Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Taylor Holloway

  “What the hell are you doing down here?” he yelled, filling the air with the smell of cigarette smoke and whatever whisky-based concoction he was downing in between shifts at the hospital instead of spending time with my sick mom. “Were those your useless friends I heard just now? How many times have I told you those two criminals aren’t welcome in this house? Your mom needs peace and quiet. Are you trying to make things harder for her?”

  I stared at my dad, now doubly annoyed that he would instantly blame me for anything and everything that went wrong around here. Comingled with the irritation toward my dad was the guilt that I’d brought Hunter and Jaime near enough to threaten Aimee, a literal child, with, well, probably something totally disgusting, knowing them. They were mostly harmless but given the way Hunter treated Aimee, maybe I’d underestimated his sadism. I’d need to be more careful in the future.

  “I wasn’t responsible for this,” I started to say, but my dad just shoved past me to get a better look at Aimee. I caught myself against the wall, stunned that he would brush past me completely.

  “Brandon, I swear to God,” he said, turning to look at me like I was nothing, “you’re trying to wreck your life and mine. First you get on academic probation at school, then you wreck your car, then you almost get thrown off the football team for skipping class, then you get arrested for dealing drugs, and now I find you in the middle of… whatever this is. Are you trying to humiliate me and this family?” He huffed angrily and stared up at the heavens. “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”

  Everything always had to be about him. Also, his facts were wrong.

  I hadn’t been arrested for dealing drugs. I’d been arrested for having drugs. A single joint, to be exact. And my mom was freaking dying upstairs. What kid wouldn’t have a few issues with a dying parent? But instead of listening to me or paying me even a modicum of attention or affection, my dad treated me like I was the problem. Like I was the enemy. He’d always hated me, even when I was little.

  “I—”

  “Just don’t,” he said. He shook his head dismissively. “I don’t want to hear any more stupid-ass excuses from you. I’m out of patience. Why can’t you be more like Aimee?”

  My frown deepened. Why the hell was my dad always comparing me to the nurse’s nerdy kid? Plus, I’d just saved the little bitch. Didn’t that count for anything?

  “What?” I snapped. “Why would you say that?”

  “She’s never getting in trouble.”

  “She’s ten, what kind of trouble could she get in? All she does is study and sleep and play with dolls.”

  “I’m thirteen,” a sad little whimper offered from the ground, but we both ignored it.

  “She’s smart. She’s never getting arrested,” my dad continued, “or causing property damage, or making me miss shifts to come down and bail you out—”

  “That was one time!”

  “It was in the newspapers!”

  “I said I was sorry!” I got probation. It was basically nothing. Everyone smoked pot. It wasn’t even mine. I’d bought it for my mom to see if it would help her pain. I figured it had to be better than the morphine drip, and even the judge had agreed that I wasn’t a bad kid.

  My dad was obviously less convinced. “You publicly embarrassed our family. I’m ashamed of you.” His voice was ice cold.

  My dad was ashamed of me? The dad that couldn’t even be bothered to come to one of my football games ever? The dad that barely remembered my birthdays and actively avoided spending holidays with me? The dad that let my mom suffer, alone, day after day? The dad that hired someone to spend time with her because he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself? The dad that only paid any attention to me when I was in trouble? The dad who paid more attention to Aimee, a stranger, than to his own son? He had the gall to be ashamed of me?

  He didn’t even know me. I didn’t want to know him. I was mortified to be related to him.

  Something in me twisted and broke. I’d been on the edge for months and now I was plunging over it and into darkness. I was so sick of being in this house that smelled like death, this situation with my dad, and this horrible planet. I hated my dad, and clearly he hated me right back. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. As soon as mom died, and I knew it would be soon because she weighed all of eighty pounds and slept twelve hours a day, I was going to be so gone. I would cut my dad out of my life forever and forget him.

  “The only failure here is you! You’re a failure of a human being!” I screamed. “I’m so sorry I’m not more like your weird, chubby little prodigy over there. By the way, I think she pissed herself.”

  I stormed out, slamming the door, and not looking back.

  1

  Aimee

  Thirteen years later…

  A tiny, polite knock at the door interrupted Martin and me from the seemingly endless personnel review that HR was making us do. We both looked up hopefully. My boss/mentor and I were two hours into the biannual personnel review, and it felt like we hadn’t even made a dent in the stack of folders in front of us. We were supposed to be doctors, but it felt sometimes like we were just extremely overpaid paper pushers in white coats. Honestly, I’d take performing an enema or even scrubbing a bedpan over mindless busy work any day of the week. If you’re scrubbing a bedpan, at least the shit will eventually be gone. This way it just went on and on ad infinitum.

  “Oh, thank God,” Martin said under his breath, proving that he felt the same way. “Anything to distract me from this pointless paperwork nightmare.”

  “I heard that,” Melinda said in a typically tart voice. She was supervising Martin directly because he’d been putting off this task for so long. She was sitting in the corner and sternly staring us down over her cat-eye reading glasses when we got distracted. The only person at the hospital with the power to compel Martin to do paperwork was Melinda, HR czarina and bitch-in-residence. She was short, sharp, and unpleasant, but Lord was she effective at corralling Martin.

  Making him compliant, however, was a lot different than making him easy to deal with. Which was why I was there as Martin’s second-in-command. My job was to discreetly make sure the work actually got done properly and in a timely manner. It was harder than it sounded. If anyone had adult ADD, it was Dr. Martin Koels.

  Martin rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “Oh please. You don’t honestly think I care about this HR nonsense, do you?” he replied rudely. “I only keep you around because firing you might make me look bad. It’s not like you contribute anything meaningful to this hospital.”

  Melinda bristled and I stifled a smirk. Here we go, I thought to myself. Watching these two get into fights was a frequent occurrence and almost an inevitability if they spent too long together; they hated one another.

  Melinda didn’t take any shit, but Martin sure knew how to dish it out. Meanwhile, Melinda’s offense usually revolved around passive-aggressive putdowns and poorly veiled accusations of senility, while Martin’s defense was to roundly outsmart her and then insult her in public. They were roughly evenly matched, which was probably the only reason Melinda was able to tolerate him. Well, that and the fact that Martin was supposed to be retiring soon, and I’m sure Melinda could smell her opportunities and influence growing once he was gone.

  Lucy, Martin’s secretary-turned-jack-of-all-trades, stuck her head in the room before either party could get properly poised to strike. She looked harried and confused. “Um, excuse me, but there’s someone here.”

  “Well, who is it?” Martin asked, casually transferring his irritation at Melinda onto his innocent secretary. “I asked not to be disturbed, Lucy.”

  Lucy withered under his angry gaze. Usually she held her own against Martin, but there was a hesitancy in her that was unusual. “I’m sorry. I thought you would want me to let you know.”

  “Oh? Who is it then?” he repeated irritably.

  Lucy blinked. “Well, um, he says his name is Dr. Koels. Brandon Koels.”

  No.<
br />
  No.

  I felt my heart rate triple as memories tried to surface. I beat the images and feelings back with a concerted effort. Martin still didn’t know, and should never know, about the way I used to feel for his son, Brandon. In all the years he’d been my mentor, we never discussed Brandon. Ever. I used all my training as a doctor and a top hospital bureaucrat to keep a straight face. I think I might have done an okay job. Or maybe I looked like Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’ It was hard to say without a mirror.

  Martin, meanwhile, looked as blank as I wished I could. Entirely and completely blank. Placid, one might say, but only if they didn’t know him. I happened to know him well enough to understand his speechlessness was not a good sign. Generally, it was a prelude to an explosion. It was either a brief, misleading calm before the storm or proof that he was planning something. This time, I couldn’t tell which.

  Melinda and Lucy were looking from my face to Martin’s with unabashed curiosity and confusion. I doubted most of the staff even knew that Martin had a son. Through my sudden panic, I could see Melinda’s keen features digest the fact that I knew about Brandon Koels and file it away for later. Very little slipped by her, and this was no exception.

  “Come on, Melinda,” I heard myself saying in a voice that was too high, too tight, too obvious to my discomfort, “let’s take a break for a few minutes.”

  “The personnel review—” she started to say irritably.

  I cut her off with a little shake of my head.

  “—can wait,” I finished, taking her by the sleeve and leading her to the door. She followed me, mystified. I pulled her out and left Martin sitting speechless in his office in front of the unfinished personnel review. He’d soon recover, and it probably wouldn’t be good to be around when he did. The last thing I wanted to do was be in the room when Brandon and his father reunited after all this time. The other last thing I wanted to do was be anywhere near Brandon myself. I might have been attracted by his bad boy too-cool-for-school nonsense years ago, but now I’d grown the hell up. I doubted he could say the same.

  “But—” Melinda protested as we made it over the threshold.

  “Come on,” I insisted. I pulled her along with me, past the still-confused Lucy and into the long hallway where I was promptly brought face to face with Brandon himself.

  My feet, which had been efficiently propelling Melinda and me away from Martin’s office, became inexplicably paralyzed. I froze like a deer in the headlights. I felt all the blood rush to my head and a sudden dizzy, weak feeling take over my body. Melinda stumbled against my shoulder at the sudden stop, coming to a halt directly behind me. I gazed helplessly up at him.

  “Aimee?” Brandon asked. His voice was deeper and smoother than I remembered. It was beautiful.

  He recognized me. He also seemed perfectly baffled by my appearance.

  I was baffled too. I couldn’t come up with a reply to my own name. I could only stare at him. I should have been expecting to see him, after all Lucy said he was outside, but I thought she meant in the waiting area. I didn’t realize she’d brought him all the way down to the office. I’d thought I could slip back to my office with Melinda before I saw him.

  In other words, I thought I could escape seeing him again.

  He had no right to come back into my life after thirteen years and look so fucking good.

  Brandon had always been tall, extremely fit, and good looking. That was certainly nothing new, although his shoulders were broader than I remembered. But his previously boyish features had come into their own in adulthood. His square jaw, high cheekbones, and aquiline nose were more rugged and masculine than I remembered. He made my heart pound with desire—remembered and new.

  Melinda was staring from me to Brandon interestedly. I snapped back to reality.

  Brandon was the asshole who hated me for no reason and let his friends pick on me relentlessly. Brandon was the douche-canoe who looked down on me just because I wasn’t rich and popular like him and inexplicably blamed me for his mother’s cancer. Brandon was the jerk who turned up his nose at all his privilege and broke his father’s heart by running off and joining the military.

  After his mother died, Brandon took off without so much as a word, text, or letter to his father, proving to me that he had no kindness or decency in him whatsoever. The only conclusion I could come up with was that he was simply cruel.

  Martin was a difficult person sometimes, but he was a good man underneath all the prickly personality quirks, short tempered outbursts, and snippy comments. Maybe he hadn’t been an ideal father to Brandon, but losing Brandon had left a hole in Martin’s heart that was obvious to me if to nobody else. I might be his surrogate daughter and professional protégé, but I wasn’t his only son and could never replace him. And Martin’s poor heart had been broken when Brandon deserted him.

  “Dr. Ford,” I corrected in my coldest doctor-y-est voice. I drew myself up to my full height, a very unimpressive five foot two inches, and attempted my most convincing impression of Martin at his snobbiest. “It’s actually Dr. Ford now.”

  He looked nonplussed. “I didn’t know you were—”

  “Well, now you know,” I snapped at him. “Your father is waiting for you.”

  I pointed down the hallway with an angry jerk of my thumb. My blood pressure was at its maximum. My heart was working overtime.

  Go on, I urged him with my eyes, get the hell away from me. Before I do something spiteful and immature like kick you in the balls.

  I wasn’t the naïve, vulnerable little girl he remembered. That girl let herself be broken apart by his cruelty, and the woman who put the pieces back together was different than the sum of her parts. I was much stronger now. The woman I was today wasn’t going to allow Brandon to get so much as a smile out of me. He didn’t deserve it. He was every bit the degenerate his father always said he was. Being endlessly cruel to me when I was a vulnerable, awkward young teenager was not something I could forgive, and ordinarily I’m a pretty forgiving person. But not today, and not Brandon. Not ever Brandon.

  Brandon stared at me and an expression I couldn’t place flashed over his features. Resignation? Regret? Annoyance? It didn’t stick around long enough for me to identify it. He sighed and the expression that I most remembered him wearing when we were younger—the combination of stubbornness, pride, and anger—took its place. He headed down the hallway toward his father’s office, leaving me to my own irritation and memories. And all of Melinda’s questions.

  2

  Brandon

  My dad’s office hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen it, which was probably during the Bush administration. It was still palatial, furnished in dark, heavy wood furniture, leather club chairs, and shades of red and gold. The wet bar had been removed from the corner, a sure sign of the times. The many ashtrays were gone, too. How my father had managed to justify smoking cigars in his office as Chief Medical Officer of an entire hospital complex was a testament to either his stubbornness or the lax oversight of the board. Maybe both. Whatever happened, it had clearly come to an end in favor of more modern norms. He even had a computer now.

  My dad didn’t look vastly different than the last time I’d seen him, either. A bit older. A bit grayer. A little smaller than I remembered, actually. Maybe I’d inflated his physical size in my memory. Maybe I just remembered him being larger since I used to be smaller. But his eyes were the same, still looking at me with the familiar expression of disapproval and contempt that he’d always worn.

  “You’re back,” he said, pushing back from his desk slightly. He didn’t get up to hug me or shake my hand, thankfully. I don’t think either of us were ready to play that game. No reason to pretend that time had improved things.

  “I assume you’re to blame for that,” I said. This conversation was positively surreal.

  “Me?” He looked shocked and offended. He even pressed a palm against his chest dramatically in an affectation of innocence. />
  What a fraud. There was no way he wasn’t behind this.

  I ground my teeth and reminded myself not to let him get under my skin.

  “Are you really going to tell me you aren’t aware of the trauma exchange program? That you didn’t somehow manage to get me assigned here?” There was a zero percent chance that he wasn’t directly to blame. The chances of me being transferred from Virginia all the way to Texas to participate in a military to civilian hospital exchange program in my father’s hospital were just too infinitesimally small. I was supposed to be shipping out to Mosul in three weeks to rejoin the medical tactical extraction team, I’d be stuck in my hometown for half a year treating crotchety old people with hemorrhoids and whining kids with snotty noses. “You can’t really expect me to believe that.”

  The corners of his mouth drew up just a fraction of a centimeter. “You’re here to participate in the program?” His voice was mild. “I knew there would be three military doctors joining our trauma department temporarily. It’s wonderful that you were selected. What a coincidence.”

  My blood pressure had to be nearing stroke territory. Was he seriously going to deny it? When I received the orders, I knew instantly that he was behind it. “Yes, I’m here to participate in the program.” I barked. “Against my wishes, I might add. The other two doctors applied. I was selected. Ordered here by my superior officer. I’ve been given a six-month assignment.”

  It might as well be a fucking eternity. I’d ranted and railed and ultimately begged, but then I complied with the order like a good little soldier. It was basically my only choice, after all. I was livid though. This wasn’t what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be. For a lot of reasons, I’d have preferred almost any other assignment.

  “I see.” He sounded entirely disinterested. “Well, maybe you’ll learn something here. Our techniques are better than anything the military could offer.”