Tease (Take It Off #2)(22)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine.” Not to mention, I wasn’t going spend all the money I just made on a doctor bill.

“You could have a concussion.”

“I don’t.”

“Does anything else hurt?”

“No.”

“Can you stand?”

“If you want me to stand, you have to release the death grip you have on my body.”

He released me and stood, gingerly helping me to my feet. I really didn’t feel that bad, just a little dizzy and very water logged. He put his arm around my waist and supported some of my weight as we walked over toward our stuff.

“Wonder what time it is?” I said and bent to retrieve my cell phone from my bag. Bending over wasn’t a good idea, as all the blood rushed to my head way to fast and I swayed.

“Whoa,” Cam said, pulling me back up. Then his mouth pulled into a grim line. “We’re going to the doctor.”

“I have to work at ten,” I protested.

“Call in and tell them you can’t make it.”

“I can’t do that! I might get fired.”

“They aren’t going to fire you for having a head injury.”

“I can’t miss work.” I worried, thinking about the money I’d be losing.

Cam pretty much ignored me and grabbed up my cover-up and then gently pulled it over my head. I lifted my arms and he pulled it down, adjusting it so it covered my bikini.

“Sit down for a second. I’m going to go grab my board down by the water. Then we’ll go.”

It felt good to sit down. My body was so incredibly tired. I suddenly felt like I’d just spent ten rounds in a boxing ring and I lost every single one of them.

Cam returned, tossed on his shirt, and grabbed up my bag and his board. “Wait here,” he said as he jogged it all toward the car.

I got up, brushing away what I could of the sand and followed after him. I made it about twenty feet when everything kind of tilted on me. I stopped walking and just focused on the ground, pushing away the worst of the dizziness.

Cam appeared, slowly picking me up and carrying me to the Mustang. I wasn’t about to complain because he was touching me and I loved when he touched me.

He didn’t say anything as he sat me in the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt around my body. Before he pulled away, he pressed a tender kiss on my lips.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“It wasn’t for you. It was for me.”

Well, if that wasn’t just the most perfect thing he could say. Like ever.

I pretty much replayed those words in my head until he pulled into the parking lot of some kind of medical clinic. “We don’t need to be here.”

“Humor me.”

I sighed. And gave in. There wasn’t one woman on this earth that still had ovaries that wouldn’t have given in to his pleading, concerned stare.

Before going inside, I called my boss and explained that I fell and hit my head and was currently at the doctor being looked at for a concussion (I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I was out surfing before work). I thought he would be angry about it being only an hour before my shift started, but he was very understanding and asked me to bring in a doctor’s slip clearing me for work and being out in the heat when I came to work next.

“Well, at least now I can be home to help Roxie move in,” I said as we walked through the parking lot.

“Roxie’s moving in with you?”

“Yeah. She kicked her cheating boyfriend to the curb and I needed a roommate to help cover rent.”

“Wonder what Adam will say about her newly single status?”

“Why would Adam care?” I asked, watching him out of the corner of my eye.

“I see the way he sometimes looks at her.”

“Probably the same way she looks at him.”

He opened the door to the clinic and ushered me inside, depositing me in a chair and then insisting on checking me in. I settled into the seat and got ready for a wait. All these clinics had a wait. It was the most annoying thing ever.

My phone started ringing, the sound partially muffled from inside my bag. I pulled it out just as Cam was sitting down in the chair right beside mine. The phone rang again and I glanced at the screen and groaned.

It was my mother.

Third time she tried to call this week.

I shut off the ringer and stuffed it back into my bag, promising myself I would call her back after we left the doctor.

“Didn’t feel like talking?” Cam asked, casually draping his arm across the back of my chair. I leaned toward him. The air-conditioner in here was set to arctic.

“It was my mother,” I said, like that explained it all.

“You two don’t get along?”

“Actually, we do. But my mother has very clear ideas about how she thinks I should be living my life. Being here isn’t really one of them.”

He arched a brow. “She didn’t want you to go to college?”

“Maybe community college or a technical school in Beaufort. But moving to Myrtle Beach to study psychology? She didn’t approve.”

“She give a reason?”

“I think she just wanted me close by where she could give an opinion on every aspect of my life. She wanted me to work at a bank, settle down, and get married. Be like her. There isn’t anything wrong with that. It just isn’t what I wanted.”

“Seems like you have a little Pura Vida of your own.” The way he said those two words… they flowed silkily with a slight roll of his tongue. I leaned into his side just a little closer.

The nurse came out of the side door at the front of the waiting room and called my name. I should have known. The one time I actually didn’t mind sitting around and waiting was the one time they called me right back.

Cam stood when I did and I gave him a surprised look. “I’m going with you,” he said in a voice that left no room for argument.

His palm fitted itself against the small of my back as we both followed the nurse into a tiny room with a table covered in that white noisy paper. She took some vitals and asked some questions and then exited the room, leaving us to wait for the doctor.

The knot on the back of my head was tender and I investigated the area around it with my fingers. Cam noticed and pulled my hand away. “Don’t irritate it.”

You’d think I was beating myself in the head with something. “It hurts.” I complained.

“I should have known better than to take a klutz like you surfing.”