Tempt the Hookup (Tempt 3)

“I have no idea,” I say, “but it feels so tight, and my eye.” I touch my eye now. “I can’t even open my eyelid.” I try to force it open, but nothing happens.

“Your other eye looks like it’s getting swollen,” Nick says. “Open your front door,” he says, and I run to the door, opening it and seeing Eliahn walking up the steps with Aiden and Nick behind her. I know right away it’s bad when she gasps.

“Oh my God,” she says.

“Dude, your face is so messed up right now,” Nick says, and I shake my head. “I think you need to get a shot of Benadryl or something.”

“You need to go to the hospital,” Eliahn says, and then Aiden asks, “Did you get hit in the face with a ball?” I swear I hear roaring laughter everywhere.

“It looks like you stuck your face in a beehive, and you got attacked,” Jason says, now laughing so hard he can’t breathe.

I hang up on them and grab my wallet. “You have to drive,” I tell Nick and then turn and tell Eliahn I’ll call her later. I bend down and kiss Aiden’s head, but I just drool all over him.

When I get in the car, I pull down the sun visor to see myself, and my other eye is now swelling up. “What the fuck is in that cream?” I say, but it’s getting harder and harder to speak with my lips getting so swollen.

“I can’t even look at you without imagining your face exploding,” Nick says. “It looks so fucked up.”

We pull into the parking lot, and I get out, and Nick starts taking pictures. “We need to send this to National Geographic,” he says.

He FaceTimes the guys again as he ushers me to a wheelchair since I can’t see anything at this point. I sit in the chair as he wheels us to the nurses’ station, and she looks up.

“Dear God,” she says, and I just nod my head.

“You hab no idea,” I tell her. “I think I’m habing an allergic reation.” The words are coming out in a slur.

“I think it might be a full-blown reaction,” she says and walks around the desk. “What did you do?”

“I put on fabe bream,” I say quietly, but not quiet

enough.

“You put on face cream,” Nick says, laughing, and grabs the container in my hand. “Like a girl’s face cream?”

I can’t even roll my eyes. “Puck off,” I say fuck off but because my lips are so swollen, it comes out as puck.

“I gotta go,” he tells the boys, then he grabs his phone. “I’m going to go on an Instagram live.”

“I’ll join,” they both say and disconnect.

“Wat the puck is phat?” What the fuck is that? I ask him, and he doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks at his phone.

“Hey there, Instagrammers,” Nick starts talking, then bends down and puts the phone in front of our faces. “See that eye in the corner?” he tells me, and I turn to look at him.

“I can parley spee.” I can barely see, I tell him and drool falls out of my mouth again.

“Nine people are online,” he says and then turns the phone to me. “Meet my friend, Sasquatch,” he says, putting the phone in my face. “Oh, we have four hundred people.”

“One girl wants to know if you fucked a vacuum.” He laughs. “No, he’s a monk. This is all because of a woman’s face cream,” Nick tells them.

The nurse shoos him away and tells me to follow her, and it would be okay, but my second eye is now closing, so I move the wheelchair right into a fucking wall. “Pucking spit.”

“There are over a thousand people now.” He looks at me. “The hash tag must have lit up. ‘NationalGeographicExplosion’” He turns the phone to me, now wheeling me into the room. “Say hello,” he says, and I push him away with what little effort I have left, my eye now almost shutting.

“Sir, you need to step out,” the nurse tells him, and I hear him tell her that he has fourteen hundred people waiting for an update.

She comes back in and says, “Okay, I’m going to give you a shot, and you should start to feel better right away.” I don’t even have to close my eyes to wish I’d never put that cream on.

Chapter Ten

Eliahn

“I swear to God, Mom, he looked horrible. His eye was swollen shut, and his upper lip was so big it looked like that lady with the cat eyes and the plastic face,” I tell my mother on the phone. One look at his face and I gasped.

“Oh my God,” my mother says. “Where did he go?”

“I’m guessing to the hospital. I just got home, and he was rushing out of the house,” I tell her. I also don’t add in that I was disappointed that I didn’t go with him or that I was worrying so much I thought I would be sick.