Page 45 of Sinful in Scrubs

“Oh, I know this one,” I said as he handed me a controller.

“You game?” he asked, his excitement evident.

I shook my head. “Not really, but I have played this one before. You might need to remind me what I’m doing. It’s been a while.”

The competition was fun. Jason beat me level after level. Never once did it feel like he was trying to humiliate me or prove that he was dominant and smarter. It was a competition, sure, but not a confrontation—not like my meeting earlier in the day with the board and Kevin. That encounter had felt like a fight for my life. I didn’t know how long we played, but before I knew it, Marcus was standing behind us, laughing.

“Jason, are you letting her win?”

“Dad!” Jason said, dragging out the word as if Marcus had exposed some big secret.

“It doesn’t matter whether he’s letting me win or not. I’m terrible at this game,” I said.

“Well, once you finish this level, wash up for dinner.”

The video game made thecha-chingand cheering noises as Jason conquered the level.

“Well, I guess that’s it for the game today,” I said, handing my controller back.

“You didn’t even win once.”

I shook my head. “Nope. It wasn’t about winning. It was about having fun.”

“Aren’t you mad?”

“Nope. That was fun.”

We took turns washing up in the downstairs bathroom, and I was the last one to the table. It was nice to see they sat around their dining room table for dinner. I didn’t know if this was an everyday occurrence or just something they did because I was joining them, but there was something comforting about seeing them as a family unit.

Marcus scooped a serving out of a casserole dish and handed the plate to Lily. “Would you pass that to Dr. Emma, please?”

She didn’t pass it. She practically threw it on the table in front of me. “Here,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.

My presence was not welcome, as far as she was concerned, and she was making that quite obvious. Earlier, I had chosen to ignore the raised voices coming from the kitchen and enjoy my time with Jason. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to ignore this.

I hoped she was willing to keep the peace for the duration of our meal—or at least while I was sitting at the table. I hadn’t come over to cause a problem or a scene.

“Lily,” Marcus said sternly, “I expect you to have better manners when we have a guest.”

She continued to make her annoyed teenager sounds. “I can’t believe you let her come over for dinner unannounced. You should have said something.”

“I did say something as soon as we got home.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Can we not have this conversation right now?” Marcus sounded worn out by the topic.

I smiled awkwardly across the table at Jason. He just shook his head, rolled his eyes, and made a funny face. His expressions were clearly in response to Lily’s attitude.

As much as I liked Marcus, and as much as I knew that there would never be anything between us beyond flirtatious colleagues, I didn’t think I had it in me to go up against teenagers if there were ever to be more.

Lily slammed her fork down on the table and stood up, knocking her chair over. She kicked it instead of picking it up and stormed off.

“Excuse me,” Marcus said through clenched teeth as he deliberately set his fork down, stood, picked up her chair, and then followed her. “Lily!”

I heard them yell through the door. “I can’t believe you brought her home, Dad!”

“I’m allowed to have a colleague over for dinner?”

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