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“I thought you said going out for a drink was okay, because we already knew each other?”
“This is a bit more than a bloody drink, isn’t it?”
“But it’s not like I’ll tell anyone. I swear.” I’d promise him the moon, and deliver it, if I could get this man into bed.
As he kicked one of my tyres, I cursed under my breath. The doctor-patient thing had never bloody occurred to me. Like grains of sand trickling through my fingers, my glorious night was slipping away. “I don’t give a shit that you’re my doctor.” As if that would make the difference.
“Funnily enough, Rob, right this second I don’t give a shit that you’re my patient either. It’s not like I’m coercing you or taking advantage. But the General Medical Council doesn’t care that we’re both consenting adults. And it’s not a gay thing. You could be a female patient, and it would be exactly the same. It’s a rule written very clearly for very good reasons. It’s necessary to protect patients and doctors. And it’s set in stone.” He rubbed at his jaw angrily. “Fucking hell.”
“Evan, listen.” Any second now he’d be saying goodbye, apologising, and walking away. Over my dead body that was going to happen. “Just get in the truck for a minute. Yelling at each other out here isn’t going to help. Someone will see us. Or hear us.”
“You’ve drunk too much to drive.”
I opened the door, ushering him in. “Who said anything about driving? We can talk in there. Work something out.”
Evan looked an incongruous sight in my cab, dressed in his smart clothes and surrounded by clumps of straw, dog biscuits, and random scraps of paper. The grubby passenger seat smelled of wet dog and cow shit. I’d become immune to it. He stared ahead out of the window at nothing, at the scruffy green hedge with bits of litter poking out. Fucking miserable as hell.
Every cell in my body craved to close the gap between us, the urge to bury my head in his neck and snort him like cocaine stronger than ever now he was off-limits. Resisting, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel instead. There had to be a way through this. At last, I’d plucked up the nerve to contemplate coming out, properly out, alongside this one person I could see myself developing something special with, only for some bloody ludicrous bureaucracy. Surely, I wasn’t going to be thwarted by something as stupid as—
“How do you feel about telling people you’re gay, Evan?”
“What?” His brow furrowed. “I just explained to you, the GMC thing is nothing to do with being—"
“I know,” I answered urgently. “But how do you feel about it? For instance, are you ready for people at work to know?”
“Well, yes. I am, actually. Close colleagues for sure. Like I said, they’ve all made assumptions that I was having an affair, and I…”
“So you definitely wouldn’t mind?”
“No. But why…” He made a frustrated sound.
“Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Give me your phone,” I repeated, more firmly. “Turn it on.”
Snatching it from him, I scrolled through his contacts. “What’s your secretary’s name? The blonde one who looked after me at the hospital.”
“Who, Sally?”
“Yes. Sally.” Bingo, there she was, a local number. “She thinks you’re lovely, by the way.” I threw him a cheeky wink. “She’s got discerning taste. How well do you get on?”
He looked puzzled. “Er…really well? She’s great. But why—”
“Well enough for her to know about you? Well enough to phone her on a Friday night?” My thumb hovered over the call button.
He wrinkled his nose. “Yes to the first, and I guess …er…yes to the second too. If it was something urgent. But I don’t see how this—”
I pressed the button and, hearing it start to ring, held it up to his ear. “Tell her a patient needs to speak to her very urgently about his operation. Right now. It can’t wait.”
He didn’t get a chance to object because Sally had picked up. Her voice sounded amused, as if she’d enjoyed a couple of sherbets too. “Did you pocket call me, Evan?”
“No.” His eyes flicked across at me. “No. No, I didn’t.” I urged him on with a hand gesture. “Slightly odd request, Sally. And I’m really sorry I’m interrupting your evening. I’m…er…I’m with a patient, and he’d—I think he’d like to speak to you.”
“What? Now?” I nodded, mouthing ‘yes’.
“Yes, now. Apparently.”
