Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,76
like a firefighter. I shrank down in embarrassment. No burning building or children to save—just sad little ol’ me with a scratch on my thigh. I grabbed the flap of my torn pants to cover Hello Kitty.
When the EMT was close enough for me to make out his features, my jaw dropped. “You?”
“At least you have underwear on this time?” He forced a laugh. “Glad your rash cleared up.”
I wanted to disappear.
Nic stared at me with wide eyes. “What haven’t you told me?”
“Oh my God, it’s not what you think. He walked in on me in the bathroom once.”
He leaned down toward my crotch. “Let me take a look.”
I inched backward, and a sharp pain shot down my leg. I winced. The numbness was wearing off.
He looked at me warily. “I’ve already seen you naked. And I’m a medical professional.”
I sighed and gave in, dropping the flap and flashing Hello Kitty.
He pushed the fabric aside and blotted with gauze. “So how did this happen?”
“Dancing,” I said at the same time Nic said, “Rock climbing.”
He raised an eyebrow at us. “It could be medically relevant. What were you doing?”
“She was trying to dance while on the rock wall, okay? You got to peek at her goods again, you perv, so congratulations. Now can you get her to the real medical professional?”
He blushed as red as my old rash (and maybe I did too).
We loaded into the ambulance and tore away, sirens screaming. I felt like they were announcing to the world, Here’s the biggest baby! She can’t handle a little blood!
At MIT Medical, we settled into the waiting room. One student beside me held a bag of frozen peas against his ankle while another held a carton of Ben and Jerry’s to his temple.
My gaze met theirs and the ice-cream man said, “Chair surfing.”
Nicolette nodded in approval.
“We’ve been here for three hours,” Pea Boy added.
Nic looked right, then left, and seeing no employees, she darted down the Urgent Care corridor. I yelled after her, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t care. Probably the latter.
Twenty minutes later she returned with a wheelchair and carted me off to an examination room, where Dr. Chang was waiting.
With a sour look on her face, Dr. Chang took a deliberate step to distance herself from Nicolette.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Nic said with an eye roll. As she walked away, I heard her mumble, “Jesus, and she knows I don’t fucking have chlamydia anymore.”
Thank. God.
Dr. Chang prepared the anesthetic for the stitches that she had determined were needed. Trying to distract myself from the twenty-two gauge that would be in my leg soon, I asked her, “Fish anything out of the toilet lately?”
To my surprise, she laughed, which shocked me so much I didn’t even feel the pinch.
Around ten the next morning, I fought my exhaustion and dragged myself to 77 Mass Ave. Nic’s friend had to hack—traditional definition—to get Darren’s schedule, and this was the only time he’d be crossing in front of the little dome.
The ground was dusted with a white layer that crunched beneath my UGG knockoffs. Luckily, there wasn’t enough snow to cover our hack, but there was enough to cover my DNA on the roof, as Nic had promised.
The passersby pointed at what Nic and I had added atop the dome’s apex, but I barely registered their reactions. Instead, I was scanning for that spiky hair that made my heart beat faster.
I stamped my feet to stay warm. Then, finally, the jagged outline. The class-to-class traffic thinned, leaving just the two of us amid a couple stragglers. When the recognition dawned on his face, he stopped in his tracks, staring with so much intensity he didn’t notice me sidling up.
“Think there’s whipped cream in there?” I asked.
He tore his eyes away from the three-dimensional hot chocolate cup strapped to the dome. The words “thinking of you” were scrawled across in red script. I had considered writing it in Japanese, but Darren wouldn’t have understood and according to Google Translate, it was twice as long. Beside the words was a picture of two nuts—I think they were almonds? Pecans? Whatever. I had printed the first non-X-rated image I’d found online.
He gaped at me with his mouth slightly open. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“It cost me a chunk of leg, too.” I gestured to my right thigh, thick with bandages beneath my sweatpants.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, then took one of his hands in mine. “I’m sorry about what I said after