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Dr. Hugo shakes his head. “I’m so sorry. I was about to make a bad joke. It’s only good news. You’re free and clear.”
“What the fuck?” Evan demands. “Why would you say shit like that?”
“Again, I’m so sorry,” Dr. Hugo says to me. “I was going to make a lame joke about the bad news being that you’re dating a knucklehead.”
“We’re not dating.” Evan looks on the verge of punching his friend, but then rolls his eyes instead.
Hey, did he need to deny the idea of us dating so vehemently? Obviously, it’s absurd, but it’s not like Dr. Hugo was out of line for making the assumption, unless Evan thinks that I’m so hideous and bitchy that it is out of line…
“Sorry, again,” Dr. Hugo says to me. A smile touches his eyes as he adds, “You’re healthy and not dating a knucklehead, all great news.”
Evan’s jaw ticks. “If you ever want to become a comedian, don’t quit your day job.”
With that, I leap to my feet. “Thanks, Dr. Hugo.”
“Please,” he says. “Call me Vic.”
Was that a death stare Evan just gave him?
Men. With the kind of friends they make, who needs enemies?
“Ready to go?” Evan asks.
I get to my feet and locate the nurse who offered to dry my clothes.
Inside the changing room, I change back and feel almost normal. When I come out, Evan’s eyes roam my body. Almost as if?—
“You’ve got a sunburn,” Evan says. “A bad one.”
So that’s it. He doesn’t appreciate what he sees—he’s horrified.
I crane my neck so I can take a look at my back. All I can see is my shoulder, but it confirms what Evan just said.
It’s red. And now that I know, I feel it too.
Shit. I guess with all the adrenaline, I blocked out the burning or thought it was just due to dry skin courtesy of the hospital’s air. But there’s no mistaking it now. I’m burned, and badly. The last time this happened, I looked like a boiled lobster who dressed up as a beet for Halloween.
“We’d better go,” Evan says and leads me outside, where we get a ride back to the beach in the ambulance, thanks to the friendly EMTs.
As soon as we exit the ambulance back at the beach, I feel a burning sensation when the sun touches my exposed skin, particularly on my back.
The sunburn is getting worse.
“Here.” Evan covers me in his shirt.
I instantly feel better, but I think that has more to do with his scent on the shirt than the blocked sunrays.
Loud barking in the distance makes us both glance at Harry, who is having the time of his life chasing a gull by the shore.
“The cow is back,” I say, spotting it.
Actually, this must be a slightly different cow. Her coloring reminds me more of a Dalmatian. With eyes more baleful than sad, the cow gives Harry a glare that makes me think of an interesting statistic I read right before this trip: you’re five times more likely to be killed by a cow than by a shark.
“Yeah,” Evan says in a pretty blasé fashion, considering there’s a cow on a beach. “She’s one of Calvin’s. He has a bunch.”
“Why?” I cozy into his shirt and sniff it as surreptitiously as I can.
“You can’t just have one cow. They’re herd animals,” Evan says. “They’d feel lonely, bored, and anxious by themselves.”
