Garrett

  Understanding starts to dawn on me. "The bruises."

  "I'm a bit anemic as well. I honestly don't know why that's happening. I've had a million questions and never can seem to remember them all when I'm at the doctor's."

  "The bruise and cut on your hip?"

  "Bone-marrow biopsy yesterday morning," she says softly.

  "Jesus Christ, Olivia," I say angrily. "You let me manhandle you...fuck you hard, when you'd had that done to your body?"

  Her eyes flash at me hotly and she opens her mouth up, I'm betting to tear me a new one, but then her eyes roll backward and her hand flies to her mouth. She lurches up off the floor and hurls herself at the toilet again.

  I immediately scramble up and grab her hair out of the way, wrapping my other arm around her waist to hold her up as she gags into the toilet. Again, nothing comes out, and she continues dry-heaving for a while.

  "Fuck," I mutter. "Have you been sick all day?"

  She shakes her head. "No...started a few hours ago. They gave me some pills to take, but I threw them up."

  Olivia continues to retch and I hold her through it. When she's done, I help her stand on shaky legs. "Let's get you in the bed."

  She nods and pushes past me to walk out the bathroom door on her own, clearly letting me know she still has some gas in her. I have a feeling Olivia doesn't like to feel weak and helpless. Which is funny...because that's exactly how I feel right now.

  I follow her back to her bedroom and she crawls into bed. I pull the covers up over her and my gaze falls on a prescription bottle on her nightstand next to a big bottle of Gatorade.

  "Are these the pills that are supposed to stop the nausea?"

  She nods at me.

  "Can you try to take another dose?"

  "Yeah...the other ones came up whole. But I'm pretty sure these are going to come up too."

  "Let's just try," I say reassuringly as I sit on the edge of her bed. I read the prescription bottle and shake out the dosage. I hand them to her and then unscrew the cap from the Gatorade. Handing it to her, I say, "Take just a few small sips with the pills. Give your stomach a chance to handle it."

  She takes a tiny sip of the liquid to wash the pills down and lies back on her pillow with her eyes closed. My fingers come up, my hand shaking slightly, and I smooth them over her forehead.

  "What does this all mean?" I ask hesitantly.

  Her eyes open and she stares at me with a confidence that shocks me to my core. "I don't know what any of it means, but I'm sure as fuck not going to let this beat me."

  My lips twitch, wanting to smile at her sass, but I'm still filled with too much terror right now. "We'll talk about this later," I tell her gently. "Right now...think you can get some sleep?"

  "Yeah," she says with a small smile. "I'm pretty wiped out."

  I stand up from her bed and watch as she turns on her side, curling one arm up under her pillow. She looks so small and frail right now, which causes anger to surge inside me. Why does this happen to someone like to Olivia? Especially when I just found her?

  Olivia closes her eyes and I turn to walk out of her bedroom.

  "Garrett?"

  Turning to look back at Olivia, I find her watching me with heavy eyes. "Thank you. I didn't want you to see this. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

  "It's okay," I murmur, but nothing about this is okay. I'm not sure how it can be. "Just get some rest."

  My instinct is to flee. Just this morning, I had convinced myself that Olivia was the woman who I could take a chance on. I had stupid thoughts of hanging out with her, going on adventures, her coming to my games, and me sinking into her body every night. I was actually a bit juiced up thinking that it could be a hell of a lot of fun to get to know her...to have a relationship with her.

  But now that all seems to be coated in bitter ash and I can't really see past the fact that she's lying in bed sick, and I have no clue how to handle it.

  Is this going to kill her? Am I getting involved with a woman who could die?

  I have no answers, and that just pisses me off more.

  As I let myself out of Olivia's apartment, I pull my phone out of my pocket and flip through my contacts so I can dial up our team's orthopedic doctor, Mark Godson. He's a pretty cool guy...nursed me through a wrist sprain late in this past season, and we've become friends.

  He answers on the third ring. "What's up, Garrett?"

  "I need some information on cancer," I tell him.

  "Yeah...well, in case you forgot, I'm an orthopedic doctor," he says with a laugh.

  I'm not in a fucking joking mood. "Just get me someone that can answer some questions for me," I snarl into the phone. "And the sooner the better."

  Mark's voice softens. "Yeah...sure. No problem. A buddy of mine practices oncology. I'll have him call you. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine...a friend of mine, not so much."

  "When do you want him to contact you?" he asks.

  "About five minutes ago. I'll be waiting," I say, and I disconnect the phone.

  I try to get a handle on my emotions. But they are too thick for me to wade through them. I'm hoping this oncology doctor can at least educate me so I know what I'm dealing with, and until then, I have someone else I need to talk to that has some explaining to do.

  --

  I ring the doorbell, impatient, annoyed, and bristling with resentment. When the door swings open, Alex looks at me with joyful surprise. "What's up, dude?"

  "You fucking asshole," I growl at him, and his eyes become wary. "How come you didn't tell me?"

  Giving a long, drawn-out sigh, Alex steps back from the door and waves me in. "You know about Olivia?"

  I walk into his house, itching to punch him in the face. My hands fist up tight, and the need to do violence to something is almost driving every rational thought out of my head. "Yeah, I fucking know. I went over there to see her and found her heaving her guts up in the toilet."

  "Is she okay?" Alex asks with worry as I slump down on his couch.

  "She's sleeping now," I tell him as I scrub my hands over my face. When I look up at Alex, I ask, "Why, man? Why didn't you tell me?"

  Guilt flashes hard in his eyes, and before he can answer, Sutton walks in and comes to stand beside Alex. "Because Olivia asked us not to."

  "Fuck that...you should have told me," I say, leveling my gaze on Alex. Because I'm his best friend, and he is the one that should have told me. "You knew I was interested in her. I had a right to know."

  "Come on, Garrett," Sutton says calmly. "You don't have the best track record with women. We figured you'd be losing interest right about now. It's your pattern."

  Hot, molten rage bubbles inside me. Surging up from the couch, I brush past both of them and jerk their front door open. Turning back, I pin my eyes on Sutton, and I know I must look pissed because she flinches. "Don't you dare fucking stereotype or judge me. You don't know a fucking thing about how I feel."

  I walk out of their house, slamming the door behind me. I haven't made it down the front two steps when I hear the door opening back up and Alex is calling out, "Garrett...wait."

  I hear Sutton's voice also call out to me. "I'm sorry, Garrett. I didn't mean it like that."

  I don't even bother turning around to look at them. "Yeah...well, fuck you both," I call out over my shoulder. "Thanks for the friendship. Means a lot."

  Practically jerking my car door off its hinges, I throw myself into the front seat and peel out of their driveway. My phone starts ringing, so I fish it out of my pocket and answer, "Samuelson."

  "Yeah...this is Dr. Velia. I'm a friend of Mark Godson's. He said you had some questions for me."

  Taking a deep breath, I start to tell him what I know and hope that he can enlighten me about what I'm facing.

  Chapter 12

  Olivia

  "You have about another hour to go," the nurse says as she makes an adjustment to the IV bag hanging above me. "Need another warm blanket?"

  I sh
ake my head at her with a smile. "I'm good. Thanks."

  "Nausea okay?" she asks.

  "Much better than yesterday," I tell her, and Sutton reaches over and grabs my hand for a squeeze.

  "Okay...just holler if you need anything," the nurse says with a smile and a comforting pat on my leg. "I'll check back in a little bit."

  "I can't believe how sick you got yesterday," Sutton says. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

  "Oh, stop it," I grumble at her. "I didn't want anyone there watching me vomit."

  Stevie had taken me to yesterday's chemo treatment. It was a bit longer than today's, as I got both Rituxin and bendamustine, and it took almost five hours for those concoctions to drip into my veins. Today's treatment is just the bendamustine. It's not going to take as long, but the pisser is that this is the drug that made me sick yesterday. Dr. Yoffman didn't seem too worried about it, and just said that some people can get really sick. He did increase my antinausea meds, and they even gave me an infusion of them via IV before they started the treatment.

  Sutton is on chemo duty today, and she brought a ton of magazines for us to read. Instead, they've lain untouched because I ended up dozing for a bit. I'm still wiped out from all the toilet hugging I did yesterday.

  I still can't believe Garrett came over. I so didn't want him to see that. I so didn't want him to even know I had cancer. I thought this fling was over because it definitely exceeded his timetable.

  When he had texted me yesterday morning, I didn't respond because the nurse was at that very moment sticking a needle in my vein. I didn't respond later, once I had nothing better to do than listen to Stevie gossip, because I didn't want to encourage him. I knew I'd be out of commission for a few days, and the farther Garrett stayed away, the better.

  But then he texted me again, and my heart got all squishy because it was clear he still had an interest in me, and God help me...I'm totally into him. So I responded and felt almost a sense of giddiness that I'd see him again.

  But only after I made it through these two chemo visits and was past the accompanying sickness. Dr. Yoffman said I'd be back to feeling normal within a few days of the last treatment.

  Needless to say, when Garrett showed up at my door, I panicked for a moment. I was so very close to getting him to leave without him being any wiser to my plight, but then those fucking dry heaves started again. And afterward...as I lay on the bathroom tile with my stomach muscles aching, my head splitting in two, and another wave of nausea rolling through me, I didn't have the strength to keep my secret anymore.

  He was wigged out. No doubt about that. The look on his face said it all. Horrified and angry.

  I haven't seen or heard from him since I fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later feeling a little better, having successfully kept the medication down. I stumbled out into the kitchen and ate a few dry crackers, drank some more Gatorade, and fell back asleep. I stayed under until my alarm went off this morning, and then I was getting ready for my next chemo visit.

  Sutton picks up one of the magazines and flips through it distractedly. I pull the one blanket the nurse had given me up to my chin and curl my legs up underneath me. They have these really cool recliners the patients sit in that are spread around a large, airy room done in peaceful colors of mauve and gray. Large plants sit everywhere and soft music plays in the background. By my count, there are thirteen other patients in this room, all hooked up to IV bags.

  Some of them look pale, sick, and wasted away. Some are bald. Some are fairly robust-looking. There's quiet talking, some laughing, and one patient sits with her husband, who cries softly by her side. Cancer has so many different faces, I'm finding out.

  Sutton closes the magazine and throws it down with a frustrated sigh.

  "Nothing good in there?" I ask as I nod toward the gossip rag.

  "It's not that," she says distractedly.

  "Then what is it?"

  "I think I really messed up," she murmurs with pain-filled eyes.

  "Okay...what did you do to Alex, and I'll tell you how to fix it," I tell her with a smirk.

  "It's not Alex," she says quietly. "It's Garrett."

  "Garrett?" I ask stupidly, because what could she have possibly done to that cocky man? I had told her about him coming over last night with soup, and that he now knows what's going on with me. She didn't say much, and, now that I think about it, it was uncharacteristic of her to remain quiet. She's always been vocal about Garrett. She loves him to death, but she also doesn't think he has much depth when it comes to women and likes to give him hell about it.

  "He came to the house last night...after he found out you have cancer," she says, her eyes cast down to her lap while she fiddles with the hem of her shirt. "He was pissed."

  "Pissed no one told him," I guess.

  She nods. "I said some unkind things to him. I insinuated he didn't need to know because I figured he would be getting bored and would leave you in the dust right about now. I think I hurt his feelings."

  I can feel Sutton's guilt and I end up taking it on as my own. In hindsight, I probably should have told him. It would have been easier because he could have made an early exit and never felt any further obligation to me. I should have told him before we had sex, because that's such an intimate act...never mind that we both went into it with the idea of it being only a one-night stand.

  "Hey," I say, getting her attention. Her eyes raise up and I give her a confident smile. "We both owe him an apology for keeping him in the dark."

  "Think he'll accept it?" she asks dubiously. "He was really angry."

  I shrug. "That's up to him. All we can do is offer it. Besides...I'm pretty sure that now that he knows, his interest in me isn't going to be so keen. I mean...who wants to be with someone with cancer?"

  Sutton leans forward in the chair that sits opposite from me. "I don't know, Olivia. He brought you soup."

  "When he thought I had the flu," I point out.

  "He stayed there and took care of you. Held your head while you vomited," she says.

  Yes, he had. He wiped my face with a cloth, held my hair back, gently helped me take my medication, and tucked me in to bed. But that doesn't mean anything. Garrett's a nice guy. He'd do that for anyone.

  I think it's more telling that the note he left said he'd talk to me later, yet I haven't heard a word from him since then. I think it's probably safe to say that I've scared Garrett off for good.

  --

  Amazingly...I don't feel too bad. Sutton isn't taking any chances, though, wrapping her arm around my waist as we walk up the flight of stairs to my apartment.

  "Think you can handle something to eat?" she says.

  A slow roll of my stomach tells me that's not a great idea. "I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday, and I'm guessing the extra antinausea meds are helping, but I don't think I can handle anything just yet. Besides...I didn't get really sick until a few hours after my treatment yesterday."

  "Well, Dr. Yoffman said you can take an oral dose of the Zofran as soon as you get home. He said that will help to stay ahead of it."

  "Sounds good," I say, practically out of breath by the time we reach the second-floor landing. I reach down into my purse to grab my key, when I feel Sutton stiffen up beside me. Raising my head, I see Garrett sitting on the concrete landing, his back leaning against my door.

  "Hey," I say, momentarily baffled by his presence.

  Garrett cuts a hard glance at Sutton, then looks back to me. "How did your treatment go?"

  "Good," I say with a smile as I watch him push up from the ground, wiping his butt with his hands. "Faster than yesterday's, but I only got one drug today compared to the two I got yesterday."

  "Bendamustine?" he asks, and my jaw drops open. He reaches out and takes the key out of my hand. "I did a little research."

  Garrett turns his back on me to unlock my door and I shoot Sutton a glance. She nibbles on her lip in worry, and I can see she's dying to make peace with Garrett.

  He
pushes my door open and steps back to let me pass. I walk in with Sutton following right behind me. Fatigue is hitting me hard, so I immediately go over to my couch and plop down on it.

  There's an awkward silence as Sutton watches Garrett and Garrett watches me. I close my eyes and lean my head back on the couch. I don't have the strength to help them with their issues. They're going to have to figure it out on their own.

  "So...what can I do for you, Olivia?" Sutton says as she walks into the living room. "Want to watch a movie or something?"

  I give her a slight smile but shake my head. "I don't need anything. I'm going to take the meds and probably go lie in bed to rest. Hope I don't get sick later."

  Garrett immediately walks back to my room, and within a few seconds he's back with my bottle of Zofran in one hand and a partial bottle of Gatorade in the other. Sutton and I just watch in silence as he shakes out the pills and hands them to me.

  "Thanks," I murmur, and swallow them down with a sip of the Gatorade.

  Garrett's eyes pin me...filled with confusion and worry. He doesn't even look at Sutton, but he addresses her when he says, "I'm going to stay with Olivia for a while so we can talk."

  His message is clear. Please leave.

  "Garrett," Sutton says, her voice practically pleading. "I'm really sorry about--"

  "Just don't," he says as his head slowly swivels in her direction. His jaw is locked hard and his eyes are cold. "I don't want to get into it with you right now."

  Sutton frowns over his rejection and she opens her mouth to argue, but I decide to butt in. I do need to talk to Garrett and he clearly doesn't want to hear Sutton's apology right now. "Sutton...I'm fine. Why don't you go ahead and go. I'll call you later."

  Her gaze flicks back and forth between me and Garrett, but he doesn't notice because he merely turns away and walks back into my bedroom.

  Sutton spins on me. "Are you sure you want me to leave?" she whispers.

  "Yeah...I need to talk to Garrett. He deserves an explanation and I also want to make sure he knows there's no obligation to do this."

  "Okay," she says uncertainly. "Call me and let me know how it goes. I'm clearly going to have to do some groveling."

  I get up from the couch and give her a hug. "He'll be fine. He just needs time, I'm sure."

  "Hope you're right," she says as she heads to my front door. "Later, cuz."