“That could take hours,” she protested, still eyeing the panel in the ceiling. “I’m not waiting that long.”
“Why not?” Seriously, it was by far the smartest option. Not to mention the least insane.
“Because.”
Emmett waited. “Because?”
“Because,” Vasquez repeated, pressing up to the toes of her clogs. “I can’t be stuck in here with you.”
She took a leap for the ceiling panel before he could get indignant, promptly missing it by a nautical mile and stumbling as her feet hit the floor.
He caught her by both elbows out of pure instinct. “Whoa!”
He’d had every intention of steadying her. Hell, most of the time, steady was his middle freaking name, and she’d been the one to go all leapfrog at the elevator ceiling while his feet had remained on the linoleum.
So why the hell did he suddenly feel so off-balance?
“Are you okay?” he asked. His pulse knocked at his throat as Vasquez gripped his bare forearms, then nodded. She didn’t let go, and whether it was the closeness or the way that the fire in her eyes had shifted to a much softer emotion, Emmett couldn’t tell. But something made one corner of his mouth drift up into a half-smile as he said, “Come on. Am I really so bad?”
“No.” Her grip tightened for a split second, which—funny—did absolutely zip to slow his fucking heart rate. But then she jerked back so quickly, Emmett was half-certain he’d imagined it. “Yes. I just…we need to get out of here.”
With a slightly stung ego (yes? Was she serious?), he leaned against the wall and watched her examine all of her options, including the ones where she tried to Hercules the doors open by hand, before she finally gave up and sat down with her back against the wall across from him.
“I told you,” he said, but that just seemed to hack her off even more. Maybe small talk would unkink her panties.
Great. Now, not only was he trapped in an elevator with a woman who he shouldn’t want and who seemed mad at him for God-only-knew-what, but he had a socially unacceptable hard-on that his scrubs were doing a poor job of concealing.
Merry fucking Christmas.
“So, um.” Come up with something, jackass. Other than silk, satin, or lace. Right now. “Are you going to the hospital holiday party?”
Vasquez blinked twice, then turned her gaze toward the flyer that had been Scotch-taped to the elevator wall and adorned with a red foil bow. “Good Lord, no.”
“It’s fun,” Emmett returned defensively. But it wasn’t his fault that A) she was acting colder than Frosty the Snowman right now, and B) the gala really was the hospital’s biggest and best party of the year. Everyone went.
“‘Fun’ is not a word I’d use to describe a holiday party,” she said.
Guess he could cross parties off the list of small-talk topics, then. Figured she wouldn’t like anything fun. She pretty much lived with her nose to the grindstone.
Okay, work. That was good. “Got any cases you need help with?”
“No, thank you.”
“Have you taken your boards yet?” She’d been eligible since September, just like the rest of the residents in her class. Parker had just taken his and aced the crap out of them.
Vasquez pressed her lips together. “No.”
Finally, something they could do to pass the time. Emmett brightened. “I can help you study, if you want.”
“I’ve got it covered, thanks.”
His brows lifted. No resident in their right mind would turn away a study session with an attending. “There’s a lot on the exam, and you must be pretty close to the deadline. It’s no big deal for me to help you. I mean, we’re stuck here, anyway, right?”
“Please don’t remind me.” The words were more plea than pissy, but it was too late. Emmett was already pissed.
“So, does your spitting hatred of me have anything to do with how much you detest my medical specialty, or is it purely personal?”
Vasquez’s lips parted. “I don’t hate you.”
“Really?” His calm already gone, he snorted. “You just tried to crawl through an access panel and into an elevator shaft to get away from me.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” Emmett said, not even caring that he’d cut her off. “You’ve made it glaringly clear—and I do mean that literally—that you hate being on my service. You just tried to dodge me in the ED.” He could tell from the lift of her chin that his suspicion was spot-on. “And now this. Seriously, have I offended you in some way I’m not aware of, or what?”
She let out a sharp exhale, her stare conversely soft. “It’s not you I hate. It’s ortho, okay? I hate ortho.”
This wasn’t exactly news to Emmett. But it was the first time he asked, “Why?”
Well, that got her. “What do you mean, why?”
Guess it got him, too, because his frustration slipped, albeit only a notch. “You’re a resident, Vasquez. You obviously want a career in medicine. Orthopedic surgery is a medical field, one you knew you’d have a rotation in at some point in your residency. So, how come you hate it so much?”
“Because I’m bad at it,” Vasquez said, as if it were the most obvious truth in the world.
Which was exactly how Emmett answered her. “No, you’re not.”
Her laugh was equal portions irony and humor. “Oh my God, Mallory, the only thing worse than you teasing me is you bullshitting me over something we both know is true.”
So, so much going on there. He pushed past his shock and went with a list. “First of all, I’m not bullshitting you. If I thought you were struggling with ortho, I’d have said something months ago. Second, you think I’m teasing you? As in, making fun?”
“I don’t think you’re teasing me,” Vasquez said, one hand migrating to her hip. “I know it.”
Emmett’s shock went for a double. “Look, I know I can get a little cocky. Sometimes.” He paused. “Maybe. But—”
“Sometimes. Maybe.”
Nothing about either word was a question, and paired with her perfectly arched dark brows, they did something to his composure that he couldn’t explain. Okay, fine, so he’d been pushing it with that ‘maybe’. But loads of doctors had well-fed egos. It wasn’t as if his confidence was unusual, much less all that terrible. He was great at his job. No shame in that.
So he leveled Vasquez with a stare and said, “Yeah. Maybe.”
“And firing off a billion questions about the world’s most obscure ortho cases and conditions? Is that just your idea of fun, then?”
“Uh, yeah,” Emmett said, because it was fun. Some of those cases were so freaking cool. “What’s wrong with a little Q and A? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one of your teachers.”
Vasquez let out an exasperated huff. “What wrong with it is that my answer is always ‘I don’t know’. I study my face off, some nights until my eyes feel like they might actually explode, and it’s never good enough. No matter how hard I try to learn my way around ortho, I never even get close!”
Whether it was the way she’d stepped forward and planted her other hand against her hip to mirror the first or the undiluted fire in her dark brown stare, Emmett couldn’t be sure. But his pulse rushed, stripping away another layer of the carefully crafted composure he relied on every time he stepped into this hospital.
“If you needed help, all you had to do was ask for it. I’m right here, Vasquez.” Fueled by adrenaline, or—God, he didn’t even know what—Emmett cut the space between them in half, leaving less than an arm’s length to spare. “I don’t want you to fail. You’re too fucking smart for that. But for Chrissake, do you think that for one second, you could just lay your weapons down and tell me you’re struggling rather than avoiding me and hating my specialty? Despite what you might think, I am here to help you. But you have to let me.”
Her lips fell open, realization melting into the spark in her stare. For some period of seconds that felt like forever, he and Vasquez stood th
ere, eyes wide and energy crackling and bodies close enough to brush.
Finally, she said, “I want—”
“Hi, guys!” came a female voice from above their heads, and Emmett’s heart bolted halfway up his windpipe as his gaze winged upward.
Shae McCullough, one of the firefighters who hung out at the same local bar as all the doctors at Remington Memorial, gave up a Cheshire-cat grin from her spot at the access panel Vasquez had made a jump for earlier, now clearly open.
“Oh, sorry.” Shae divided her gaze between him and Vasquez, her grin growing even larger. “Is this a bad time?”
“No. Not at all,” Emmett said, and Vasquez shook her head from where she’d planted herself on the opposite side of the elevator.
“Oh, goodie.” Shae waggled her light brow brows beneath the brim of her helmet. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t have rappelled down this elevator shaft just for funsies, because I so would have. But my boss, you know.” She paused to roll her eyes. “He gets testy over that kind of stuff when we’re on duty. Anyhoo! Just give me a couple of seconds to work some magic on this thing to get it level with the second floor and let the rest of the crew pry the doors open from the other side, and then you two won’t have to be in each other’s dance space anymore.”
“Great,” Emmett said.
But he couldn’t tell if it was the truth or a blazing lie.
3
Sofia slumped back in her chair in the staff lounge and prayed for a miracle, or at the very least, a decent cup of coffee. As a doctor, she knew that the copious amounts of java she’d already thrown down the hatch—at nine and eleven p.m., no less—were bound to pick a fight with her central nervous system. But much like her last night shift earlier in the week, a.k.a. The Night of the Elevator Disaster, tonight had also been abnormally quiet, patient-wise. Without any traumas to rouse her adrenaline, Sofia had to resort to Plan B if she wanted to get any studying done. If only Plan B wasn’t so much like used motor oil.
Make that cold used motor oil, she thought as she lowered her cup with a shudder, and damn it, this wasn’t working.
She really was going to need a miracle in order to pass her boards.
Rubbing the burn from her eyes with both hands, Sofia blew out a breath. Mallory hadn’t been wrong about her being thiiiiiisclose to the deadline for the massive exam she needed to pass in order to continue as a resident. She’d have taken the damn thing ages ago, and probably cakewalked her way to killer scores. Except the ortho section kept tripping her up, and the harder she studied, the worse she did on the practice exams.
I’m here to help you. But you have to let me…
Unable to help it any longer, Sofia gave in to the thoughts that had been tempting the edges of her subconscious ever since Shae had sprung her and Mallory from that elevator a few nights ago. She hadn’t intended to tell him how much his wildly obscure quizzes intimidated her, and she damned sure hadn’t meant to let it slip that his teasing made her feel less than adequate. She had thicker skin than that. Yeah, maybe her pride had kept her from admitting she needed help (especially his help), but come on. Mallory had never given her a single reason to believe she’d ever live down the ask, and it wasn’t as if pride was some rare quality doctors never exhibited. She probably had less than most.
Or at least less than some.
Okay, fine, so she had a metric fuckton of pride. But she had good reasons for that, damn it.
She’d promised her father she’d go after her dream of becoming a doctor. Her father, who had scrimped and saved and supported her. Her father, who had refused to let her work a full-time job as she got her undergraduate degree because it would knock her two years off-schedule. Her father, who had taken on a second full-time job instead.
Her father, to whom she owed everything.
Including swallowing her pride.
Shit.
Closing her laptop and scooping up the books she’d borrowed from the hospital’s medical library, Sofia made her way to the nurses’ station. It was nearly midnight now, she realized with a pang as she swiveled a gaze around the pin drop-quiet space. The few patients snoozing in the curtain areas were all stable and non-emergent, waiting on labs Sofia suspected would come back normal. She knew Mallory was on tonight, because she’d seen him at shift change, but…she eyed the digital clock on the wall and silently cursed. He was probably sleeping in the on-call room, like any smart, sane attending during a quiet shift.
“You’re either strength training or studying for your boards,” came a drawl from behind her, making her skin tingle with involuntary heat. “But it’s a little hard to tell which.”
Sofia pivoted just in time to catch the full force of Mallory’s dimple as it appeared beneath the dusting of dark stubble on his cheeks. Sweet Jesus. “Studying,” she said. “And, ah. Looking for you.”
Mallory’s inky brows lifted. “Well, there’s a first.”
“Don’t get cocky,” Sofia warned, the smile she wanted to fight making an escape as he splayed a hand over the front of his scrubs in a mock who me? expression. “Did you mean what you said the other night? About me asking for help?”
“I always mean what I say.” There was just enough intensity hidden beneath the ease in his tone to make her pulse pick up the pace. “But are you sure you want me to help you?”
She took a breath and gulped her pride like a shot of tequila. “Yes. The fact is, I really need the help. You’re the best source of knowledge in my area of weakness, and failing my boards isn’t an option. So, yes. I’m very sure.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
Relief spilled through Sofia’s chest, surprising her with its strength. “Wow. That was easier than I thought it would be.”
Mallory laughed, surprising her again. “We haven’t gotten to the hard part yet. Come on.” He led the way to the elevator. “You’re not afraid of this thing, now, are you?”
The heat from his borderline smirk sailed right through her, but she didn’t back down as the doors trundled open. “Nope.”
Two (thankfully) uneventful minutes later, their feet came to a halt in front of a familiar threshold Sofia had never crossed despite the thousands of hours she’d spent in the hospital, and whoa… “Uh, Mallory? This is the attendings’ lounge.”
“Oh, good,” he said, turning the knob and holding the door for her. “Then we’re in the right place.”
But she didn’t budge. “What I mean is, I’m a resident.” She couldn’t just do-si-do into the freaking attendings’ lounge, no matter how much she’d wanted to since the very first time she’d shouldered into a set of scrubs.
“So, a few things,” Mallory said. “One, I appreciate your respect for the chain of command. But it’s a room, Vasquez. I’m not suggesting you come kick your feet up and watch Netflix whenever you want”—damn it, she’d laughed—“but this is a little different. Segue to two. You may not be an attending, but I am. The only one in the building who isn’t sleeping in an on-call room or in an OR, as a matter of fact. This place is far more comfortable, not to mention quieter, than the staff lounge in the ED. The nurses and interns will page us if they need anything, so what do you think?”
He stepped in toward her, her imagination discarding all the appropriate thoughts she should’ve been having in favor of all sorts of naughty ones about his firm, full mouth as he asked, “Do you wanna break the rules with me, just this once?”
“Yes,” Sofia breathed. Oh, God, yes.
Was she insane? She needed to study with him, not wonder what his mouth would feel like on her neck. Her navel. Her—
She cleared her throat and made a mental note to take a subarctic shower the second they were done hitting the books. “I mean, as long as you think it’ll be fine.”
“I really do,” Mallory promised. They made their way into the lounge (which had a top-of-the-line Keurig and a set of sofas that looked—OMG, were!—cushy rather than consignment-worthy) and settled in on opposite sides of one sofa, a mini-m
ountain of books between them.
“Okay,” Mallory said, hefting a medical text from the top of the pile. “I see you’ve raided the medical library for all the greatest hits. Ah! This is one of my favorites.”
Sofia laughed, biting her lip a second later when she realized he was serious. “Mallory. It’s A Resident’s Guide to Orthopedic Traumatology. Hardly scintillating stuff.”
“Are you kidding? It’s fascinating!” He flipped the book open and waxed poetic about the key principles underlying the successful management of an orthopedic trauma for a full three minutes before catching her gaping stare. “Sorry. Guess we’re not quite there yet.”
She bit back the temptation to tell him that she was never going to even be in the same stratosphere when it came to ortho. “Guess not.”
But instead of flipping to the beginning of the text, Mallory surprised her by closing the thing. “Did you mean what you said? The other night,” he qualified. “You really think you’re bad at ortho?”
Sofia nearly balked. But she’d already loosened the truth when they’d been stuck in that elevator. There was no point trying to stuff it back now.
“Well, yeah,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, I have to work three times as hard to keep up with you as I do any of the other doctors, and even then, a lot of the ortho cases don’t make sense to me. But you’re always so confident about them. Like, of course the answers are all right there, as clear as sunrise.” Her voice softened without her consent, making her gut tighten beneath her scrubs. “Even when I kill myself trying to figure them out, I can’t ever seem to get anywhere without a ton of help. And I guess it just makes me feel like a crappy doctor.”
“No.” The word vaulted out of his mouth, and Sofia felt her stare go wide.
“No,” she repeated, as if she were taking the word for a test drive.
Mallory shook his head. “God, no. You’re not a crappy doctor. You’re a resident, and three months ago, you were still an intern. You’re not supposed to know everything. Hell, you’re never going to know everything.”
Baby, It's Cold Outside: An Enemies to Lovers Holiday Medical Romance Page 2