Chapter Text
Mary drew her awareness to the way her shoulders relaxed and her heart rate slowed as she dutifully performed the sham effort of joining the back of the long line to the counter. It didn’t seem to matter that she was always dressed in unflattering bright blue scrubs, or that she wore a garish surgical cap featuring Bluey characters, Tom reliably caught her eye, gave her a slow, admiring wink, and set about prioritising the order he knew by heart over the demands of all the other waiting customers.
Dr Mary Bennet, paediatric trauma surgeon, knew of only one source of reprieve for the heavy burden she daily bore in the operating theatre - the kind eyes and easy charm of the Irish barista at Cup & Clover, the hospital café.
She had been introduced to Tom by her colleague, John Sparrow, on the first day of her new job at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. In a short space of time she found, due to the increasing demands of the role (or at least that was how she explained it to herself), that her caffeine intake had increased from an initial morning flat white, to a second whenever her first surgery was done, then to a third as the shift allowed it and, whenever she could swing it, a decaf or two in the afternoon before Cup & Clover closed.
The unfailing reliability of Tom’s languorous wink reliably brought the colour back to her cheeks, no matter what she’d just endured, and the way he subsequently ignored everyone else in the vicinity, for however many minutes she could spare for him, made her feel not only seen, but somehow cherished beyond anything she’d known before.
Ugh, she thought, in the rare moments she allowed herself to acknowledge this. Could my love life be any more depressing?
“Lining up” for her second coffee of the day on this particular Tuesday, she finally felt she had harnessed her qi sufficiently to ask Tom the favour she’d resolved over the weekend that she simply had to ask him. It was ever so sad, she knew, that she was a highly respected surgeon in her early thirties and the only relationship success she had to show for it was what was surely an entirely one-sided emotional affair with her barista. Of course he probably gave the same solicitous treatment to all the doctors. But, no, she couldn’t let herself think like that, not on the cusp of what she was about to do.
“Doctor Bennet,” he said warmly, bringing her cup over to the uncrowded side of the counter and letting his coworkers step into the breach. “How’s the morning been treating you?”
Mary massaged her forehead with one hand while reaching for her coffee with the other. “Horrid, actually, Tom. But we saved a little life, so it resolved itself well.”
She found the cold hand she’d curled around her cardboard cup enclosed within both his larger, warmer hands as he rested his forearms on the counter and regarded her, care and concern marking his gaze.
It was now or never.
“Er, Tom-” She winced. Her voice had gone all high-pitched.
His warm brown eyes hadn’t moved from her face. “Yes, my love?”
Ooof, the terms of endearment. Why did his Irishness allow him to get away with pet names she would have been tempted to punch a fellow doctor for even attempting? And why did they just feel to her like the affection she craved?
“I’m going to sit down for a bit to drink this. If you can take a quick break, would you come over and join me? There’s something I want to ask you.”
Mary registered his surprise. She’d never before done more than grab a take-away and a few moments conversation.
“Of course, Mary,” said Tom, nodding eagerly. “Let yourself sit still for a moment. I’ll be right behind you.”
For the first time in ages, instead of turning away from the counter and out of the café, Mary turned in the other direction towards the tables and chairs.
She was struck again by the thoughtful decor, perfectly hitting the mark for a café that mainly catered to families in moments of acute distress. The colours were warm and tasteful, the furniture was sturdy and comfortable and, best of all, the back of the café was floor to ceiling windows looking down over the large hospital garden where sick children could be taken on strolls, the paths wide and smooth enough to accommodate strollers, crutches, wheelchairs and even wardsmen wheeling hospital beds.
Mary selected a seat by the window and looked down at the little pagoda that sat at the base of a tall willow tree. She thought of the many times she’d retreated there to weep after she and John had lost a patient or after she’d had to break some difficult news to grieving parents.
“Mary?” She turned away from the window to see Tom, taking the chair opposite her. He’d removed the denim apron he always wore and she found herself surprised by the sight of the lower half of him, which was not at all unpleasant, and mildly taken aback by the unfettered landscape of his broad chest in the well-fitted black henley he always wore, sleeves characteristically pushed up.
“Tom, thanks for this. I really appreciate it and I won’t keep you long.”
He grinned and it took over his whole face. “You can keep me as long as you like, you know.”
Ugh, why did her heart do a little leap at that?
She shook her head slightly. “I have a favour to ask you.”
Tom leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on the heel of his hand. “Ask away.”
The intensity of his gaze left her scrambling a little but she was a trauma surgeon, for Pete’s sake. She knew better than anyone how to close her eyes and take a steadying breath before beginning.
“This Friday night is the hospital fundraiser. And I have been told, in no uncertain terms, that, though I have been allowed to skip the last few, this year I must attend.” She cautiously opened her eyes to find him still watching her intently.
“John and his wife have arranged a babysitter and all my other colleagues have partners they’re bringing but I never seemed to find the time to manage any of that.” She didn’t permit herself to say the words on the tip of her tongue - and as if anyone would be interested in me, anyway. That would hardly be selling it.
“I know you probably have plans and, even if you didn’t, you probably have a partner of your own you should be spending time with but, I wondered…”
“You wondered?” Tom’s voice was warmth itself, his small smile encouraging.
Heartened, she bumbled on, eyes on the grain of the wood in front of her. “I wondered if you would mind coming with me?”
“Mary,” he said, and she managed, somehow, to look up.
He was grinning at her. “I don’t have a partner, I don’t have plans, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do on Friday night than be your date to a big fancy party.”
“Really?” Mary laughed out loud in relief. “Honestly, Tom, you are the kindest, kindest man. Thank you.”
He shook his head slightly, his gaze fond. “You’re the kind one,” he said warmly.
She just let the compliment sit a moment, unaccustomed, in the centre of her chest before her mind returned to logistics and her face fell.
“Err, you’ll need a tux though, it’s one of those black tie affairs. You’ll have to let me pay for you to hire something.”
Tom shrugged. “I have something that’ll do.”
Mary winced. “I mean, it’s a really fancy party, Tom. I’ve had to hire this ridiculous designer dress. You’re the one doing me a favour. It’s absolutely the least I can do to get you the right suit.”
He smiled slyly. “No need.”
Her eyes narrowed. Mary did not trust a man in his mid thirties who still worked as a barista, like some sort of uni student, to have an appropriate suit just hanging in his wardrobe.
“You can’t just wear something you got for some cousin’s wedding, you know. Even John had to go and get fitted for something.”
Tom’s smile just grew more infuriating. He fished for his phone in his back pocket, unlocked it and slid it across the table. “Put your number in there and I’ll text you mine back.”
While she did as he asked, her mind whirred around the problem of Tom’s stubbornness. It was bad enough that she’d be showing up with a hospital café barista on her arm but only her own colleagues would know that and, who was she kidding, the only surprise they’d register would be that she got up the courage to ask him.
It was the bigwigs she worried about - the administrators, the board members and the big donors she’d been told she’d have to be schmoozing. Tom was a handsome man and all, but he needed to play the part.
“I mean it, Tom.” She placed the phone back down in front of him, keeping her hand and her eyes fixed on it. “The suit is not nothing.”
“Mary,” he said quietly, causing her to glance up at him.
He covered her hand with both his own and she felt his warmth rush through her.
“I know this is important to you. I’m not taking that lightly. I wouldn’t.” His voice stayed soft. “You’ll be okay with my tux, I promise you. Can you trust me?”
Mary found herself smiling. Sad as it was, Tom the barista did feature on the very short list of people she trusted. Would this man, whose kindness helped her navigate days of life and death, suddenly let her down?
“Alright, I trust you,” she replied, nodding. “Thank you, Tom.”
He gave her a little lopsided smile in return. “Of course, Mary. Anything for you.”
Mary’s heart did an embarrassing little flip at his words.
Tom took up his phone and she felt the buzz of a text notification in her pocket.
“There,” he said, looking back up at her with his kind eyes. “Now you have me.”
If only, Mary thought.
She cleared her throat and started to get to her feet. “Thank you again, Tom.”
“Do you know,” he said softly as he followed her lead. “I’m really looking forward to this.”
“You are?” She blinked back at him. “I mean, please allow me to manage your expectations. It will be a terribly dull evening at which I have to wear a ridiculously tight dress and make small talk with powerful people. You will get to see me flounder and fail from up close.” She huffed out a breath and stood dejectedly behind her chair. “Still looking forward to it?”
He grinned as he slid his chair back into place. “A ridiculously tight dress, you say? Well, now I’m looking forward to it all the more.”
It turned out the languorous wink was even more potent at close quarters.
Mary’s eyes widened.
Tom went to walk away and then turned back, his expression sheepish, hands outstretched in apology. “Mary, I just realised what I said and then realised that I winked and I just want to distance myself from the lecherous Irish caricature that I accidentally slipped into just now. You do not have to worry. I promise, I will be the perfect gentleman.”
She slowly let out the breath she’d sucked in, not entirely sure Tom had accurately read her reaction but choosing to respond as if he had.
“That is a relief,” she managed, her hands gripping the back of the chair.
“See you after your next shift?” Tom asked tentatively, as if, suddenly, it weren’t a given.
Mary gave him the first easy smile since he’d initially agreed to her proposal. “Where else would I be?”
When she returned for Flat White #3 a few hours later, Tom looked steadily over the queue at her but he did not wink.
She felt her heart deflate.
He smiled at her, and moved to make her coffee but still he did not wink.
As he brought her the coffee and they performed their accustomed little dance of hands and finger brushes and smiles and pleasantries, she sensed some sort of extra charge left over from their earlier conversation and the promise of Friday night.
Her disappointment began to take a different form.
Not her usual milkwater acceptance.
Instead, she felt defiance tinged with hope.
Stepping back from the counter, cup in hand, Mary paused deliberately.
He leaned his weight on his hand, wordlessly watching her.
Before she could think too much about it, some restraint in her gave way. An inhabitual spirit of flirtatiousness came over her and Mary gave him her own version of the slow, admiring wink he’d so carefully withheld.
Tom threw his head back with a surprised laugh, his free hand landing flat across the centre of his chest as if her gesture had pierced his heart.
Mary found that she liked absolutely everything about the scene before her - curls, throat, biceps, forearms, hands - and especially that she had shocked him into a full-body laugh like that.
“Mary!” he cried, his Irish lilt teasing and still full of mirth. “Oh, Mary, my love. Forgive me for neglecting you earlier.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said lightly. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
At last he returned the slow wink, his gaze somehow warmer, the effect somehow more lingering.
Mary smiled, feeling her natural bashfulness return. She nodded in satisfaction, turned away, and strolled towards the operating theatre without letting herself look back.
As she turned down the corridor she felt a text notification buzz in her pocket.
It was from Tom. A YouTube link.
She smiled, tucked the phone back into her pocket and decided to take her coffee out to the garden pagoda rather than the surgeon’s break room.
Finding the garden mercifully empty, Mary sat on the bench and eagerly opened the link on her phone.
It was an amateur video, shot from what appeared to be the audience of a smoky pub, the phone camera turned toward a small stage crowded with musicians. She didn’t immediately recognise all the instruments - something that looked like a banjo, and something like a tin whistle amongst the guitars and drumkit - but the sound immediately reminded her of The Pogues - something very folky and very Irish.
Mary watched, confused as to what she was seeing. The musicians were raucous, the footage shaky, the dance floor crammed with patrons - the gig had obviously been a riot. But as she listened, she realised she vaguely recognised the tune.
The whole crowd joined in for the chorus and she identified the song being covered at last. It had been a twee 90s country song before it had been given new life in this vastly improved Celtic reinterpretation. It seemed some Galway pub band had accidentally discovered Neal McCoy’s Wink and decided the song deserved emotional stakes.
In this complicated world it may sound absurd
But simple little things are the miracle cures
Pushed to the limit or standing at the brink
All she's gotta do is just give me that wink.
Mary rolled her eyes but couldn’t help her smile.