Journey (3)

Chapter 10

"Natalie, Tessa, come and join us," Will says, waving at us from a table in the bar. 

I look over at Natalie. "Did you know that they were going to be here?" I ask her. 

"I had no clue," she says, laughing. "But we should go over there. We can't leave them hanging."

Natalie and I walk over to join Will, Ethan and Connor at a table. His presence doesn't bother me at all now, since we started moving forward. In fact, I'm even looking forward to this.

"Wait, isn't that Maggie, April and Monique over there?" I ask, gesturing to the other side of the bar. "We should get them to join us."

"Great idea," Natalie says. "Maggie! Come on over here, all of you!" She manages to get their attention, along with that of several other displeased people in the bar. 

The three of them make their way over to the table, and we sit down. "Drinking already?" I laugh. 

Will grins at me sheepishly. "This is just the first one," he says. "Wait until the end of the night."

"Not me, not this time," I say, shaking my head firmly. "I don't want a repeat of what happened before!" I glance over at Connor, who stifles a small smile. "Go on, you can laugh," I say, nudging him. 

"It's water under the bridge," he tells me, laughing. "Don't even worry about it."

"What brought you three in here?" Natalie asks them. "I mean, this isn't the most likely group of people."

"Long day," Ethan says, taking a sip of his drink. "That's the whole story. We needed to get out of the headspace for a while, so we decided to go for a drink."

"Fair enough," Natalie says, approvingly. "That's the same with us. I thought that Tessa and I should have a break, from all the chaos back in there." 

"Tell me about it," April agrees, rolling her eyes. "Today was the busiest it's been in a while. I don't think that I even got time to breathe."

"I hear you there," Maggie says, nodding. "It was really rushed in there today. I can't even remember most of the day, that's how chaotic it was in there."

"I know," Connor says. "I had back-to-back surgeries all day. It was a lot."

"Don't do that," Will scoffs. "You're forgetting what it's like down here for us. You're not part of this struggle."

"No, no, of course I'm not," he replies, sarcastically. "It's not like I'm operating under extreme time conditions, or anything like that."

"Okay, okay, let's not turn this into something huge," Maggie says, reprimanding them both. "Let's just enjoy this night off."

"I'm with you on that," I agree, nodding. "Let's talk about something other than our work, for a change? What about that?"

"I mean, that's the only thing that we have in common," Ethan says, shrugging. "If we don't talk about work, there's really nothing else."

"That's not true," Natalie protests. "We have loads to talk about. I can't even think about the last time we all spent time together like this. We should have a lot to talk about." 

"How's Owen?" April asks her. "You haven't shown us any photos of him recently. How is he doing?"

"He's great," Natalie says. "I guess I've been quite busy over these past few weeks. I haven't really had a lot of time to spend with him."

"Hopefully that will be changing soon," Maggie says. "I spoke to Sharon about it today. She's putting more steps in place so that our workload can be lightened. At least, that's what she said."