Page 19 of Christmas On Call
Asha moved to the door, her hand on the handle. She paused, back still turned, shoulders rigid.
“Max,” she said—just the name, soft and almost broken.
“Yeah?”
Asha looked back over her shoulder. In her eyes, Max could see regret, longing, and something that might have been hope.
“I do want this,” she said quietly, each word deliberate. “I just... I need time.”
Then she was gone, slipping out into the brightened hallway, leaving Max alone in the dark on-call room with her racing heart and the ghost of Asha’s touch still warm on her skin.
Max sat for another minute, her hand drifting up to touch her own cheek where Asha’s fingers had been. She could feel the wetness between her legs building up inside of her.
Her emotions were a tangle she couldn’t begin to sort—frustration at the interruption, hope from Asha’s confession,intense sexual energy, lingering fear that maybe wanting something wasn’t enough to make it work. But underneath it all, steady and sure, the thought,She wants this. She wants me. She’s just terrified.
And Max understood terror. She’d felt it herself—the fear of being left, of giving too much, of loving someone who couldn’t love her back the same way. But she’d also learned that the only way through fear was straight ahead, eyes open, heart exposed.
She stood, straightened her scrubs, and headed back out to finish her shift.
The NICU was coming alive with the early stirrings of day shift: nurses trickling in with travel mugs and tired eyes, families arriving for morning visits, sunlight starting to filter pale and gold through the windows. The night was ending. A new day beginning.
Max caught sight of Asha across the unit, standing with the attending on morning rounds, her posture perfect, her voice steady as she presented Baby Chen’s overnight events. As if sensing Max’s gaze, Asha glanced up.
Their eyes met across the space.
Asha didn’t smile—couldn’t, not here, not now—but something in her expression softened. Just for a second. Just for Max.
Then she turned back to rounds, professional and contained.
But Max had seen it. The crack in the armor. The possibility.
Martha appeared at her elbow, pressing a paper cup of coffee into her hands. “You look like you need this more than I do.”
“Is it really that obvious?” Max took the cup gratefully, wrapping her hands around the warmth.
Martha studied her with those knowing eyes that had seen two decades of NICU drama. “Whatever’s going on with you and Ice Queen over there,” she said, nodding subtly toward Asha,“just... be patient with her. That kind of woman takes time to thaw.”
Max didn’t deny it. There was no point. “Oh. That’s obvious too? And what if time isn’t enough? We all know life’s short, right?”
“Then you’ll know you tried,” Martha said gently. “But my money’s on you two figuring it out. I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks no one’s watching.” She patted Max’s shoulder. “That woman’s in deeper than she wants to admit.”
Max sipped her coffee—burnt and bitter, perfect—and let herself smile. Small, but genuine. The fact that Martha had picked up on meant it really wasn’t just her own imagination.
Across the unit, Asha was still on rounds, but her hand had drifted up, almost unconsciously, to touch her own cheek. The same spot where she’d touched Max.
Max’s smile widened.
She feels it too.
Progress, not perfection.
She finished her coffee, signed out her patients to the day shift, and gathered her things. As she headed for the elevator, she allowed herself one last glance back.
Asha stood at the nurses’ station, pen in hand, face composed. But as Max watched, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear—the same gesture from the on-call room, tender and unconscious—and Max felt something settle warm inside of her. She couldn’t wait to taste her kiss again.
The elevator doors opened. Max stepped inside, pushed the button for the ground floor, and leaned back against the wall as the car descended.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text:
