Page 98 of You Kissed Me First


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Opening the door, he pushes Dominic in, saying a hello to the nurse before backing out.

The nurse makes her way to us. “Hello, do you need some help today?”

“Yes, ma’am. He stepped on a starfish,” I tell her.

“Well that’s unfortunate. How about you follow me and we will get him all set up over here. The doctor will be right over to check out the situation.”

“Thank you,” we both say as we move to a vacant bed.

Dominic stands on one leg and hops up onto the bed.

“I’ll take this.” The nurse smiles as she grabs the wheelchair, taking it with her.

“You hanging in there?” I ask Dom, rubbing his shoulder.

“Could be better,” he groans as he leans back onto the bed, lying down.

For several minutes, we sit in silence before a man steps into the room. He talks to the nurse a moment before they both come over.

“I hear you got into a fight with a starfish and the starfish won.”

Dominic moans, “Yes. Fucker got me good.”

“All right, let me look at it. Which foot?”

Dominic lifts his left foot, and the doctor grabs him by the ankle.

“Oh yeah, it’s nice and swollen and hot.”

“That’s what she said,” Dominic hisses as the doctor pokes and prods.

“Dominic, behave,” I whisper shout.

“He’s right here and can hear you,” the doctor jokes. “Well, it looks like you have some spines still in your foot. Not very deep, but I’m going to have to remove them with a pair of tweezers to prevent them from breaking off in your foot.”

“Go for it, doc. I can handle it.” Dominic looks pale now.

The nurse, clearly hearing the doctor in the small space, walks up, carrying what looks like alcohol wipes and a pair of tweezers. The doctor gets to work cleaning and plucking the spines out of the bottom of Dom’s foot. Dom’s hand reaches out, latching on to mine, and squeezes.

“Not too tight. I don’t need you to break my hand.”

“Sorry.” He winces.

Once the doctor is done, he looks at Dominic with sympathy. “This is going to be painful, but I need to scrub the wounds and then rinse it with salt water.”

Dominic groans. “I hate the beach.”

“No, you don’t,” I say as I rub his arm with my free hand. “It’s almost over.”

The doctor goes about cleaning Dom’s foot once again. Dominic bites his lower lip and grunts. Once done, the nurse hands the doctor some antibiotic ointment and he goes about loosely bandaging the bottom of his foot.

“Once back to your room, take the bandage off and let it air dry. Nurse Becky will give you some gauze and some antibiotic ointment to keep on it. You can take Tylenol and ibuprofen for the pain. If it becomes too much, you can soak your foot in hot water for roughly thirty minutes. If you start vomiting or experience paralysis or anything, just call down here and we will tell you if you need to come back.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, my eyes on Dominic.

He doesn’t want me to see, but I can tell he teared up.

“I would recommend you both get some water shoes,” he says, raising a brow.