Undeniably Enemies: Chapter 4

Four years later

Bang, bang, bang. What is that noise, and why won’t it stop? Don’t they know I’m trying to sleep? It’s way too early for this crap. Wait. Shit! I shoot up in bed and scream, “Oh my god, I’m so late!” when I catch the glowing white numbers on the clock.

I pick up my phone and find my alarm going off. On silent. Because I was studying last night and didn’t want the interruption. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I have forgotten to turn it off silent? Not today. This cannot be happening today of all days.

I catapult myself out of bed only to have my ankle snag on my sheet and send me tumbling to the floor in a heap. Like something out of a zombie apocalypse, I claw my way along my floor, kicking at the sheet to free myself from its clutches. Hoisting myself up, I tear into my closet and throw on a long-sleeved shirt and my scrubs that I had set out last night. I pee, brush my teeth, slide into my sneakers, grab my bag, and fly out the door.

“I locked it,” I tell myself, biting hard into my lip as I race down the stairs of my building. My hands tremble, and I shake them out. “Once is enough. I can’t go back. It’s going to have to be enough.” Argh! I hate this! “Oh my god!” I scream for a second time as I step outside into torrential rain that immediately soaks me through.

The weather did not mention rain last night when I checked. Could this day be starting off any worse?

“Oomph.” I slam into a hard body and fall onto my ass directly on the wet steps. Ugh. Of course.

“Wren, crap, are you okay?” Tyson pulls me back up, holding his massive umbrella over both of us, concern all over his face. “Did I hurt you? I didn’t see you. This umbrella is huge.”

I turn around and glance at my butt. It’s got two dark circles right on each ass cheek. I’d laugh—because tell me that’s not funny—if I didn’t have to go to work like this. “I’m fine. I have to go. I’m late.”

Tyson follows my line of vision and tries not to laugh himself. “Oh, girl, your ass. That’s my bad. For real, I’m so sorry.”

Sigh. “I’ll live. Maybe if I roll down the steps, I can get the rest of me that wet.”

“Don’t do that. Turn on your car’s butt heater. Here.” He hands me the umbrella. “Take it. I’ll get it back from you later.”

“Thank you!” I call back to him as I practically leap down the steps and race for the street.

“We’re getting a new neighbor,” he yells after me. “They’re working on the apartment now before they move in next week. I hope it’s someone good. Not like the last bitch.”

“Same!” I throw a hand up and sprint to my car, which I parked across the street yesterday facing the direction I need to go in anticipation of what today is. Tilting the umbrella back, I glance left only to immediately be hit with a tidal wave of water that shoots up from a passing car and soaks the front of my legs. My ass and now my legs. “Motherfucker!”

Not today!

The umbrella doesn’t want to close. My car isn’t sensing my keys that are shoved all the way down in my bag. There’s extra traffic because of the weather. I’m cold and wet and uncomfortable and pissed. I’m so pissed off. At myself, but also that this is how the first day of my emergency department rotation is starting, which was already something I was dreading despite the fact that I want a residency in emergency medicine.

After finally finding a parking spot, I make it into the emergency department, store my stuff in the locker with my name attached to it via masking tape, and pull my hair up into a wet bun while I walk out into the patient area. It’s all hustle and bustle back here, as it always is, but I don’t see any of the other students or even attendings and residents by the nurse’s station where we’re supposed to meet.

I check my watch. I’m more than thirty minutes late. My gut sinks and twists painfully. I’ve never been late a day in my life, not that it will matter when I have to deal with⁠—

“Miss Fritz. So nice of you to finally join us.”

My eyes close and my jaw locks before I suck in a composing breath. He’s getting a good look at my wet ass cheeks, and the urge to run is real. Instead, I force myself to turn around and face the last person I want to see, let alone be forced to apologize to.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Dr. Kincaid.”

His icy blue eyes drag disdainfully down my wet body and back up to my face. “I suppose you feel that because you’re a Fritz you should receive special treatment, is that it? That you can simply come and go whenever it suits you.”

God, I hate this man. Like in my soul, hate him.

He’s surrounded by his other medical students and residents and even a couple of nurses, who are trying to hide their amusement. My face heats, and my fists clench.

I grit my teeth. “No, sir. I had car trouble,” I lie because it’s easier than giving him a real explanation. Except somehow, he reads it on my face, but before he can lay into me, I quickly utter, “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Your fellow students can thank you because since you missed assignments and rounds, you’ll get to do scut.”

Of course. Honestly, it’s what I expected, so I can’t even argue it.

“First go change your scrubs. You’re dripping water all over the ER floors.”

Without another word—because anything I say at this point won’t be kind or respectful—I spin around and head back into the locker room. I’m grateful for it actually. Not only am I miserably wet, but I need a minute to get myself together.

I moved back home to Boston three and a half years ago for medical school after I graduated college, but for two blissful years after our blowout in that bar, I didn’t see Jack. Then he decided to move back home last year, and I’ve been forced to endure him on several occasions. Now my luck has run out as I not only have to see him every freaking day for the next four weeks, but I’ve been assigned to him as my attending physician.

Owen thinks it’s great. He’s hoping it’ll mean we’ll learn how to, at the very least, tolerate each other. The fact that we don’t particularly like each other is obvious to everyone—even if they don’t know why and never will—and most of the time when we’re forced together in the same space, we ignore each other.

Here that’s not an option. He’s my boss.

I rip off my scrub top and chuck it in the direction of my locker. With a huff, I march over to the rack of extra scrubs and sift through until I find my size while I count backward from four in four sets. My heart rate slows as I pull off my wet pants and slip into dry ones. I wish I had dry shoes and socks too, but right now I’ll take what I can get.

I tie the loop on my pants and pull a new top over my head as I continue to calm myself. “Four is the natural number following three and preceding five. It’s a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number. Its square is sixteen, and its square root is two. Four is the number of nucleobase types in DNA and RNA⁠—”

“What are you doing?” comes from behind me just as I pull my scrub top down, and I jump, not having heard anyone enter the locker room.

Fuck. I cover my pounding heart with my hand. I don’t like being snuck up on. Couldn’t he have just given me a goddamn minute? “Changing as you ordered me to do and channeling my inner calm so I don’t strangle the attending I’m unfortunately assigned to.”

He ignores my barb. “What was all that about the number four?”

I wish he hadn’t heard that, and I’d rather eat a raw cat’s liver than tell him anything. I spin around and glare. “Is there something you need, Dr. Kincaid, or do you normally make it a habit to come into the locker room when you tell a female staff member to get changed?”

He releases an annoyed breath. “Why were you late?”

“I already told you.”

“You lied. Now tell me the truth.”

“What does it matter?” I snap. “It doesn’t change the fact that I was.”

“Tell me, Wren. Because you looked like you had a rough morning, and I want to know what happened and if you’re okay.”

I give myself a second while I clip my hospital ID badge to the top of my scrub pants. I’m actively skirting his gaze so I don’t have to look at him, though I can feel him watching me. “I’m fine. I was up late studying, and I accidentally left my phone on silent. I didn’t hear my alarm going off. It’s also pouring out, and I was an unfortunate victim of the rain.”

Jack is leaning against the locker room door, blocking any escape I could have. His brown hair, shaved close on the sides and longer on top, is pushed back from his brutally gorgeous face, showcasing his piercing blue eyes, straight nose, and sharp, stubble-lined jaw. His posture is casual with his foot propped up against the door and his hands tucked into the pockets of the lab coat he’s only wearing because he has new students, but his expression is hard and unrelenting.

“That’s not the way to make a good first impression on me.”

I snap my fingers in an aw-shucks way. “Dammit, there go all my life’s goals and aspirations. How will I recover?” He’s not amused, and I roll my eyes derisively. “As if that were possible with you anyway.”

“It’s not,” he agrees flatly. “You’re right about that. The sooner you finish this rotation and get out of my ER, the better. Having you down here…” He trails off and shakes his head as if clearing his thoughts. “I’d hoped we’d still start off on a more professional footing.”

“Right. Sure.” I scoff indignantly, sarcasm dripping from my tongue. “Yeah, you just proved that.”

He glares arrogantly. “I didn’t treat you any differently than I would any other student. If you thought you’d get special favors from me simply because your brother is my best friend⁠—”

“Is that a joke?” I shoot back, cutting him off. “You are the last person I’d ever expect special favors from. You threw my last name in my face right in front of everyone just to be a jerk and humiliate me.”

He’s so stoic, so calm when I’m anything but. It’s driving me insane how dismissive he is of me. The guy took my heart and used it for batting practice as if it were just any other ball for him to play with. Thankfully, those feelings for him have long since sailed, and now I just find him insufferable.

“You’re the one who chose to go to medical school in Boston, Cinderella. Whether you like it or not, your last name is how people will know you.”

I hate that he still calls me that. He only does it when no one else is around, and I’m positive he does it just to get a rise out of me. I could storm and rant and tell him to go fuck himself for being such a condescending bastard, but I can’t. At least not here in the hospital.

Instead, I saunter over to him and give him a saccharine-sweet smile. “Thank you, Dr. Kincaid. I’ll be sure to remember that. If you’ll excuse me, I have scut to attend to.”

He stares down at me for a very long moment, so long my pulse thrums faster in my veins and the air crackles between us. His eyes flitter about my face, taking in every slope and line I’m comprised of, and something I can’t name flickers across his features. Something that makes my insides squirm. Finally, he pushes himself away from the door, but he doesn’t go far as he stands over me, closer than I’d like him to be.

“Show up on time, do your job well, stay out of my way, and we won’t have a problem. Act like a spoiled little brat again, and I’ll make you regret it until you hate me even more than you already do.”

“I’m not sure such a thing is possible, but it’s good to know what I’m working with. If you’ll excuse me.”

He steps to the side, and I pass by him, holding my breath as I go. I can already tell this is going to be the longest four weeks of my life. With any luck, he’ll pass me off to my intern and leave me the hell alone.