Charleston Becker after they’d made amends last year made the situation only slightly better.
“You’re in a chipper mood,” Parker said, having long-since figured out that Sofia lived her life footloose and filter-free.
She let one shoulder drift upward beneath her white doctor’s coat. Talking about her aversion to the holidays? Also not on her agenda. “The night shift just started. I’d like to stay in these scrubs for at least a little while before someone trashes them.”
“And here I’m happy to be out of my scrubs.” Charlie sidled up beside Parker, whose face lit up like the twenty-foot Spruce gracing the hospital’s lobby at the sight of his wife.
Surprise took a whack at Sofia’s sternum. “You’re not on tonight?” Seeing Charlie’s name on the schedule had been the only reason Sofia hadn’t groaned outright at having been stuck with the night shift three weeks before Christmas.
“Nope,” Charlie said, her expression matching Parker’s. Freaking newlyweds. “I wheedled Mallory into switching with me.”
Sofia revisited the urge to groan. The only thing worse than being on the night shift at Christmastime was having to do so under Emmett Mallory’s supervision.
She blanked her expression to keep her disappointment/dismay far from her face. She was twenty-seven years old. Capable and smart, not to mention tough as hell. She could spend a damned night with Dr. Cocky. Figuratively, of course.
“Oh.” She tried on what she hoped passed as a smile as she looked at her mentor. “Lucky you.”
“Shit,” Charlie murmured, her tone turning apologetic. “I’m sorry. We were going to go over the notes from that colectomy tonight to help you prep for your boards. I totally forgot.”
Sofia shook her head, her haphazard ponytail swishing over the back of her shoulders. “That’s okay,” she assured Charlie. Yeah, she’d wanted to review the very cool surgery Charlie had let her assist on last week, and hell yeah, she wanted to prove that she was skilled enough to pass her board certification exam so she could assist on a dozen more just like it. But bulldozing the attending physician’s night off was a piss-poor way to make that happen, not to mention being a pretty big dick move. “I’ll just use tonight to catch up on case studies and we can hook up later this week.”
“We usually get a ton of slip-and-falls in the winter. You could always ask Mallory to go over some procedures if you want to stay on your toes for the ortho section,” Charlie offered brightly.
“Or I could stick myself with a thousand pins,” Sofia was tempted to say. Instead, she went with a good, old-fashioned lie. “Great idea. I’ll think about it.”
Parker pushed off of the nurses’ station, his gaze traveling toward the exam rooms. “Actually, I think I just saw him finishing up with a patient.”
“Awesome,” Sofia said through her teeth, and shit, she needed to get out of here before Dr. Cocky showed up and one of the Dr. Drakes mentioned a study session. “Well, you two have a great night. See you later!”
Sofia was halfway down the hall before either doctor could point out that she was headed in the complete opposite direction from the exam rooms. Okay, fine, so hiding from Mallory was probably a teeeeeensy bit cowardly, and shying away from challenges wasn’t her usual MO. But he’d seemed to have it out for her from the start, always pointing out her (admittedly) less-than-stellar ability with regard to orthopedics cases, and—worse than yelling at her, or even giving her a negative review with their Chief of Staff, Dr. Langston—he teased her. Not meanly or when anyone else could hear, but still. She’d never once felt like a competent doctor when she’d been assigned to Mallory’s service, even though she had to bust her butt triple-time to do everything he asked of her.
God, Sofia hated being bad at ortho more than she hated being bad at anything else. And she definitely hated Mallory for making her feel stupid with all of his tricky questions and overconfident smirks.
No. Scratch that. She would hate him, if she wasn’t so busy being inexplicably and wildly attracted to him even though he never failed to give her a hard time.
Sanctimonious ass.
God, he had such. A fantastic. Ass.
“Idiot,” Sofia mumbled, keeping her pace brisk and her head down so no one would catch her blush. Mallory might have a seat more sculpted than a fucking Michelangelo, and holy hell, that dimple on his jaw (just the one, but sweet Jesus in the manger, it was