Chapter Fifteen – Oliver

As Louise enters the room I feel my heart skip an odd beat, just like it does every single time I see her. I’m good at disguising for now, pretending it isn’t happening on the outside, but there’s no doubt it’s messing me up a bit on the inside. Still, just as I have done every single day for the last few months, I remind myself how lucky I am to have her as a friend. It’s getting easier every single day and the last thing I want to do is mess it up. I gulp down my emotions and I force a smile on my face.

Don’t think of her beauty, I warn myself as my lips part to speak. Just see her as a friend.

“Ooh look, you’re growing a bit of a belly now,” I comment in the most teasing tone I can muster up, as I see a slight roundness forming underneath Louise’s scrubs. That’s a safe area to talk about now… I think. She’s certainly more comfortable with it at any rate so I don’t mind talking about her unborn baby who’s growing inside there every day. “It must be feeling a little more real now.”

“You can see it, right?” Louise touches her stomach as panic rolls off her tongue.

Oops, maybe I’ve worried her! I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted to start an ordinary conversation.

“But I haven’t told anyone yet. Do you think people will be able to tell that I’m pregnant? I haven’t even told human resources because I don’t know how much time off I’m going to need from work after the birth.”

I do, but I don’t tell her that much. I’ve been with her, pouring all over the adoption brochures and information, but she does it with half a heart. I can see the natural maternal instinct flying out of her. She’s in love with her baby already, and she’ll be an amazing mom to this child. I can see that she isn’t going to follow in her mother’s footsteps with the whole motherhood thing and I’m pretty sure that once she’s accepted this herself she’ll finally embrace the possibility of having a baby. She’s made for it, I can tell. I can picture her clutching onto her baby, and it’s a lovely image. One that maybe I like far too much. Maybe I wish I could be a part of that picture too, weirdly…

I’m sure the desire to be a career woman won’t vanish for her either, and I also feel very certain that the very ambitious Louise will find a way to make it happen, even when others couldn’t. I don’t know how she’ll do it, but I’ve never needed to juggle my life in such way. I have faith in Louise.

“No, I can only tell because I know,” I reassure her with a happy smile on my face. Even though she is pregnant but she’s utterly gorgeous. I’m sure everyone will be more focused on her stunning face than anything else. I know I would be. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“It’s just good that I haven’t had too much morning sickness.” She sighs as she moves across the room with ease, showing that she’s totally comfortable here, finally. “It’s mostly just nausea. Isn’t that supposed to pass soon? In the second trimester, or something?”

“I’m not a midwife, so I’m no expert, but I’m sure every pregnancy is different. I’m pretty sure everyone has sickness at different times. Some not at all. Some women feel awesome all the way.”

“Urgh, I already hate those women.” Louise rolls their eyes. “How is it fair that they feel fine?”

As Louise takes her chair and she reads through her notes without another word of complaint, I feel a strong sense of admiration. This girl has got a lot of inner strength, she’s impressively a bad ass. She doesn’t even need to find out the one night stand asshole and that person really doesn’t deserve to be in her or her baby’s life. She’s much better off without him and I can tell that without even knowing him at all. Although if I did meet him, I’d definitely still punch him in the face… hard. I hate that guy. I hate him more because the more I think about him the more he reminds me of myself.

Knock, knock. Knock, knock.

“Come in!” I call out, knowing that it’s going to be Julia. It’s too early for any patients, and those two spend a lot of time in the office now, gossiping and catching up in a very private space. Julia’s the only other person in the office who knows about the baby, and that’s because she’s Louise’s best friend. She doesn’t know about what happened between me and her as far as I can tell, but since no one has spoken about it since, that makes a lot of sense. “Oh hi, Julia. How are you?”

“I’m fine thank you, Oliver. I brought you both coffees.”

It’s a weird little club that we’ve somehow developed out of nowhere, three friends who shouldn’t really be. Or maybe I’m the only one who shouldn’t be here since I’m much older and more senior than both the girls. They’d probably be friends anyway. Julia probably has about five years on Louise, but that still makes her much younger than I am. I forget that though, while I’m with them. They never act like I don’t belong with them, which is awesome. I like being in their friendship group.

“Oliver said I had a belly.” Louise is still panicked about that, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. She grabs onto her friend’s arm and looks at her with sheer distress in her eyes. “Do I? Look, Julia, do you think it’s obvious now? Can people tell?” She pulls up her top to show Julia a sweet darling little stomach. “Tell me the truth, I need to be prepared for it…”

“Do you not trust me?” I tease playfully. “I told you I can only see it because I know…”

But my words fall on deaf ears, the girls remain locked in their own little chat for a moment.

“Girl, you can’t tell, but you will be able to soon. Baby bumps don’t just hang around until you’re ready to communicate with everyone, and to be honest from what I’ve seen in previous jobs it’s better to just get the information out there as soon as possible because then you can control it. If you don’t, people will gossip and I’m sure what they’ll say is much worse than the truth.”

“What, that I had a one night stand and I didn’t use protection because I’m an idiot?” Louise replies scathingly as she yanks down her top angrily, covering herself up once more. “Yep, I’m super keen to control that flow of information! It’ll be so much better coming from me.”

“Well you don’t have to tell them that,” Julia giggles and shakes her head. “Just say it’s some guy you’re seeing, you don’t have to be totally honest with those people out there, just give them a little bit to go on. If you don’t, people will assume that it’s you and Oliver who are having a baby.”

Her words freeze my blood and make me panic, maybe a little too much. I’ve already considered this, I know how rapidly rumors spread, but to hear Julia say it in such a cold and calculated way scares the living hell out of me. It makes it that much more plausible and I already feel like there’s no way in hell that I’ll be able to handle it.

“What? Why would people think that?” I demand idiotically.

“Oh come on.” She rolls her eyes dramatically at me. “You think people aren’t already talking about the two of you? You stink of chemistry. Obviously, I know that nothing is going on…” She pauses to flick her eyes between us as if she’s waiting for an admission of guilt that she doesn’t get. Because it’s the truth, there isn’t anything to report at all. “But other people don’t know that. Trust me, Louise, you need to speak to people before this becomes a thing. I’ll even come to HR with you later, that way you can sort your maternity out anyway. You don’t want to leave that too late.”

Louise gives me a desperate look but I simply nod back. If people really think that we’re fooling around then I could actually lose my job. I only just about managed to get away with it the last time when I got involved with a colleague and that’s only because I used so much of my convincing charm. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that again. I won’t get lucky for a second time. This is why fooling around with patients is so much easier, no one ever seems to find out about that for some reason.

“Go and do it now if you want,” I reply rashly while my head spins uncontrollably. “The sooner you clear it up and make people know that we aren’t involved, the better. For both of us.”

Louise looks sad as Julia takes her out the room, but I don’t have time to feel bad about that right now. I have some damage control to take care of. Maybe I need to make out that I’m dating someone too, just to attack the rumor from both sides. Me and Louise wouldn’t be hooking up if we both had our dating partners. I don’t think anyone could argue with that…

***

By the time the girls come back from their appointment from HR, I’m a little calmer, but the idea of acting like I have a girlfriend is a good idea. I’ve asked Rita to come and meet me from her work so I can be seen with her. It took a little persuading since we’ve only ever been a sex thing, but I’m sure it’ll be alright. Maybe it’ll complicate things and force me to move out of my apartment block, but to be honest that’s been a long time coming anyway. I could do with a new home, I’m not worried.

“Well that was awesome,” Louise tells me with a pale face as she slumps into her chair. “That went really well. I’m glad I dove into that bear pit this early in the morning!”

“Why, what happened?” I glance up at Julia who gives me an apologetic look as she has to leave the room to get back to work.

Then I turn my attention back to Louise. “How bad was it?”

“Urgh, it was awful. They wanted to know everything. They asked me all sorts of questions that I didn’t know how to answer and got really pissed at me when I didn’t know how to answer them right away. I’ve got to go back for a load more meetings when I get the chance, so that’s great.”

I rub Louise’s shoulder gently, trying my best to reassure her. I wish there was anything I could do to make her feel better, but I don’t know what. Now that things have got a little weird and I’m worried that others will assume that we’re hooking up, I’m going to have to distance myself even more. This isn’t going to be fun at all, I honestly don’t know how I’ll do it.

“Anyway.” She brushes a tear away and steadies herself once more. It’s impressive how quickly she recovers from heart ache. I can tell this is something that she’s spent her whole life doing. “It’s time to get to work so I’ve got to put all this stuff out of my mind. I’ll work out how I’m going to answer all those questions later on.”

“Right, well you can take the lead again today where appropriate. I know that helps and…” I take in a deep sigh. “Well, like I said before. Anything I can do to help.”