“We don't have the same face,” Emma argued. “I'm pretty.” She waved vaguely in my direction. “You’re justyou.”
“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.
