“Good,” Maggie said.
“But it’s hard,” Chen continued. “Isn’t it? Maintaining that distance.”
Maggie met her gaze. “Yes. Of course it is.”
“Four more months,” Chen said. “Then you’re free to work together again. To acknowledge whatever exists between you. Can you make it four more months?”
“We can,” Maggie said with more confidence than she felt.
Chen nodded slowly. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. Both of you. Taking the hard road instead of the easy one. That takes courage.”
“Or stupidity,” Maggie said lightly.
“Sometimes they look the same,” Chen replied.
Later, as the party was winding down, Maggie found herself near the exit at the same time as Evie. They hadn’t spoken all evening—carefully navigating the space to maintain appropriate distance.
“Doctor Laurel,” Evie said formally.
“Doctor Brooks,” Maggie replied.
They walked toward the elevator, maintaining a professional three feet of distance, neither speaking.
The elevator doors barely had time to finish closing before Evie had turned, bracketed Maggie against the stainless steel wall with a heat that belied the professional armor she wore like second skin. The silence was electric—two floors in which nothing was allowed but the friction of proximity, the thrum of longing so keen it threatened to slice them both open. “This is torture,” Evie whispered, and Maggie felt her pulse jump, sharp and adolescent.
“My car doesn’t have cameras,” Maggie replied, the words scraping out of her. Two floors. One. Evie’s eyes never left hers.
When they hit P2, the doors stuttered open and Maggie led the way, walking fast, heels clacking in the echo-chamber of concrete and winter.
They kept three feet of air between them, like always. Like the past six weeks hadn’t trained them to ache for even the shadow of touch, the brush of hands at a patient’s bedside, the flash of eye contact in a crowded hospital corridor.
Her car was exactly as she’d left it: Toyota Camry, silver, immaculate. One of the few things she controlled, still.
They reached the car. A cold gust curled under the garage ceiling, lifting the hair from Maggie’s collar. Before she could open the door, Evie’s hand wrapped around her wrist—lightning, immediate—and spun her, so her back hit the driver’s side with a muted thunk.
Maggie’s breath caught, sharp in the chilled air.
“You said—” Evie’s hands bracketed her face, fingers trembling, “—the second we got to your car. That’s now, Laurel. That’s right fucking now.”
Maggie lost her composure on a dime. Evie’s mouth claimed hers, hard and raw, with none of the tentative edge they’d practiced for weeks.
Her lips were soft, alive, but the way Evie kissed was all hunger—open, wet, desperate to make up for every forced moment of distance, every party and meeting and shift where they’d been required to pretend indifference.
Maggie made a sound—helpless, animal—and pressed back, the length of Evie’s body pinning her to the door, hands already everywhere: waist, ribs, cupping her jaw, threading into her hair and yanking loose the tight elastic until her dark hair fell around their faces like a curtain. Evie’s tongue licked into her mouth and Maggie let her, let herself be devoured for the first time in a month and a half.
She tasted salt, the memory of wine from the party, and something bright and feral that was just Evie. The cold pressed at her spine but inside, she burned.
Evie’s hands didn’t stay still. They mapped the length of Maggie’s torso, under her coat, blunt fingernails scraping along her shirt until they caught the hem and wormed up beneath, palm spreading hot and possessive against bare skin.
Maggie shuddered, tried to get her hands on Evie, anywhere, tangled in the soft thickness of her sweater, the line of her hipsin jeans, and found herself gasping against Evie’s lips, “Not here—someone could?—”
“No cameras,” Evie breathed back, biting down on Maggie’s lower lip, and there was a sound in Maggie’s throat she would have denied under oath.
“Inside. Get inside,” Maggie hissed, fighting with the key fob. The door unlocked with a beep that sounded unreasonably loud in the echoing garage.
They crashed into the driver’s seat together, Maggie first, Evie following before she could even close the door behind them. It was cramped, awkward, the center console jabbing into Maggie’s hip, but Evie just climbed on top of her, straddled her lap, shoving the seat all the way back with one practiced kick of her heel.
She was beautiful like this: cheeks flushed with cold, pupils blown, hair down and wild around her shoulders. Maggie wanted to memorize every detail, every microexpression, but Evie wasn’t interested in stillness or memory—she wanted more, wanted now.
