"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.
