Is it? He cringed at the pleading note in his voice. Are you sure, Ash?

She made another little noise that he recognized all too well. She was crying. I wish I wasnt, Morgan. I really do. She didnt sound so sure. So why was she pushing it?

Is there someone else?

There was a pause and he braced for the news he didnt want to hear. Then she said, No, Morgan. Theres not anyone else.

He blew out a breath with relief. It wasnt like she wasnt entitled to start dating. He just didnt want to think about it, to imagine some other mans hands on her, to picture another mans lips against that sensitive spot on her neck.

The problem is that theres always someone else for you, she said, sounding firmer. Your patients.

It wasnt that shed never come first with him. She thought that, but she was wrong. It was that he himself had never come first. His relationships, his needs were always secondary sometimes tertiary to his patients needs. Hed needed her, but that had to come last.

Did you just get home? she asked.

Yeah. A few minutes ago. He wasnt sure what she was getting at.

Do you know what time it is?

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Nearly nine oclock. Now he got it. Hed stayed way later at the hospital than hed intended. As he had on way too many nights when he and Ashley had been together. I . . . I could change.

She laughed. Tell me one thing you did today that you would have been able to walk away from to come home earlier and it cant be eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom.

He cast his mind back over the days events. Figuring out Vincenzos diagnosis. Trying to reach the nurses station. Going there himself. Interrupting the surgery. Collaborating with Ayres to figure out how to go forward. Talking to the patients wife. All the paperwork that had to be kept up on so that insurance companies and hospital administration would okay everything.

There isnt anything, is there? she asked, her voice gone soft.

She knew him too well. It was an emergency.

It was always an emergency. She answered so quickly that she must have known what he was going to say before he even knew himself. Get the papers signed, Morgan.

I will. Im sorry, Ash.

I know.

She hung up.

Morgan stayed there for a while, staring at the ceiling, the beer suspended by its long neck between two fingers. He should get up and go to bed. It had been a long ass day and tomorrow wouldnt be any shorter. He thought about texting Lexa to find out what time shed scheduled Rohrs angiogram for, but then thought better of it. He clicked the television on instead.