Page 37 of Doc Showmance
“You and me wouldn’t be talking even if I elected to work at this clinic under different circumstances. You’d avoid me and when we ran into each other you’d throw hate at me. I’d be avoiding you. Nope. It’d never have happened.”
“Is a matchmaking mom the only thing wrong with your parents?” she pressed.
“They’re… I kind of envy you being a foster kid.”
“You didn’t miss anything. It sucked almost all the time.”
“So did growing up the way I did.”
“I guarantee being a foster sucked more. Those puff pieces on social media about kids who get adopted and had the greatest foster parents? It’s bullshit. Maybe my siblings and I are the outliers, the unlucky ones. Even if your parents are evil, at least they had some interest in you and were consistently there during your life.”
“They were there. True. They’re manipulative, though.”
“What entitled, rich, white family isn’t? You are, too.”
“Ouch.” I put a hand over my chest.
She snorted. “Oh, please. As if you even felt that.”
I glanced at her through the darkness. “You don’t think you can hurt me?”
“You’d need a heart for it to hurt.”
“That hurts, Amber. Seriously. I have a heart.”
“It doesn’t count if it’s made of stone.”
I tried to tamp down my smile. “It’s made out of Play-doh. Give me more credit than that.”
She snickered and turned away to stare out the windshield.
“We could probably get along if we tried,” I said after a while.
She stared at me. I could feel it. I forced myself to meet her gaze slowly.
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
I lifted and dropped my shoulders. “It would help if you didn’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said. “Why would you think that?”
“You’ve clearly saidI hate you.I heard it under your breath in surgery. I’m pretty sure you said it during both of our conference room meetings even if it wasn’t meant for anyone but you to hear.”
“That doesn’t mean Ihate-hate you.”
I laughed. She might be argumentative and blunt, but I didn’t hate her, either. “I don’t care if you hate me.”
“My God, you’re annoying. You don’t care if I hate you, but you want to what? Be friends?”
“So? Yes or no?”
“What are you asking? I’m confused. This thing with us is only supposed to be a few months,” she said, reminding me of something I already knew.
“Do you want to be friends? If you think you can’t do it…” I shrugged and popped open the can of Dr Pepper. One sip and I remembered why I didn’t drink this particular soda. I put a hand over my mouth. Dr Pepper was so much worse coming back up than going down. The massive burp burned my nose.
“Did you just burp?”
“Dr Pepper makes me burp.” I slammed a hand over my mouth to suppress the next eruption, but failed.
