“You are no help.”
I stood, picked up my untouched coffee and carried it, with Sam, over to my desk. I always thought better at my desk, which was currently covered with the entire schedule of my Fellowship. I’d started organizing it with little colored tabs, so I knew when I’d have OR time, lab time, study time. It was how I planned out everything, and I’d done it like this since I was a student.
I looked up at the knock on the door.
“Come in.”
It opened to reveal Hunter standing in the doorway, his hands jammed in his coat pockets. He stepped inside, then glanced down with a frown as he noticed Sam.
“Whose baby is that?”
“Mine.”
He spun around to Cooper, startling as he did. Cooper had shifted into a position that to the average bystander looked casual and unassuming, though it was anything but. He was sitting with his legs crossed in the corner of the couch, but his left arm stretched out wide along the back only emphasized the size of him. And the piercing stare he pinned Hunter with was one that made most people quake in their boots.
And it was working on its current victim.
“I didn’t realize you had visitors. I’ll come back.”
“Doctor Reyes, right?”
Hunter cleared his throat. “Um, yes.”
“Then no. You’re going to stay.”
I rolled my eyes at Cooper because I didn’t need him to fight my battles, I just needed him to help me fix my broken relationship, apparently.
“What do you want, Hunter?”
He shuffled about, very aware of Cooper’s death-ray glare, and I’m not sure I’d ever seen him so uncomfortable. Did it make me a bad person to enjoy it? Nah, not even a little bit.
“I want to apologize.”
I leaned back in my chair, stroking Sammy’s head, my fingers brushing over his soft hair, which seemed to thicken with curls every time I saw him.
“I’m listening.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
I waited for him to continue, but he just stood there, rocking on his heels.
Cooper barked out a laugh. “That’s it? Dude, even I can apologize better than that.”
I glowered at him to stop talking and he merely shrugged. Hunter swallowed visibly, but didn’t turn around.
“My brother has a point.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, in my opinion far too defensively for someone who was supposed to be saying sorry; who was supposed to be groveling for being a total dick and being complicit in the breakdown of my relationship.
Even though it was mostly my fault.
“I was angry, I’ve been angry at you. You’ve always been a step ahead of me, but you have changed the last few months and I didn’t like it. You’re right, I’m the only one who’s competed, and I thought if you were slipping then I would slip.”
“I haven’t slipped, Hunter.”
“No, I know. You’re just different. It didn’t seem like you were still in love with surgery in the way you’d always been, because you’d found something else. And then when you turned down the Fellowship so easily, I was pissed. And I hadn’t even been considered for it.”
“I haven’t turned it down. I’m taking it.”
