the key people now, except his daughters. I was heading there tomorrow afternoon for dinner, to meet them for the first time. The idea was I’d be around there more and get to know them. At some point, they’d ask about my belly and that would be when he told them. “Really great. Not like some footballers would be.”
Neva nodded. “He’s a decent bloke. You’re lucky.”
A horrible thought popped in my mind. “Were you interested in him?” Because Neva wouldn’t have thought twice about getting involved with a single dad.
She stared at the table, and for a moment I thought my theory was spot on, a little smile creeping on her face making me feel dreadful and possibly even jealous at the same time.
“No. I think Nate’s great – he really is one of the good ones – but that’s the problem: I haven’t met anyone I want to have that sort of commitment with. So you needn’t worry; I’m not after your man.”
My hand went to rest on my belly, something it had been doing a lot of in the last few days, more so than before.
“I’m sorry. But he’s not my man either.”
