Page 81 of Soup Sandwich
“You sure do.” She’s enjoying the hell out of this.
“You know, if I have to go in, so do you.”
“What—” Only her words cut off, morphing into a scream as I loop my arms around her waist and lift her into the air. Without warning, I drop us both straight into the water. We go rolling in, hitting the sand beneath the icy water because we’re not in all that deep.
Christ, that’s cold.
Just as our heads spring up, both of us taking in air, a wave slams into our faces, knocking us back. We both go under, and I firm up my grip on Layla, pushing off the sand with my feet, forcing us up and back out of the water.
Layla comes up spitting water at me, right in the face. “That was so not cool!” she yells, disentangling herself from my grip so she can cup water in her hand and splash it at me.
I wipe it away and make sure my shoulder is also clear of the bird poop.
“You’re no fun,” I toss back at her, splashing her with a handful of my own water. “I thought you said you were trouble.”
“You wanna see trouble?” She taunts as she moves her salt-coated sunglasses onto her soaked hat. She takes a step back from me and grabs hold of Katy’s hand as if she means business now. Katy is still laughing her little brains out as if all of this is the most entertaining thing she’s ever seen. “Come here, Katy. Let’s get him!”
The two of them team up on me, both charging me with kicks and handfuls of water, dousing me further. My arms fly up protectively in a futile attempt to stop the onslaught of frigid water, and in doing so, I lose sight. A tactical error I should have known better than to make since Katy is now climbing up the front of me and Layla is climbing up my back, both pressing their cold flesh against mine.
I band one arm around Katy and then reach behind to grab Layla, pinching her ass.
“Jerk!” she barks in my ear, only there is no bite to it.
“We got you!” Katy exalts, doing an awesome impression of a spider monkey. With them both wrapped around me, I storm us out of the water, back up onto the warm sand, and over to our setup of towels, beach chairs, and umbrellas.
Katy slides off me, immediately grabbing her towel and wrapping it around herself, but I don’t let Layla get off that easy. In a flash, I whip her around my body like we’re doing a dance straight out of the fifties and when she’s in front of me, I take her down for a second time, pinning her to one of the towels we have laid out.
“Ah! Your chest and swim trunks are so cold,” she cries beneath me, laughing as she tries to push me away.
I press us in deeper and nuzzle my face in her neck, unable to stop it. Her hand presses into the middle of my back, her fingers splaying out, and at the same time, we both stop fighting and squirming and just lie like this—layered, connected.
“You ruined my hat,” she accuses.
I grin against her skin. “I’ll buy you a new one.” I plant my hands into the towel and push myself up, gazing down at her. We’re both smiling at each other, breathing a little hard from all the exertion. “Did I hurt your nipples?”
A laugh belts past her lips. “No. I think they’re fine.”
I glance down between us, noting her hard nipples and tempting barbells pressed against her wet suit before I look back up at her. “I could check them. Make sure there’s no tearing or signs of infection. I am a doctor, you know.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You’re pushing your luck awfully hard for someone who said bird poop wasn’t lucky.”
“But you said it was,” I counter.
“Uncle Cal, I’m hungry,” Katy declares, going over to one of the chairs, taking a seat, and digging into the cooler we have without even waiting on me to help her.
I groan, and Layla gives me a playful smirk, pushing me by the shoulders so I’ll climb off her. I sit up, taking her hand and helping her do the same.
“Guess you were right. Bird poop is not lucky after all, Uncle Cal.” She pats my shoulder as she stands to join Katy. “Sucks to be you, I guess.”
She has no idea.
24
“Your patient is exsanguinating, and her vitals are tanking. What are you going to do?”
Fuck, I hate this woman. I’ve always hated this woman.
“Stop her bleeding.”Clearly. I inwardly snap that last part. I press in on the profusely bleeding wound with a massive wad of gauze, but that’s like sticking a piece of wadded-up chewing gum to fix a leak in the Hoover Dam. The wound overflows with red, sticky stuff that has no end in sight. My own pulse hammers in my chest as sweat coats my forehead, but I’m riding that high again. The one I can’t seem to get enough of.