Page 61 of Sinful in Scrubs

I spent the rest of my day shadowing Dr. Burnett. He was good at his job, I would give him that. He would make a great mentor for any resident just getting used to working in a hospital and learning bedside manners, dealing with scared, hurt, difficult patients. But we both knew I was just wasting somebody’s time. The only problem was, I wasn’t exactly sure whose time was being wasted at the moment—mine, his, or somebody else’s.

It was clear I had no idea what I was doing in L.A., and I was beginning to think that no one else knew what I was doing there, either.

I missed New York. I missed my grandmother.

“Great,” I muttered as a cockroach scuttled across my path when I opened the door and turned the light on to my apartment. Maybe that’s what people meant when they said L.A. was no different. The bugs certainly seemed to be the same.

I set water to boil so I could make tea and looked at the time. It was late in New York, but not so late that I didn’t think Grandmother would be up. As the phone rang and I waited for her to pick up, I questioned whether it was too late to call.

“Emma,” she greeted me.

Relief washed over me in a flood. “Hi, Zumu,” I said.

“You sound so tired. Why haven’t you come to see me?”

“I moved to California, remember?”

“Oh, I thought you were just talking nonsense. You really did it?”

“I really did it.”

“Have you met any movie stars yet?”

I loved her enthusiasm. “No, not yet. Maybe next week,” I joked.

“Well, you need to tell me if you meet any,” she said.

“Of course, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

It was so soothing to hear her voice. “Would you be upset if I came back to New York before I meet any movie stars?” I asked.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t think L.A. is right for me. I… I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Have you gone to the beach yet?”

“I haven’t even gone to the beach yet. All I do is work.”

“And you went all the way to L.A. to do that? You could have done that here in New York. You haven’t met any actors, you haven’t even gone to the beach, and you haven’t even gone surfing! What was the point of going to California?”

I laughed. As if I would know how to surf. But she was right. I hadn’t done anything different in California that I couldn’t have done in New York. And there were plenty of hospitals in New York I could have found a job at—only, the odds of my running into Kevin were much higher there than here.

“You still have your apartment, right?”

“I think so. I was going to lease it out, but…” It was something I was going to have to think about.

As I listened to Grandmother telling me about the crazy things her neighbors were up to—stories I didn’t think I would ever hear happening in L.A.—I realized I had a big decision to make.

28

MARCUS

What kind of man was I? The woman I claimed to be developing feelings for had been gone for over a week before I even noticed. That did not bode well for me. Certainly, it wouldn’t be a good selling point the next time I ran into her.

She would have every right to point out that I was an idiot because I was incapable of picking up a phone and calling her or sending her a text message. I had multiple means of communication available to me. If I wasn’t taking advantage of them, that was purely my fault.

So when she didn’t respond to my initial text messages or answer the phone, I pretty much only had myself to blame. And using Lily as an excuse? That was a cowardly thing to do. She had nothing to do with the fact that I hadn’t reached out to Emma in a timely fashion. It was time to suck up my ego.

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