Liv sipped the last of her coffee. It tasted good, strong and sweet just the way she preferred it. She looked at her watch; she wasn’t due back on the ward for another five minutes, so she pulled her phone from her bag and began to check through her messages. Her boyfriend Eddie had travelled home to Ballycove already, but there was no word that he had arrived safely. But then, that was Eddie, a man of few words. He’d always been the strong and silent type – Liv adored him, but he could be mildly infuriating when you wanted to know that he’d arrived safe and sound. He was the opposite of Pete who had filled her inbox with funny memes and Christmas jokes, most of which she was ignoring until she finished her shift.

Her mother and her sister had been messaging over and back on the family WhatsApp group all day, everything from checking who was picking up the shopping to trying to figure out what each gift contained under the Christmas tree. Obviously, things were quiet in Maya’s office. Liv tapped out a message, letting them know that she was looking forward to finishing up in another few hours. Pete had offered to stay back until the end of her shift and they’d travel home together after she picked up her bags and the family gifts from her flat. She could have sent them home with Eddie, to save the round trip, but she knew Pete wouldn’t mind.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Eddie to bring them safely, but with Eddie, you just never knew. Her boyfriend could as easily toss a mountain of wet clothes on top of her lovely wrapping and it would have been a whole load of effort for nothing. That was the problem with being so creatively talented – sometimes it meant that the mundane practicalities didn’t really mean as much to him. Poor Eddie, he was so busy the last few weeks, they hardly saw each other. But busy was good, because it meant that his business was making money and if he was going to propose to her this Christmas, they’d need plenty of money for a wedding and then, down the road (hopefully, not too far) they could look at selling her flat and getting a bigger place to start a family.

This thought warmed her.