Page 101 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“What are you doing?” Allison says as I stand on the deck.

“Just hold still,” Connor says with his back to me.

I walk toward my bag so I can get my towel.

“Don’t do it.”

I have a better angle now. Connor’s in the middle of undoing the belt on his shorts.

“Stop, Connor, you perv!”

His face is crimson. “I’m going to pee on her leg to stop the stinging. Urine has medicinal properties in these situations.”

“You are not doing that,” Allison says from the bench, gritting her teeth. There’s a red welt on her leg and I instantly feel better. She’s not making it up. Something did sting her.

Which sucks, of course, and must hurt like hell, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s better than it being an invention.

Better for me, I mean.

I am the worst.

“Do your pants up, Connor, for once in your life,” Oliver says.

Harper starts to giggle. She’s sitting where I left her when I went in the water with Emily and Isabella. Isabella hides her laugh behind her hand. Maybe there’s trouble in paradise? If she’s already at the laugh-at-Connor stage, she’s smarter than I’ve given her credit for.

“There must be something we can do that doesn’t involve the medicinal properties of pee,” Emily says. “Sylvie?”

We turn toward the upper deck, where Sylvie is consulting with Captain Marco. He jumps down onto our deck with a small white box in his hand with a Red Cross on it.

“I have some salve that will help,” he says with almost no Italian accent. He crouches down by Allison and opens the box, then takes out a small container and opens it. “Does someone have a cloth?”

“I do,” Oliver says. He picks up his discarded shorts and pulls out a pristine handkerchief with his initials on it, like the one he used on Harper the other day. It occurs to me now that it’s part of the set I gave him for his birthday four years ago. So he didn’t throw all of me away. “This do?”

Captain Marco takes it, then applies a clear, goopy concoction to Allison’s leg as she winces. “This will numb the area and heal the skin,” he says. “I will give you the container. Apply every four hours.”

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps we will go to Capri a bit early?” Sylvie says. “There is a clinic there.”

Allison leans back against the cushions. “I think I’ll stay on the boat. Is there somewhere I can take a nap?”

“There is a small cabin below deck,” Captain Marco says. “You can rest there.”

I wrap my towel around me and run my hands through my hair. Then I tap Oliver on the arm to get his attention. “You saved the day, again.”

He stands and turns. I try not to stare at his naked chest. Instead, I pick a point on his face, a single freckle that wasn’t there yesterday.

“I don’t think she was in any danger of dying.”

“Only in danger of getting peed on by Connor.”

Oliver starts to laugh. “Do you think he was really going to do it?”

“Nothing surprises me with him anymore.”

“Excuse me,” Connor says. “But this is no laughing matter.”

Isabella hides her smile again. I might actually like the girl in different circumstances.