Page 28 of Yes, Doctor
Darren pushed through the crowd to buy them bottled water because they were hot and thirsty, and she found Jen belly up at the bar with several empty shot glasses beside her and a hopeful suitor who appeared to be buying them for her.
“Heyyyy!”Jen said, falling into her with a drunken hug.
“Jen, you’re smashed!”she said.
“I know.I think these boys are trying to take advantage of me,” she slurred with a happy grin.
“Are you going home with them...or him?”she asked, not wanting to cock block if her friend was into it, but also feeling like she needed a babysitter at this point.
Jen pointed over her shoulder at the boys with an exaggerated look of shock.“With them?Nooooo!”
“Okay.Did you drive here yourself?”
“Uh…” she considered, as if trying to remember.“Yeah,” she said, giving an affirmative nod when she arrived on the answer.
“Keys,” Chloe demanded, holding out her hand.
“What?”
“Don’t be dense, I’m driving you home.I mean we are,” she said looking over her shoulder at Darren uncertainly.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
The shot-buying boys glared at her for screwing up their sure thing.
“Should we go now?”Darren asked.
She nodded, her stomach sinking at the lame end to their date.“We might as well.Otherwise we’ll just have to watch her the whole time.”
“Come on, girlfriend,” she said, taking Jen’s hand.Darren took her other hand and led them through the crowd and out the front door.Of course, Jen began stumbling and nearly fell as they passed the bouncers, who then had to question them about how much she’d had to drink and whether she was driving.
Darren put an arm around Jen’s waist to hold her up.Her eyes were already rolling in her head as if she was going to pass out.
Crap.
She’d done plenty of drunk babysitting, and she relied on her friends to watch her back when she imbibed too much, but in front of Darren, it embarrassed her.They must look so young and immature to him, not even able to handle their liquor.Drinking like they just became of legal age.
They helped Jen in the back seat of Darren’s Cherokee and she collapsed in the corner, passed out.
Darren exited the parking lot.“Where to?”he asked, as if he were their limo driver.
Jen threw up down the front of her blouse, without even opening her eyes.
“Oh no!”she groaned.
Darren pulled over on the side of the road and they both got out and went to Jen’s door.Jen continued to heave, still totally passed out.
“Oh God, this is bad.This is so bad,” Chloe wailed.
Darren moved with a relaxed efficiency.“There’s a towel in the trunk.Get it, please,” he directed, lifting Jen out of the car and bracing her in a bent position so her puke would hit the ground.
When she returned with the towel, he had vomit down the front of him but looked completely unfazed as he took Jen’s pulse at her wrist.
“Oh God!”she exclaimed, the situation zooming from bad to worse in her imagination.What if Jen had alcohol poisoning and they had to take her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped?She knew her friend didn’t have health insurance and wouldn’t want to go, but she would hate to argue with a doctor over it—this could be very bad all around.
“She’ll be fine,” Darren reassured her with unflappable calm as she mopped the front of his shirt with the towel.
She exhaled in relief.She wondered if this was how he was in surgery, or at births.
