He didn’t believe in favorites. Not officially. Not on paper. But if anyone glanced at the way his eyes softened — just slightly — when you walked into morning rounds, they’d know better.

Robby leaned against the counter in the on-call room, coffee cooling untouched in his hand. His scrubs were wrinkled from the second night in a row without sleep, his jaw dusted in stubble that said he hadn’t been home since Wednesday. But his mind wasn’t on the chart open in front of him.

It was on you.

“She’s a damn menace to protocol.” He told himself that often. “But she’s brilliant. Too brilliant to be that stubborn, and too stubborn not to be right.”

You were always the first in, last out. The kind who double-checked labs and triple-checked doses. The kind who fought for your patients even if it meant butting heads with attendings twice your age — or with him.

Especially him.

He caught your voice outside the door before you stepped in, laughing at some godawful joke one of the interns cracked. That sound — easy and bright and completely unaware of how it softened the sharp edges of his day — hit him harder than it should have.

You stepped into the room like you belonged there. Because you did. Clipboard in one hand, a glittery pen in the other — a ridiculous thing that made him want to smile every time you used it to correct his notes.

“Morning, Dr. Robinavitch,” you said, casual, like you hadn’t spent half the night cross-covering his floor.

He nodded, cleared his throat. Don’t smile. Don’t make it a thing.

“You’re late.”

You weren’t.

But he knew you’d grin anyway, maybe roll your eyes, toss back something smart that would stay with him all damn day.

She’s trouble, he thought as he finally took a sip of cold coffee.

The best kind.