Best Friends' Off-Limits Kiss - Chapter 7

The team building exercise is, as promised, orienteering.

Dr Hargreaves hands out compasses and maps with the enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t noticed the relationship between the two doctors she praised as a dream team earlier today has changed at all.

We’re supposed to work in pairs. Obviously. Maya appears at my elbow without a word. Her eyes are red. Mine probably are, too.

‘Partners?’ she asks quietly.

I nod because what else am I going to do? Tell Hargreaves we need separate assignments because we slept together last night and then had a catastrophic fight this morning? Fat chance.

We collect our equipment in silence and set off into the woods. The first checkpoint is half a mile north. Maya reads the compass whilst I plot the route. We move through the trees without speaking, the only sounds our footsteps on the leaf litter and the occasional call of a bird overhead.

It’s Maya who finally breaks.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

I stop walking. Turn to face her.

‘I should have told you about the job,’ she continues. Her voice is so small, so unlike her, I want to throw this stupid map away, bundle her into my arms and kiss her until we both forget where we are. ‘I should have told you weeks ago. You deserved to know.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ I ask.

She looks down at the compass in her hands. ‘Because I was scared. Because I thought if I told you, I’d have to make a decision. And I wasn’t ready.’

‘Are you ready now?’

‘No.’ She laughs, bitter. ‘But I don’t think I’m going to get any more ready, so…’

I take a breath, steeling myself. Because I know I’m stubborn and this wouldn’t be the first time this specific trait gets in my way. I’m pretty sure all the things between us might have unravelled much earlier if I wasn’t an obstinate donkey at times. So, I force myself to think of Maya, of her hands on
my skin, her lips against mine. How she whispered I love you in my ear and how I would do anything to hear those words again. ‘What do you want, Maya?’

‘What?’

‘I’m…trying to see your viewpoint. This morning caught me off guard, and I was hurt and…made it about me. About what I wanted, what I was scared of. But I didn’t ask you.’ I step closer. ‘What do you want?’

She’s quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is small. ‘I want to stay. I want to keep working with you every day. I want to wake up next to you and fight about dumb things like duvet covers and figure out how to do this without ruining everything.’ She finally meets my eyes. ‘But I’m terrified that this is just a moment in time and not forever.’

‘It might be,’ I say honestly. ‘We might try this, and it might not work. We might be terrible at being together in ways we weren’t terrible at being friends.’

Maya frowns, but there’s a spark in her eyes that makes my heart skip a beat. ‘That’s not reassuring.’

‘I’m not very good at reassuring.’ I take another step closer. ‘But I’m good at showing up. I’m good at being there when it’s hard. And I’m good at loving you, apparently, because I’ve been doing it for eight years.’

Her breath hitches, and she lets me take her face between my hands.

‘So no, I can’t promise you forever,’ I continue. ‘But I can promise you that I’m not running. I can promise you that when it gets hard, I’m not going to look for the exit. I’m going to stay and fight for this. For us.’

‘Even after this morning?’

‘Especially after this morning.’ I brush my thumbs along her cheeks, relishing the softness of her skin. ‘We had our first fight as a couple before we even made it to breakfast. We’re clearly overachievers.’

She laughs, watery but real. ‘We are a bit, aren’t we?’

‘Completely insufferable.’ I bend down and place a kiss on her forehead. ‘So. Are you going to take the job?’

‘No.’ She says it firmly this time, without hesitation. ‘I’m going to stay. Not because of you, not because I’m scared, but because I actually want to. I like my life. I just…needed to know I had a choice in it at that time. I wanted a change, but it’s because I was too afraid to get this change. To get you.’

‘And now you have me.’

‘And you me.’ She leans into my touch. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I made you feel like I was already gone.’

I smile, pulling her lips onto mine and kissing her gently. ‘I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.’

‘We’re quite bad at this, aren’t we?’

‘Spectacularly bad.’ I lean in and press my forehead to hers. ‘But we’ll get better. We’ll learn. We’ve got time.’

She kisses me then, soft and tentative, like she’s asking a question. I kiss her back like I’m answering it. When we break apart, she’s smiling.

‘We should probably find that checkpoint,’ she says.

‘Probably. Hargreaves will have our heads.’

‘And we’ve only just become her favourite success story.’

‘Dream team,’ I remind her.

‘Dream team.’

We start walking again. After a moment, her hand finds mine.

‘This is going to be complicated, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘Working together. Dating. Navigating all of it.’

‘Probably.’ I squeeze her hand. ‘But we’ve been navigating complicated for eight years. At least now we get to kiss about it.’

She laughs, properly this time. ‘That’s a terrible reason to date someone.’

‘You have better ones?’

‘Several. But that one’s growing on me.’

We walk north, hand in hand, towards the checkpoint and whatever comes after.

***

We’re not last to the checkpoint, as it turns out. We’re third. Hargreaves looks mildly impressed.

On the bus ride back to London, Maya falls asleep on my shoulder. I don’t pull away. I don’t worry about who’s watching or what they’re thinking. I just sit there with her weight warm against me and watch the countryside roll past. When we pull into the hospital car park, Maya stirs.

‘We’re back,’ I say quietly.

She blinks up at me. ‘Already?’

‘Already.’

We collect our bags. File off the bus with everyone else. Stand in the car park whilst people say their goodbyes and head to their cars.

Maya turns to me. ‘So.’

‘So.’

‘Do you want to get dinner?’ She’s trying for casual and failing completely. ‘Like. Tonight. At my place. Or yours. Or literally anywhere.’

‘Are you asking me on a date, Dr Patel?’

‘I believe I am, Dr Sterling.’

‘Then yes.’ I take her hand, right there in the car park where anyone could see. ‘I would very much like to get dinner with you.’

Her smile is brilliant. Blinding.

We walk to our cars together. She kisses me goodbye like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like we’ve been doing this for years instead of hours.

‘See you at seven?’ she says.

‘See you at seven.’

I watch her drive away. Then I get in my own car and sit there for a minute, hands on the wheel, trying to process the fact that this is my life now. That Maya loves me. That we’re trying. That I’m not running and she’s not running and maybe—just maybe—we’re going to be okay.

My phone buzzes.

Maya: Already counting down. Is that pathetic?

Me: Extremely. But I’m doing the same thing.

Maya: Good. See you tonight x

I drive home with the kind of stupid smile on my face that would normally make me feel ridiculous. But I don’t feel ridiculous. I feel lighter than I have in years.

I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

Finally.