6. Riven #2
"You're providing nursing care for Emma," I interrupted before her gratitude turned into something awkward. “This is part of our agreement.”
She nodded, accepting the boundary without argument. But her smile remained.
“Still,” she said gently. “Thank you.”
Like she knew exactly what this arrangement cost her–and was choosing it anyway.
“Stop thanking me. You’re here to work. That’s all this is.”
“Right.” Her voice dropped. "Just work."
I set her bag down on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed. "Dinner will be at seven. Emma will come find you when it's ready."
I left before she could respond and walked back into the living room, where Emma waited with her arms crossed and trouble written across her face.
“You didn’t tell me she was beautiful,” Emma said accusingly.
I pulled out my phone and began looking through dinner options. "I told you she's a qualified RNFA."
"Yes, but you conveniently left out important details." Emma followed me toward the kitchen. "You forgot to mention she's tall and gorgeous and looks like she could model." She narrowed her eyes. "Are all nurses like that? Because if they are, why are you still single?"
"I'm single by choice."
"Sure," Emma replied dryly. "That has absolutely nothing to do with your winning personality."
I kept scrolling. Thai. Italian. Chinese. Nothing looked particularly appealing.
“Seriously, though,” Emma said, hopping onto the counter even though I had told her countless times not to. “If nurses look like that, maybe you should date one. It might improve your terrible mood.”
“My mood is perfectly fine.”
“Your mood is robotic. You’re like a machine that forgot feelings exist.”
“Machines don't have feelings. That’s what makes them machines.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at her. She grinned back at me, flour still on her cheek and eyes bright with mischief. That particular expression usually meant I'd regret every decision that led to this moment.
“Maybe they don't find you attractive,” Emma said thoughtfully. “Maybe you're too ugly for nurses.”
I set my phone down on the counter. “I’m not ugly.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
“Emma,” I warned.
"What?" she asked innocently. "I'm just being honest. Your personality is definitely boring.
" She continued without mercy. "You're cold and robotic and never smiling.
" She gestured toward the hall. "Unlike Mireya.
She seems fun. She has actual human emotions and facial expressions.
" She paused dramatically. "Plus she's beautiful. Did you notice?"
I kept my eyes on my phone.
The honest answer was that I had noticed approximately six months ago and had been carefully not thinking about it ever since.
I had noticed the way she moved through a crisis like she had already survived worse.
I had noticed the sound of her laugh the one time I had heard it through a cracked break room door, bright and unguarded, nothing like her OR voice.
I had noticed the amber in her eyes when the surgical lights caught them at a certain angle, and the way she tucked her hair back with two fingers when she was concentrating, and the particular set of her shoulders when she was running on no sleep and refusing to admit it.
I had noticed all of it.
Which was exactly why inviting her here had been simultaneously the most logical and most catastrophic decision I had made in recent memory. Emma needed warmth and steadiness and someone who paid attention. Mireya was all of those things without even trying.
She was also going to be sleeping forty feet down the hall from me.
I scrolled past three restaurant options without reading them.
"She's qualified," I said. "That's what matters."
Emma gave me a look that suggested she found this answer deeply unconvincing.
She was not wrong.
“It’s been three years, you know? Are you sure it’s not about—”
“Emma.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked down.
I knew she meant it.
I looked at her for a moment — this annoying, well-meaning, impossible teenager — and sighed. "I know you are." I reached over and messed up her hair, which she immediately swatted away.
“Also, we look alike,” I said finally, changing the subject. “If I'm ugly, then so are you.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Excuse me? I'm beautiful.” She pointed at herself. “I'm way better looking than you.”
“We have the same face,” I replied calmly.
“We don't have the same face,” Emma argued. “I'm pretty.” She waved vaguely in my direction. “You’re just you.”
“Then we're both ugly,” I said in resignation.
“Take that back right now,” she demanded. “I'm gorgeous.”
I smirked, raising a brow. “Neither of us is gorgeous.”
“Fine,” Emma said sharply. “I’ll ask Mireya.”
She jumped off the counter and headed for the hallway. But I caught her before she could take three steps, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her back.
“Don't do that,” I said firmly.
“Let go of me,” she protested. “Mireya needs to settle this argument.”
“Emma, I swear—”
She started yelling loudly. "Mireya, can you come out here? I need your opinion on something really important!"
I slapped my hand over her mouth. She kept trying to talk, her words muffled and angry against my palm. Then she bit me. Not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to make her point very clear.
Mireya's door opened.
She stepped into the hallway still wearing her wrinkled scrubs, hair pulled into that ponytail that never stayed properly neat. When she saw us, me trying to restrain my teenage sister, Emma making aggressive muffled sounds against my palm, she stopped walking and blinked once.
Then she laughed. Bright and unguarded, nothing like her hospital voice.
"What is happening right now?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said. "Go back to your room."
Emma wrenched her mouth free. "Is my brother ugly?" she demanded, breathless. "Yes or no. This is very important and he won't let me ask you and I need a neutral party to—"
Mireya looked at me.
She tilted her head, considering, and the corner of her mouth curved in a way that did absolutely nothing good for my composure.
Her eyes moved over my face slowly, unhurried, like she was actually thinking about it, and I felt the back of my neck get warm in a way I had no intention of acknowledging.
Then she shrugged one shoulder. "Definitely not ugly," she said simply. "Strong jaw. Good bone structure." A small smile. "Your sister got the better end of the deal but you're not a lost cause."
Emma let out a triumphant noise.
I felt something happen in my chest that I refused to name. My hand moved there without permission, just briefly, pressing flat against my sternum.
Emma's eyes dropped to my hand. Then back up to my face. Her expression shifted into something unbearably knowing.
"You good?" she asked sweetly.
"Fine," I said.
I picked Emma up, carried her down the hall, deposited her in my office, and shut the door on whatever she was about to say next.
"This is kidnapping!" she yelled through the wood. "I'm calling the police! I'm being held hostage by a man with good bone structure who is too emotionally constipated to say thank you for a compliment!"
I turned on the sound system. Classical. Loud.
Then I sat at my desk, pulled up the dinner order, and stared at it without reading a single word.
Definitely not ugly.
I added extra dumplings to the cart and said nothing to anyone about anything.
Emma eventually stopped pounding on the door. I gave her ten full minutes of cooling-off time before opening it again. She stood there glaring at me with all the fury a fifteen-year-old could muster.
“You’re the worst brother ever!” she declared.
“Your opinion has been noted.”
"And you're still ugly!" she added with vehement conviction.
“That opinion has also been noted,” I repeated, unable to suppress a smile.
There was nothing more fun than watching my little sister glare at me like she wanted to scratch the smugness off my face with her bare hands.
"Mireya probably thinks so too," she said smugly, playing her final card.
I walked past her toward the living room. “Food will arrive in thirty minutes. Go wash the flour off your face.”
She stomped to her room dramatically, slammed her door shut, and blasted music loudly enough to shake the walls.
Normal Emma behavior.