Another murder mystery, with a side of “meet ugly” (Book 1)

This one includes a “meet ugly” growing into an “enemies to lovers” trope. Ugh.

The protagonist, Riley, is a police detective who sprained her wrist and went to see the new doctor in town, Logan.

“How did you do this to yourself?” His tone flat, like he didn’t really care.

“Arresting a drug dealer. He was stronger than he looked.”

“People often are.” He sighed as he took some bandages and started wrapping my wrist. “It’s just a sprain. Nothing is broken but you should take it easy for a couple of days. Ice it when you get home and if the pain gets to be too much take some Tylenol.” He finished wrapping my hand. “Are you right-handed?”

“Yup.”

“That’s going to suck,” he said as he let go of my hand and started gathering his supplies to put back in the cabinet.

“Anyone ever tell you, you have a lovely bedside manner? I imagine it doesn’t come up a lot.”

He closed the cabinet and leaned against it, arms folded across his chest. “You know what, I’ve actually been told I was perfectly pleasant.”

“By anyone other than your mother?”

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “A lot of my patients.”

“Their bar must be pretty low. If you can’t be nice to your patients or put some concern in your tone maybe you ought to find another profession.” I headed toward the door.

“Maybe you should find another doctor… if only there was another clinic around here… hmm.”

So you can see she’s a charming person who takes offense because he doesn’t get all warm and chatty with her while examining and bandaging her sprained wrist. I don’t expect medical people to be anything more than businesslike with me, as he is here. If they’re more friendly, that’s a bonus, but especially here, where there’s no established relationship between them and the problem is straightforward, I don’t see why she expects anything more and gets offended and insults him when he’s just businesslike.

The next time they met was in her mother’s coffee shop, where he thanked her mother and walked away, possibly not even seeing her walk in. She thinks,

He could be nice to my mother but clipped with me. What was that about?

So on a different day, when he might have had different problems on his mind, in a different environment where expectations are different, he is conventionally polite, and this offends her.

Later, he’s not paying attention and bumps into her while walking, and she makes a joke that falls flat. This is from his point of view.

I turned around to see Riley there, her expression a mix of shock and fury. “Excuse you.”

“Sorry,” I managed. It was more of a mumble than anything else. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She pressed her lips in a line.“Well, make sure you don’t make a habit of that. I wouldn’t want to have to give you a ticket for reckless walking.”

I could tell that she was trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but I could barely even stand to be in this conversation right now. “Sure.” I turned back toward the diner and barely made one step before she spoke again.

“Actually, I needed to talk to you.”

I sighed loudly and turned around. “What do you want?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I just wanted to ask you a question, maybe without the attitude.”

“I don’t understand how you can dislike my attitude so much and yet still go out of your way to talk to me. I am avoidable.”

Riley threw her hands up and stumbled back. “Well, excuse me for thinking a doctor could help me.”

“You are excused, now, please go away.”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “It’s a wonder you have any patients.”

“It’s a wonder you solve any cases. Now excuse me while I avoid you like the plague since my attitude is so disagreeable to you.” I turned away. When I reached the door to the diner, I heard her say ‘asshole’ under her breath.

He was obviously distracted; she knew he’d suffered something horrible, apparently pertaining to his wife’s recent death. They’re both being nasty in this scene, but she could just let it go. She doesn’t, even though she started the nastiness in both this and the previous case.

Riley and her partner go to the local diner, which is crowded, and the doctor’s nurse invites them to sit at their table:

I positioned myself on the edge of the booth next to her boss, the doctor with an annoying attitude. He didn’t even look up when he slid over, closer to the window, like he couldn’t stand to sit next to me.

If someone I don’t really know sits next to me on a booth, I’m going to scoot over to give them room. Obviously. I’d do it even if I did know them well. She, of course, takes this as an insult.

Rude doctor didn’t say anything, too busy staring out the window to be bothered with our little conversation. Nicole kept glancing out the window like she was expecting him to contribute. He didn’t even look at her. I took out my phone and started flipping through it, trying desperately to ignore how good he smelled—like eucalyptus, clean and fresh—and how broad his shoulders were.

Ah, there we go with the romance.

I focused on my phone. I hadn’t noticed when he moved in closer. His elbow brushed against mine, causing me to look up.

“Oh, sorry. Wouldn’t want to be disagreeable to you,” I snapped.

I expected him to fire back just as hard, but I was surprised when he sighed. “I’m sorry about the other day. I was mad about… something else, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Hope you sorted that something else out.”

He gave me a weak smile. “I’m trying. I really am, but it looks like it will be around for a while. In any case, that doesn’t mean I had to blow up at you like that.”

I chewed my bottom lip for a moment. “Apology accepted, I guess. But dude, you got to work on your bedside manner.”

Ugh. She started the nastiness, and he apologized for it. At no point in the whole book does she ever apologize to him for it. And notice that she only grudgingly accepts his apology and immediately criticizes him again.

And here, in his viewpoint, the tedious romance has officially begun:

I nodded slowly. I wondered what her process was when solving a case. I wondered what it felt like to put a bad guy away. I wondered if she had ever been shot. Her job was so dangerous. I wondered if she had any cold cases… I wondered if she was single…

I shook the last thought out of my mind. Shoved it into a box and locked it. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t ready for anything. and she didn’t like me. I was an ass to her when I first met her and a few times after that.

She was an ass to him when they first met, not vice versa.

I didn’t notice this when I first read the book, because my vision isn’t great and it’s hard for me to distinguish periods and commas, but when I blew up the size of the text, look at this:

Circled in red is a period. That should have been a comma or else the next letter should have been capitalized.

The review continues.