“And business is already picking up again,” the quiet medic muttered as he read the message. “We’ve got to swing by the pond when we’re finished here to dig a hook out of someone’s hand.”
Phillip shook his head and groaned. “That’s never pretty.”
Mav and Leo both cringed at hearing that and subtly shifted a closer together.
“Alright, Leo, you’re not feeling queasy, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Was there any queasiness when you came to?”
“Nope, just the lump.”
“Any dizziness, double vision, or spotty vision?”
“None.”
“Anywhere else that hurts beside your head?”
“Does my pride count?”
Philip chuckled at that. “In this case, no. Seriously though, you have nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about. Fainting is one of your brain’s ways of protecting you when something happens that’s too overwhelming to process. It seems like things are okay between you guys now though.”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Leo said. “I think I caused these guys as much upset as they did me when I walked in on them curled up sleeping, so it’s all good. Honestly, I’m kind of glad this happened. The only reason I booked this vacation alone was because all my friends were wrapped up in their holiday plans, and my dads were heading off on a cruise for the holidays, so there was nothing going on at their place either.”
“Sounds like a fortuitous mishap in your case then,” Philip said.
“I really think it is,” Leo said.
I was pleased to hear those words from him and to see Maverick nodding along too. At least the earlier bout of frazzled energy had faded back to his usual calm, laid-back demeanor.
“Alright then, we’re going to go deal with a hook; you guys don’t hesitate to call if he experiences any dizziness, vomits, or starts to feel queasy later in the day. While I don’t foresee there being a problem, head injuries are nothing to play around with, even minor ones, which this one is. As long as you keep from frightening him into another fainting spell, I’m certain he’s good to go.”
“Thanks for coming up,” Leo said. “My headache is already starting to fade thanks to the ice.”
“Good deal,” Philip said as he peeled off his gloves and tucked them into a pocket on the side of his bag before he and his partner, who never did introduce himself, took their leave.
“Glad I didn’t scare you so bad you wound up with a concussion,” Maverick said after the pair were gone.
“No shit,” Leo said. “I’ve had one before, and it took weeks before the last symptoms faded.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like,” Maverick said. “One of the perks of being a shifter is that we heal extremely fast, so unless we were to fall out of a window and fracture our skulls or something, concussions aren’t very likely to happen. Even broken bones heal quickly for us, though it still sucks when something goes snap.”
Leo cringed and adjusted the ice he had pressed to his head.
“Okay,” I said. “I think we’ve had enough of accidents and injuries for the day, yeah?”
“Works for me,” Leo said. “Oh shit.”
“What? Are you okay? Do we need to call the medics back?” Maverick asked, immediately hitting pre-frazzle mode again.
“No, but I do need to get my food in the freezer before it all melts,” Leo declared, beginning to get up.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said, spotting the TV dinner box sticking up out of the brown paper sack. “I’ll need to do some rearranging if all of that goes in the freezer.”
“Did you guys buy out the frozen food section too?” Leo asked.
Mav snickered at that while I just shook my head. “Not a chance. Processed food is not shifter friendly. We tend to get sick and sluggish if we eat too much of it, so we cook our meals from scratch. We brought more than enough food for two weeks if you’d like to share our meals with us.”
