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“Right.” He linked his fingers in his lap, to stop himself from touching her. This was too important for distractions.
“First up, since it’s super important to preserve our friendship, we have to both agree to not harbor a grudge if one of us wants out.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“Also, for the time that we are sleeping together, I won’t see anyone else, and I would prefer it if you didn’t either.”
“Okay.”
“BUT, it’s friends with benefits, not a relationship, so if either of us does meet someone else, we immediately tell the other one. No fucking around.”
“Of course.” He steadfastly ignored the stirring in his gut at the very idea of Mikayla sleeping with anyone else.
“Good. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Great!”
She reached for him, but he grabbed her hands, forestalling her. “But I just want to think it through a little more and I think you should too.” He smiled at her crestfallen look. “It’s a big step, Mikayla, and once it’s done, it can’t be undone. We’d be fooling ourselves if we think our friendship isn’t going to be changed in some way by this.”
“God, you’re so sensible.”
His smile widened. “Maybe you can give me something to help me think about it though.” He reached over and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her into his lap, hissing “Ssshh,” when she giggled.
* * *
Rafe, doing some paperwork in the small office at HQ, smiled to himself as he heard Mikayla’s car pull up out the front. The smile turned to a frown though, when he heard her coming down the hall. She usually had a light step, like she was bouncing everywhere. But tonight, it sounded heavy and slow. He heard her move through to the locker room, but then he couldn’t hear her moving around, like she usually would. There was no taking her jacket off, no stowing her bag in her locker, or grabbing her dinner to put in the fridge. He pushed back from the desk and made his way to the locker room door.
“Hey,”
She had her back to the door, just standing in front of her locker, the door open, her bag half in, half out. Her long plait was hanging over one shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. She seemed exquisitely vulnerable. “I found a lump,” she said in a low voice. Matter of fact. No emotion.
His heart clenched painfully, then started beating hard. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Got an appointment?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Bairnsdale?”
“Yes.” So quiet he had to strain to hear her.
“I’ll go with you.”
She nodded, still not turning to look at him. He went back to the office, staring sightlessly at the paperwork as he heard her close her locker and move up the stairs to the mezzanine. He could picture her, curled up on the beaten-up old sofa, her coat pulled close, her face pale. His instinct was to rush up the stairs, pull her into his arms and hold her tight. But she obviously needed to be alone, so he let her be.
He went and got her an hour later though, worried she was going to freeze. He pulled her back to the kitchen and sat across from her while she poked at the plate of food he’d insisted on giving her. “I can’t tell Mum.”
“No.”
It wasn’t fair to burden Nora with the knowledge that her daughter might have the disease that had taken her own mother and sister and led to her own double mastectomy three years earlier. Better to wait until they had some more information.
“Do you wanna hang out tomorrow?”
She glanced up. Her eyes were dark pools of fear. “I’m going to Leah’s. I’ve offered to do some work in the yard with her, so I’ll sweat out some of the stress there. She’ll know there’s something wrong, but she’s not like Juniper and won’t hassle me to tell her. If I hang around you, I’ll spend the whole day crying on your shoulder.”
“I don’t mind,” he said quietly.
She got up and threw her uneaten dinner in the trash can, then put her plate and cutlery in the dishwasher. “I know you don’t, it’s just…”
