“The fucking glass. Why didn’t we clean it up?”
“Um. Because we were drunk idiots. We thought it would be a good idea to sleep together. Does that not tell you all you need to know about the level of bad decision-making we’d reached?” I peek over the edge of the bed. Her foot is dripping blood onto my walnut floor. “Shit, Joss.”
“Fix it!” She whimpers as she fans her foot, like that will somehow stop the bleeding.
“What is that even doing? Are you going to aerate it to coagulation?”
“You’re a surgeon. Don’t you have... like... suture?”
I bury my face in the covers. Deep breath is scented of laundry detergent. Even that smells gross. The hangover that was drifting at the periphery of my awareness snaps into focus as I stand. Waves of dizziness and nausea roll over me. Upright, my brain expands with blood and throbs against my skull.
Don’t like it.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Alcohol is the worst. Look at the clusterfuck of fiascos it’s created this morning.
Wishing I had caffeine right now.
My house shoes sit at the edge of the bed, and I slip them on before scooping Joss into my arms and carrying her to the bathroom. “You owe me, lollipop.”
“Thank you!”
“Holy—” I laugh and turn my face away. “I love you, girl, but your breath is straight up trash fire.”
She pats my chest. “Don’t be extra. Just fix my foot, Asher.”
I set her at the edge of the soaker tub I never use and hand her a bottle of mouthwash. She turns on the faucet as I leave to retrieve my kit of surgical supplies, kept neatly in a duckling-covered Easter basket. But first, a pit stop at her phone to mess with her autocorrect.
Tee-hee.
When I return, she wiggles in joy at the lidocaine in my hand. Typical anesthesiologist.
I brandish the needle in her direction. “Buck up, bunny boo. This is gonna hurt.”
She twists to give me the best angle, and I numb and close the gash in her foot with a few interrupted sutures.
“There.” I peck a kiss on the top of her foot. “Good as new.”
“Thanks. I think we can officially label this whole episode a total fucking disaster.”
At least she agrees.
I throw everything back into the basket and wash my hands. “You understand now why I don’t get involved with girls at work? Same catastrophe every time.”
“You’ve been inthissituation before?” She motions toward herself—stitched and disheveled in my bloodstained bathtub, still wearing the corgi-riding-T-rex shirt.
Okay. Fair. Leave it to Jocelyn to takecatastropheto the next level.
“Not quite,” I say with a smile. “Though I’d argue this is better. I thought I was in love with the last one and found out way too late that she was secretly in love with someone else. Then I was stuck seeing them every day for months, so that was fun.”
Compared to that, I’d take Joss’s awkward boner jokes anytime.
She sucks in a breath likeouchand squirms out of the tub. “Yeah, I’d probably never date at work, either.”
“You don’t date, period.”
“True.” She tests her weight on her foot and winces.
