Having to find more mentors to train was a pretty excellent feeling. It meant they were expanding, that the programme was working.

It helped ease the tightness in Frazer’s chest.

The kinks were being fixed, two babies had been born, and the clients’ mentors were checking in with the parents regularly, making sure they were coping. One wasn’t, and they’d helped the mother seek out respite for a few hours a week away from the baby. They made sure she’d discussed with a doctor what seemed like a particularly nasty case of postnatal depression. Mostly, they ensured she felt supported.

And now they were ready for another training week, to bring on board some new clients and new mentors.

It was a good feeling.

With Jack due soon, he was now coming in for weekly appointments. Cora had mentioned the last week over coffee that he was choosing parents. That she would be helping.

Because Frazer’s patients now had support systems.

It was enough to make Frazer do a happy squirm in her chair.

A new e-mail pinged in her inbox from an A&E nurse who was interested in being a mentor. She had two kids at home and remembered what it was like to have little support and a newborn in your care. The perfect candidate. Frazer sent her an e-mail about the training dates she was setting up over the next few weeks.

If only her personal life was so easy to figure out. If only she made as little mess in her personal life as in her work. Though those two worlds had collided, thanks to Frazer’s ridiculously poor decision-making.

A soft knock at the door interrupted her moody musings.

“Come in.”

Cora slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Frazer heard the lock turn closed. With her back against the door, hands behind her, Cora didn’t move.

Frazer didn’t think she was here for the usual reason she locked the door. Frazer walked around her desk and sat at the edge of it, crossed her arms. A few meters separated them, a gulf compared to usual.

Panic played at the back of her mind, and she ignored it. Frazer wasn’t allowed to feel panic at Cora’s avoidance for the last two days, nor the weird look on Cora’s face. They were friends.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Cora stared at her. “Sorry for, uh, disappearing.”

“That’s okay.” It wasn’t. But it was supposed to be.

“I, I just…” Cora swallowed. Bit her lip. “I think we need to end this. To go back to being…to being friends. Without all the…”

“Sex?” Frazer asked, a smile pulling at her lips before falling.

“Exactly.”

Frazer blinked at her. “Oh.” Wait. That wasn’t a good response. “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

Something flitted across Cora’s face before Frazer recognised the relief that settled on her features.