Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Taylor Holloway

  “Oh really?” I managed to keep my voice even. Barely.

  “Of course. We do more than patch up boys to go get shot again in pointless wars.”

  Is that what he thought I did? What a prick. I decided not to dignify that statement with a response.

  We stared at one another in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment. Painful thoughts and long-buried memories tugged at the edges of my awareness and I wasn’t able to squash them quickly enough.

  Why did you never try to reach me after I left?

  Did you just not care at all?

  Why have you brought me here now?

  Neither of us were ready to discuss it. I might never be.

  Eventually he frowned. “Did you need anything else from me? I’m in the middle of some important work right now.”

  I blinked. I was obviously being dismissed. After all these years he didn’t want to even talk to me. Was there an actual chance that he wasn’t behind my selection for this exchange program? I just couldn’t believe it. This was all part of his plot. Somehow.

  “Aimee—” I started, and then couldn’t seem to finish. “She’s here? She’s a doctor?” I sounded lame even in my own ears.

  It was a stupid question. Obviously, Aimee was here in the hospital. I’d just seen her wearing a white coat and announcing herself as a doctor, unless I was hallucinating. I swallowed, not remotely ready to deal with the reality of Aimee Ford. I had never thought I’d see her again. I’d certainly never wanted to.

  My father cocked an eyebrow at me as if he could read my thoughts (a thoroughly horrifying prospect). “Yes. Aimee’s a doctor here. A good one.”

  Aimee Ford was a living, breathing reminder of my mother’s awful, lingering death and my own replacement in my father’s life. An obnoxious human talisman of the worst, most confused period of my life. And she was now incredibly, freakishly, stupidly hot. Adulthood had been very kind to her. Being attracted to Aimee, of all people, was almost an insult to my pride.

  My dad looked at his watch. “You’ll need to complete some paperwork with the secretary outside, Lucy. She’ll get you set up in the HR system with a badge and a locker and all that.”

  “Fine.” I bit out. This was all way too much.

  “Welcome home, Brandon.”

  Welcome home? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? This place wasn’t my home. It was a prison.

  I turned and left before I could explode.

  3

  Aimee

  “So, basically, the prodigal son returns,” Lucy pronounced. I’d just finally gotten Melinda out of my office and now Lucy wanted to know what was going on. I’d just given her the short version.

  I smirked, but it didn’t last long. “Something like that. I guess I should have known it would happen eventually,” I added. I was being grumpy, which was probably immature, but I couldn’t help it. “He couldn’t stay gone forever.”

  “So, you two grew up together?” Lucy asked, probing for information. She fiddled with the ends of her long blonde hair. “As neighbors?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, when we were teenagers. But I never thought I’d see him again. I can’t believe it. It’s been nothing but crickets for more than a decade and now, out of the blue, he’s right down the hall taking a picture for his ID badge.”

  “He’s pretty hot.” I must have made a face because she smirked at me. “So, what’s he been doing all these years? He’s been in the military?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I told her, sliding his personnel file over across the desk. “He’s a Major in the Army. Doctor Major Brandon Koels.” His file indicated that he’d been credentialed for work at the hospital. That meant he could start working here and seeing patients tomorrow. The thought was horrifying.

  “His official title is Doctor Major?” she asked. “Weird.”

  I nodded. Was it embroidered on his uniform? Ridiculous. “I know.”

  “It’s like Doctor Strange,” she replied.

  “Who?” I asked. I didn’t know any Dr. Strange. Was that a new resident that I hadn’t met yet?

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh my God, Aimee,” she told me. “Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange! The Sorcerer Supreme. From the MCU?”

  I shrugged, mildly embarrassed by my lack of pop culture knowledge. “Sorry, you know I don’t watch a lot of movies.”

  Lucy looked at me like I was an uncultured freak. “But its Benedict Cumberbatch.”

  Recognition flickered through me. “From Sherlock?” I asked. “Oh, I like him.”

  “We’re having a movie night soon, okay?” She pinched the bridge of her nose like my ignorance caused her physical pain. “You really need my help.”

  That was probably true. Lucy was a pop culture genius. She knew every reference, every actor, even every theme song and director. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even remember the last movie I’d watched. I tried to avoid movies because I liked movie popcorn a bit too much and I’d worked way too hard to ever get fat again. But, at the moment, all I could think about was Brandon. My preoccupation was obvious to Lucy.

  “So, does he look like you expected?” Lucy asked. I could tell she was trying to figure out why I was so frazzled.

  “He looks… fine,” I managed weakly. Damn fine. But that didn’t change anything. “Um, healthy and whatever. I just hope he’s grown up a lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was kind of a jerk to me when we were kids.” That was an understatement, but I didn’t want to remember. It hurt to remember.

  “How?”

  “He was a bully,” I told her, swallowing against the memories. “He just had a chip on his shoulder, and he hated me from day one. He was older than me and treated me like a nuisance. We never got along.”

  Lucy nodded, but I could tell she didn’t understand why I was so upset. I could barely explain it to myself. Even after all this time, seeing Brandon again made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and raw. All of a sudden, I was thirteen again.

  My mom had been working an incredibly difficult job caring twenty-four seven for a woman slowly dying of cancer. Even as a bullied thirteen-year-old, I hadn’t wanted to admit to her how hard Brandon and his shitty friends were making my life. Not only was it embarrassing to admit, but I felt like it was all my fault. I’ve never been the type to make things about me, and that meant suffering in silence.

  “I can’t imagine anyone bullying you,” Lucy said after a moment. “You’re like Teflon. Nothing bothers you.”

  I almost laughed. It was nice to hear, even if it wasn’t true. I pretended to have my shit together, but it was definitely all an act. “Well, maybe I should thank Brandon for making me so tough.”

  “He must be pretty tough too,” Lucy remarked. “With Martin as his dad and all that time in the military. So, at least you have that in common.”

  My breath hissed out of me. She had a point but… “We don’t share anything.” I was nothing like him. I resented the implication.

  His behavior towards me was horrible, and I was not going to forgive him for it because his mommy was sick. My life wasn’t perfect either, but I didn’t act like a jerk. But he was always acting out, always getting in trouble, and always getting away with everything because his dad was a doctor and he was rich. My resentment was still very present, even after all these years.

  “Wow, I’ve never seen you like this. You really don’t like him, do you?” Lucy looked sympathetic. “He must have really gotten under your skin when you were kids.”

  I nodded. “I know it’s been a long time and I probably shouldn’t care anymore, but he was a bully. It was really unpleasant, and it made things harder for me in school and at home.”

  Our high school was in one of the most affluent areas in town. I wouldn’t have ever attended it, but we moved into the garage apartment behind Brandon’s huge mansion so my mom could be closer to Brandon’s mom, Joanne. That meant that I had to go to school not only with a lot of kids that were much older than me (I�
��d skipped grades), but also a lot richer than me. The class difference was palpable. My clothes were never right, my body wasn’t as developed, I didn’t have access to the same extracurriculars and vacations… it was just a bad situation all around. Add in some good old-fashioned hatred from a popular kid like Brandon and I was basically a walking target.

  “I’m sorry, Aimee,” Lucy said. “You don’t have to tell me about it.”

  That was good, because I couldn’t even explain it to myself. My experience with Brandon had only added to my own feelings of inadequacy at the time, which had already been huge. I’d never told anyone about how upsetting Brandon and his friend’s bullying had been, but I’d cried myself to sleep for months.

  “He’s very good looking,” Lucy said, clearly testing the waters.

  “It’s only skin deep, trust me.”

  “Well, he sounds like an asshole,” she added. “It seems like the super-hot ones always are.”

  I nodded. “It’s one of the laws of the universe. Everything that goes up comes down, all actions have an equal and opposite reaction, and Brandon Koels is a complete and total douche.”

  4

  Brandon

  “This is fucking bullshit,” I told Aimee as soon as she opened the door where myself, the insufferable Dr. Ellis, and the hospital’s executive secretary, Lucy, were waiting in tense silence. “I’m fundamentally not able to work under these conditions.”

  Aimee, who was filling in for my dad and had apparently been pulled out of some kind of very important meeting to deal with this situation on my first day, stared at me as if she was still surprised I had showed up for work. I knew I was. I was regretting it now, too.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her big blue eyes examining each one of us in turn.

  God, she was sexy now. It was fucking distracting. Even in her shapeless white coat and scrubs, Aimee Ford was the sexiest woman I’d seen in a very, very long time. Puberty was a hell of a drug.

  “The issue is that Dr. Koels cannot behave himself,” Dr. Ellis was saying, distracting me from ogling Aimee like a creep. “He’s alienating so many of the nurses that they don’t want to work with him at all. I’m trying to split this floor with him and I’m having to do all the work because no one wants to come within twenty feet of him except Lucy.”

  Aimee looked at Lucy. “Is that true?” she asked.

  Lucy glanced between me and Aimee. “Yeah. Well, he’s an awful lot like the other Dr. Koels,” she said, and I bristled. I was not like my dad. “He’s not exactly sunshine and rainbows, you know? But I can deal with it. At least he’s direct.” She shrugged and my estimation of the spunky little secretary rose. Apparently at least one person could deal with a no-nonsense approach. “But what I don’t have time for, is relaying messages between him and the nursing staff all day.” She looked me square in the eye. “No offense, Doctor, but while I might be a secretary, I’m not your secretary.”

  I blinked. She was right, of course. Lucy definitely was not my secretary. Had I been treating her that way? I hadn’t meant to.

  “What Lucy is saying in her incredibly nice and diplomatic way,” Dr. Ellis said, “is that Dr. Koels is being a diva and needs to realize this isn’t an army hospital where everybody’s going to salute him and kiss his ass.”

  Well, that was just bullshit. I might be guilty of overusing Lucy’s time, but I was not guilty of being a diva.

  “Oh please,” I scoffed, and Dr. Ellis cut me off with a huge gasp.

  “I didn’t realize you knew that word!” she exclaimed sarcastically. “I’m so shocked.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “I can say please and thank you just fine, Dr. Ellis. I just don’t need to do that every other second when I’m trying to help people, alleviate suffering, and cure illness as fast as I can in a busy environment full of sick people. I’m just not going to walk on eggshells all the time to spare feelings.” I felt like I was being entirely reasonable here.

  I looked to Aimee, wondering what she made of all this. Aimee used to have a massive crush on me, and by the way she was staring at me now, she still thought I was worth looking at. I found myself really liking the feeling of her attention. Probably too much. So much so that I barely registered Ellis’ scathing reply.

  “Get off your god complex, Doctor,” Ellis told me. “You aren’t curing cancer here. That’s Dr. Ford’s job.”

  Lucy giggled and I frowned.

  “Oh wow, aren’t you clever?” I snapped at her half-heartedly. “I hope it’s worth it to you to know you’re stopping us both from working to get your little quips in.”

  “Why am I down here?” Aimee asked, staring from Ellis to me and back again. “I hate to agree with Dr. Koels here, but I’m really not interested in mediating your petty disputes. Dr. Ellis, don’t be unnecessarily sensitive. Dr. Koels, don’t be unnecessarily abrasive. Lucy, stay out of the ER until further notice and the nurses will have to do their jobs. Boom. We’re done.” She rolled her pretty eyes and then stared us all down with a pout. “I’m so good at this it isn’t even funny.”

  Then Aimee turned on her heel and walked out. I followed her eagerly.

  “Aimee, wait,” I called.

  She slowed and turned to look at me cautiously. I pulled up next to her hopefully.

  “What do you want, Dr. Koels?” she asked. Her tone was guarded.

  “Do you want to grab coffee soon?” I asked.

  She blinked at me in shock and then that big, bleak wall of emotionlessness descended again. “No. No, Brandon, I do not.” She shook her head at me.

  “Why not?” I asked her. “We should catch up. What have you been up to all this time? The last time I saw you we were what twelve and eighteen?”

  “I was thirteen. The last time we talked you told me I was a weird, four-eyed know-it-all who would never have a boyfriend unless I went on a diet.”

  I winced. “Sorry.” I tried for a conciliatory tone. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She frowned. “The point is that I don’t like you. You were a dick to me when we were kids, and, clearly, you’re still very much a dick today. I happen to have a very strict no-dick policy in my life.”

  “Oh, you’re gay?” I asked, surprised. “I never would have guessed. Sorry.”

  She turned a lovely shade of pink. “That, um, wasn’t what I meant.” She cleared her throat and stood up straight. “The no-dick policy refers to personality, and not, er, anatomy. Anyway, Brandon, I’m not going to have coffee with you. Not now. Not ever.”

  She stomped away with as much dignity as she could muster. In addition to being smoking hot and very smart, she was adorable. I was utterly charmed. A bit insulted, but also charmed. At that moment, I realized that I needed to get reacquainted with the lovely, clearly brilliant, and very cute Dr. Ford as soon as possible.

  5

  Brandon

  “She’s busy,” Lucy told me when I made it upstairs later that afternoon. “You can make an appointment if you’d like. I can fit you in next week. Just send me an email and I’ll set something up when Dr. Ford has some time on her schedule.”

  “There’s nothing this afternoon?” I asked.

  “No. Nothing. Nothing this week. Next week doesn’t look great either, actually.”

  “Aren’t you even going to check the computer?” Lucy was doing her nails very carefully and very slowly with a dark, sparkly plum color.

  She looked up at me insolently. “I already checked it.” She yawned at my glare.

  “Well, can you check again?” I asked, irritated. My glowering and looming wasn’t working on Lucy at all. She must be immune from dealing with my dad.

  “What’s the magic word?” Lucy chirped.

  “Now.” She cocked an eyebrow at me and returned to her nail painting. I sighed. None of my intimidation tactics were working on her at all. “Please.”

  Lucy’s green eyes flashed over to her screen for a fraction of a second and then back up to my face with a stee
ly glint. “Yeah, there’s nothing. So sorry.” It was the most unconvincing act I’d ever seen.

  Just then, as I was on the verge of just walking past Lucy entirely, Aimee walked out of her office and headed toward the elevators. Good timing. I winked at Lucy who made a weird face at me. “Never mind,” I told her, grinning. “I found Aimee. Thanks anyway.”

  Aimee took one look at me approaching and grimaced. “I can’t talk right now,” she said tersely as I fell into step beside her. “Make an appointment with Lucy if you need to speak with me.”

  Yeah right. I tried that already.

  “Come on, Aimee,” I said as the elevator doors closed, “let’s go get some lunch. I know a great taco place near here. I want to prove to you that I’m not a dick.” I spread my hands peacefully. “Let’s start over. What do you say?”

  She turned to me in the elevator and the look in her eyes made me take a half step back. If looks could kill, I’d need a defibrillator. Aimee’s soft blue eyes had gone icy.

  “No, thank you,” she bit out between clenched teeth.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Don’t you like me anymore?” She used to like me a lot. She used to stare at me like… well, like I was staring at her.

  “No. I don’t like you. I hate you, Brandon,” she said simply. “I thought that was obvious.” She looked at me like I was a rat or something.

  “You used to like me.” I reminded her, aiming for mischievous and rakish. “You used to like me a lot if I recall correctly.” In fact, I remembered her little schoolgirl crush very clearly. It had been annoying to me at the time, but now I missed the longing in her blue eyes.

  She turned her nose up at me. “Sure. And then I grew up.”

  “I can see that,” I said appreciatively.

  Her eyes widened and then narrowed. I winced at her reaction to my words. Most women like being told they’re beautiful. Aimee, apparently, was not one of them. This conversation was not going well at all. Where was the blushing, stuttering Aimee I remembered? Apparently she was a freakin’ Amazon warrior now.