"I was fixing my hair," she fired back.
"You weren't looking where you were going."
"You could apologize."
"You could get out of my way."
Once again, we stared at each other, neither willing to back down. For fuck's sake, this lady was going to send me to my grave. She was a ninety mile an hour downward spiral if I'd ever seen one and I could not stop seeing her. She was everywhere. I couldn't go a day without spotting her bright yellow sneakers or all of that hair, and her voice wouldn't leave me alone. She was here at the hospital, she was in my apartment building, she was even yammering at me in my dreams. And today—my god, today—was just a hot, horrible journey to the center of the earth with her.
There was no exiting this hostage situation.
I rubbed the spot where her head had connected with my chest. She wasn't especially tall so she'd nailed me right on the midline of my pecs.
"Shut up, it doesn't hurt," she said.
She'd changed out of that chemistry t-shirt, the one I'd grudgingly found amusing, and into a pale sweater and trousers the color of spilled red wine. She looked expensive. Really fucking expensive. Like it would cost me to touch her. "Your skull is made of stone."
"Do we actually have to do this again? We've spent enough time yelling at each other for no reason today, don't you think?"
The door opened again, this time admitting Cal Hartshorn and Nick Acevedo into the room. I dropped my head back and I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. They were the last people we needed to see.
"Shap! Stremmel!" Hartshorn boomed. "Can we interest either of you in—"
"I'm gonna stop you right there," I said. "Whatever it is, no. Don't want it, don't need it. Sell it elsewhere. Thank you. Goodbye and good night."
Acevedo approached us, his gaze on Shapiro. "Is he bothering you?" Acevedo asked, a finger pointed in my direction. "We run together and I like making him suffer so please tell me the truth or lie flagrantly, whichever gives me more to work with."
She glanced up at me, a brow arched high and a vicious glint in her eyes. She was going to tattle her ass off and I was going to—
"Hardly," she said. With a wave for Acevedo and Hartshorn, she added, "Good evening" and slipped past me into the hall.
What the actual fuck was that?
I turned and stared at the door as if that could explain why Sara skipped out on a perfectly good opportunity to put my jackassery on display for these guys to see. When the door failed to explain a goddamn thing to me, I retreated to my locker to get out of these scrubs.
"I'd love it if you didn't run Shapiro out of here," Hartshorn said as he strolled to his locker. "As far as gifts go for me this holiday season, that would be at the top of my list."
"I am not running anyone out of anywhere. We were just having a"—well, it had been another ridiculous fight about nothing but I wasn't going to tell these guys any of that—"conversation."
"You could try being pleasant to her. Wouldn't hurt," Acevedo said.
"It would. Not my blood type," I replied.
"We're getting a beer since our wives are traveling for work," Hartshorn said. "Come with?"
"No." I zipped up my coat and headed for the door. I really needed some cheerleading tonight. I didn't know what it was about all the glitter and high ponytails but it always chilled me out. Some people watched sitcom reruns or listened to podcasts. Others preferred wine and weed. I watched competitive cheerleading while sprawled on the sofa.
I took a shortcut through the hospital complex that let out a few blocks from my building, effectively avoiding the clusterfuck of traffic at the hospital's main exit. I toggled between texting O'Rourke and placing an order for that burrito bowl as I headed home. Every step was one closer to putting this fucking day to bed.
I was almost there. All I had to do was get in the building and up three flights of stairs, and I'd have all the solitude I wanted.
Except Sara was cursing at the door and I was presently unable to walk through walls without injuring myself. Oh, my fucking life.
"What," I called, stomping up the stone steps, "the fuck."
She sighed for ten minutes before saying, "My key is stuck."
"Move." When she went on screwing with the door, I tapped her upper arm, saying, "Move."
"I have it," she snapped.
"Obviously, you don't."
"If you'd just give me a minute—"
"You've had a minute," I said.
"Your reaction is excessive relative to this situation."
I shook my head and hoped some lightning would strike and put me out of my misery. "My reaction is not the problem."
"Your reaction is always the problem," she cried, abandoning the door to whirl around and step into my space. "Why do you always have to be right? Even when it doesn't matter?"
I'd assumed her eyes were brown but I was wrong about that. They were hazel—mostly golden amber with flecks of brown and green. They were lighter up close than they seemed at a polite distance. I wasn't polite.
"I don't give a good fuck about right. I just want to get upstairs and change into soft pants before my burrito bowl arrives."
She narrowed her hazel eyes at me and I could tell by the way her lips curled that she was about to gut me here on the stoop. "You are such a—"
"Oh hey, guys."
We turned at once to find Riley Walsh coming through the door. He spied Sara's keys hanging from the lock and freed them with one deft turn of the handle. Riley lived on the second floor with his wife Alex. He hated me on account of me attempting to flirt with Alex in front of him on several occasions before they were engaged. I hadn't in years but that didn't deter him from giving me death glares every time we crossed paths.
So, daily. Daily death glares. For years. Fun times for me here in the doctor dorm.
"Was this thing sticking again? It's the weather. Whenever it's damp like this, old hardware gets wonky." He pointed to the hinges and panel. "The wood swells too."
Sara grabbed her keys from him, saying, "Thanks. Maybe it's time to replace this door so it can function in all weather conditions."
"I'm going to pretend you didn't suggest we ditch a door from 1880 simply because it reacts to the weather," he replied as he jogged down the steps. "You're hurting my preservationist heart."
Sara pushed her way inside and made a notable effort at slamming the outer door on my face but I was right behind her and caught it as she threw open the next door into the foyer. I didn't understand why this place had so many doors that all led from one little room into another—vestibule, foyer, entry hall—but it meant I got to repeatedly thwart Sara's attempts at making a fuck-ton of noise.
"You're the one who can't stand to be wrong," I said to her back.
"That's rich coming from you."
She went to her door, shaking her head and murmuring to herself as she fumbled with her keys. Her door stood to the left of the steep, winding staircase, and since I didn't have to look at her eyes anymore, I should've been on my way and out of this mess. I wanted to leave. I gripped the banister, stepped onto the first stair.