Poppy's PoV

Our lips hovered closely to each other's, feeling the others breath in our face. Calum's brown eyes were locked with mine, both drinking in the others faces.

"I thought you'd say there was some rule..." Calum said, his voice quiet so it didn't ruin the mood.

"There is." I said quickly, wanting to get rid of the thought of the rules right now. Of course, there was a rule that nurses weren't meant to date patients as much as it could be helped and that no staff should date each other but I knew many many people who had broken those rules, so they didn't matter to me. Calum was the first man I'd really wanted in a long time.

"Poppy!" Mavis's voice travelled across the ward and stopped us in our tracks. Without hesitation, I rushed to the window and looked through the blinds. The security guard and Mavis were desperately holding back a few paparazzi whose cameras were already flashing towards our room.

"Shit!" I exclaimed, rushing to the door and bolting it from the inside. "Call your friends. Tell them not to come back, there's at least five paps here." Calum straightened in the bed, his eyes widening.

"Oh come on! For fucks sake." He snapped as he yanked his phone up to his ear. I could hear the tone of it ringing from here and anxiously waited for one of them to pick up. The last thing we needed was them to be caught up in it.

"No!" Mavis cried out and my gaze flew back over to them. The paps had got past the two of them and were heading for the room. "I'll call security!" I heard her shout out as she ran off, leaving the one guard to deal with the five of them. I began to panic for Calum, knowing what he'd just told me about hating having no privacy and an idea popped into my head.

"Sorry Cal." I warned before I ran around the room, closing all the blinds fully so the cameras couldn't take any photos they could use in awful stories. He offered me a small smile as a thank you while he tried yet another phone number.

"Fucking finally!" He shouted down the phone. "I called Luke and Ash and they didn't pick up. Don't come back here. Paps have got in." He paused as Michael answered. "Poppy's locked in the room with me. She was just checking on me and we heard shouting. She said there's about five of them." He paused again. He anxiously rubbed his face with his hand. "Yeah they're surrounding the room, Jack couldn't handle it by himself. Send Dave." He paused again. "Okay fine." He looked up to me and held his phone out. "They want to speak to you." I nodded as I rushed over and grabbed the phone, putting it to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Poppy, it's Dave. Now listen carefully, these paps are nasty. Whatever you do, don't open that door. Keep the blinds closed, don't let them get any photo opportunities. Calum gets stressed in these situations and now that he's by himself, it might make it worse. Just ignore any rude things he says, he really doesn't mean it." I nodded after he finished every sentence. I held the phone in the crook of my neck as I headed to the edge of the bed and looked at Calum's notes, praying nothing was due to be done any time soon. Luckily, he was okay.

"Got it, no problem. Please try and get rid of them as soon as you can. Mavis has called security too." I filled him in as much as I could.

"Brilliant. Thanks Poppy, we'll have this sorted soon." Dave said before hanging up quickly. I handed the phone back to Calum but he suddenly seemed disinterested with everything, just looking down at his lap.

"Calum? Everything okay?" I asked quietly, scared that the paps would hear me. My heart was beating fast and heavy in my chest but I needed to remain calm for the sake of both of us.

"They just never stop." He sighed heavily. "Stacey would have given them my location inside the hospital knowing she was banned." He went silent for a second as he thought about what he said. "Fucking bitch!" He grabbed his bottle from the side table and lobbed it across the room, it colliding with the wall and rolling on the floor. I jumped back slightly as it hit, but straight after went over to Calum to try and soothe him again. His head was in his hands.

"It's okay Cal, we'll get it sorted. Don't worry." I tried but knew it was the wrong thing to say when he glared up at me with his jaw tensed.

"Sorted? This is my life, Poppy. They're always everywhere, snapping photos and making stories that aren't true. They won't go anywhere." He snapped at me, as if I was an idiot. I bit my tongue to stop myself answering rudely back, knowing what Dave had said. I tried to put my hand on his but he pulled it away.

"Calum I'm here for you, I'm trying to help you. We're stuck in this room together whether you like it or not!" I said with a hint of venom in my tone, trying to snap him out of it.

"That's the problem." He sighed heavily, finally looking up at me. "I don't want to drag you into all this. I'm not a normal guy. These morons follow me around day and night. If they knew what we had, they'd follow you around too." I sighed as I walked over to him and perched myself on the edge of the bed. I grabbed his hand in mine before he had a chance to respond and looked over to him.

"Isn't that my decision to make though?" He looked away again before he responded, not wanting to hurt my feelings.

"I've been in this situation before, many times, half didn't even want to try and the other half didn't succeed. It takes up everything." I wrapped my hand round his cheek and pulled him to face me again.

"Then those people are idiots. If you like someone, you take everything that comes with them. That's how I see everything. No one is perfect, everyone's got something in their life they want to hide or avoid." He let out a long and heavy breath, collecting his thoughts before responding. In that time, the room had fallen silent and we could hear the paps fussing around outside the room, desperate for a picture and a story.

"Honestly, Poppy, there's not many people like you in the world. I'm really grateful that I've got to know you. The paps are awful though, they'll say things just for a reaction because that photo will grab a headline. Stacey definitely would have told them about you." Calum was still trying to prove a point to me but I wasn't having it. I got what he was saying but trying to turn me against the idea of still knowing him was ridiculous.

"If you don't shut up trying to convince me I'm better off not knowing you I'm going to walk out there and tell them all we're an item." I smiled childishly at him. He cheekily smiled back and shook his head in disbelief at me. For a moment it fell silent again, but in a good way, until a massive bang at the door caught both our attentions and made us jump.

"Ah! Shit!" Calum tried desperately to hold it together but I already knew what he'd done. I stood up and checked his ankle, the mere touch making him shout out in pain.

"Cal, I need to get you medication." I said, looking towards the locked door.

"No!" He shouted out to me. "You can't go out there." He gritted his teeth as the pain got worse. "They'll get in, or they'll hound you." He arched and writhed around in the bed, pain taking over.

"I've got to Cal... I'll be back in a minute."