“My friend fell and sprained his ankle.”
“How bad is it? Can you put your weight on it?” Nick asked.
Grunting, Simon reached for the remainder of the fence to haul himself up. Shanna would’ve helped if she weren’t convinced she’d only make it worse. Who knew where her curse stopped? How firm were these rocks?
“I’ll be okay.” Simon propped himself up, gingerly touched his foot down, and winced.
“Yeah, nah, mate,” Nick said. “You’d better put some ice on that and let it rest. Should I carry you back to the restaurant?”
“I’d rather throw myself into the blowhole.”
“Simon!”
“All good, all good.” Nick raised his hands in surrender. “Just trying to help.”
At the end, with some coaxing from Shanna, Simon did at least accept a lean on Nick’s shoulders as they walked back. Simon sat down at one of the dining tables, his leg propped up on another chair, as Nick went inside to get ice packs.
“What happened?” Chris came from the restaurant, finishing off a cone of ice cream.
“Simon sprained his ankle,” Shanna said.
“Neat. Was there blood?”
“I … no,” Simon said, frowning.
“How bad is it? Swelling? Pain? Feeling any joint instability? Bruising?”
While Chris played doctor and Simon answered to the best of his abilities, Nick returned with ice and some bandages to secure it to the ankle.
“You should keep that propped up and rest for at least twenty-four hours,” Chris said.
“There’s a hotel down the road, about twenty minutes,” Nick said. “You guys might want to stop for the day.”
“Thanks,” Shanna said. “Sorry for the abrupt ending to the date.” Still, she hoped it counted. Nick had turned out to be fun, but she’d rather be done with forced dating.
Especially when it made the guy on the other side of the leash behave like a stubborn toddler.
“No worries. It was nice meeting you!” Nick winked goodbye and left.
Simon spent the journey to the hotel in the backseat, silent. Shanna parked as close as she could to the lobby while she went to get their rooms.
“We have exactly two left,” the receptionist said. “Both double bed. Will that be okay?”
“There’s no room with two single beds?”
The receptionist looked at her screen again, shaking his head. “Sorry.”
“I get a double bed? Nice,” Chris said when Shanna came out and told them the news.
Simon didn’t react; Shanna wasn’t sure whether it was because he was too focused on keeping a brave face through the pain or because he didn’t care they’d have to sleep together in one bed.
He hobbled to their room, where he made himself comfortable on the bed. Only the light rattling of a box of pain relief pills broke the silence as Simon gobbled them down with water. Shanna unpacked their things and brought out her kit. She picked up a small green-tinted bottle and a brush and walked over to Simon, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Show me your leg.”
He looked dubiously at the bottle.
“The ice packs and rest will help, but I’ll try to accelerate your healing. So we don’t lose too much time.”
“Right,” he said slowly. He rolled the pant leg up to his knee.
