Not by a fucking long shot, dude.
I kept skating, hitting the puck from every conceivable angle and lobbing wristers that would make a goalie cry. That is, if there’d been a goalie there to try to stop them.
There was no one. No one in net, in the stands, on the bench.
But where else was I going to go?
Not like there was anyone at home, either. Not really. And this, the ice, had been my home away from home since I was six.
Which left me alone, skating down two hundred feet, across eighty-five, up two hundred, across another eighty-five, over and over until I finally dropped. Until my lungs went from burn to pure fire, and my legs went numb—just refused to go any further or hold me up anymore. All I could do then was lay face down, the battered ice digging into my cheek as I breathed in cold, wet air and something—sweat…tears, maybe—rolled off the bridge of my nose and landed on the ice with a near-inaudible hiss.
What the hell else could I do?
Libby
November 24
I stared at Marco, trying to absorb what he was saying. I mean, the man was one of the preeminent oncologists in the goddamn country. He should be using all the big words, the fancy words, right? Not something as mundane as—
“Stable. What’s that mean, exactly?”
“Libby—mi vida.” His mellow hazel eyes blinked behind his half rims as he stroked my arm—long, soothing motions like he was trying to settle a skittish dog. “You know what it means.”
“You know, humor me just this once, okay? Pretend I haven’t gone through this before and that you have to hold my hand and explain it from scratch.”
He rolled his eyes—just a little—and sighed—just a little—but his voice was exceedingly patient as he explained. Again. Because we’d been through this before.
“Stable means things aren’t getting any worse.”
“And not any better.”
“No, but we’re going—”
“To try something new,” I finished in tandem with him.
His voice went from patient to dry as he asked, “Do you want me to do this, m’ija, or should I just let you finish?”
Taking a deep breath, I waved my hand, indicating he should go on.
“We’re going to try something new,” he repeated. “Alter the combination some, see if it might not kick-start something.”
“Or make him even more miserable.” I shoved my hands through my hair, remembering, too late, that it was pulled back in a loose ponytail. Wrestling my fingers free, I yanked the elastic off, and then ran my fingers through again, welcoming the sharp bite of pain from dragging them through the tangled strands.
“It’s the risk we take, Libby.”
“We’re not taking shit, Marco. It’s all on Ethan.” I dropped my head back against the wall, staring up at the fluorescents lining the ceiling. “Is he okay with this?”
“He’s willing to try.”
Of course he was. “You know, I keep trying to decide if he’s incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.” I shifted my gaze from the ceiling to the closed door of Ethan’s room.
“Yo creo…” Marco said slowly, “that it’s he believes he has something worth fighting for.” He reached out, not to stroke my arm again, but to cup my chin, making me feel like I was about six years old. I grabbed on to his hand, amazed, as always, by how dry and warm it was. Doctor’s hands. Good hands.
“Marco…cada vez que esto a pasado—that he’s had one of these stable periods, he’s…”
Dammit—it scared me so much, I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it out loud. Luckily, Marco knew exactly what I was talking about. Because he had been through it before with us. Lowering our hands, he met my gaze head on.
“Yo se, Libby. Te entiendo. I know you’re worried that he’s going to take another turn for the worse, but perhaps this time will be different.”
“Yeah.” Maybe it would. Or maybe he wouldn’t just take a turn for the worse but he’d—
“Hang in there, Libby. Ese hijo de puta you’re married to fights as hard as anyone I’ve ever known in my life. He’s not ready to let go yet.”
I wish he would.
I stopped breathing—I swear I did. I couldn’t have possibly thought that…No. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t—except…
I just didn’t want him to hurt anymore. He’d had enough pain for five lifetimes—he didn’t deserve this. But I did not want him to go. Oh God…no. Not yet. Not yet. I just wanted him to be better, to be Ethan, to be who he’d been.
I wanted my Ethan.
And there you had it—the bald, ugly truth.
“It’s me who’s not ready to let go,” I whispered past the band constricting my chest.
Marco didn’t sound in the least bit surprised. “He knows that, too, m’ija.”
My hands clenched into fists against my thighs. “That’s not very fair, is it? That kind of demand?”
“He’s a grown man, Libby. He knows what he’s doing.” Shades of Nora in those words. Telling me not to baby him. I pressed my lips tight and squeezed my eyes shut for a brief second, beating the demons back from where they waited at my doorstep.
“Libby, do you want me to write you a scrip for something? Just to take the edge off or help you sleep?”
Okay, I had to pull it together. Couldn’t fall apart now. And while something soothing was seriously tempting, it wouldn’t help. Not in the long run. There wasn’t a hell of a lot that would, short of—well…what I wanted wasn’t going to happen. Not unless some of that miracle shit decided to come my way. I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Look that bad, do I?”
All he did was cross his arms and stare.
“I’m okay, Marco. De verdad,” I added when the eyebrows headed up and his forehead creased. He knew I was bullshitting. And how. This must be what having a normal father was like.
“I’ll leave it at the nurse’s desk if you change your mind. Cabezona.” Shaking his head, he leaned in and kissed my forehead before taking off. For a minute, I stayed where I was, watching him talk to the desk nurse, the two of them glancing over with these obviously concerned expressions, before I decided I’d been enough of a sideshow and crossed the hall to Ethan’s room.
He turned his head on the pillow, his smile turning to a flinch as Cory, his nurse, opened the line that started the cocktail. After checking the settings, she left us alone with the usual reminders to call her if we needed anything.
After the door swung closed behind her, I said, “I see I’m not late to the party.”
Keep it light, Libby. Don’t let him see.
“Just tapped the line into the keg, gorgeous,” he replied with a wink. He was doing it too. Always doing his best to protect me. “Did you bring the party favors?”
“Fresh from Starbucks.” I showed him the bag and drink tray holding his salvation.
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“Insulted my journalistic abilities.” I set the drinks and bag on the night table, then pulled a chair close to the side that didn’t have the line going in.
“It was simply an honest effort to push you toward your full potential, angel.”
“I said it then, I’ll say it now—your motivational skills suck.”
“Yet you still bring me foofy coffee drinks. How bad can they really be?”
“It’s those baby blues,” I mock grumbled. “Suckered me with them from day one.” I stuck a straw through the opening in the lid of the Java Chip Frappuccino—yes, with whole milk and extra whipped cream, as I’d snapped at the size zero barista who’d lifted her pierced eyebrow at me—and put it to his lips.
Taking a long sip, he swallowed and leaned back against the pillows with a sigh. “Oh, that’s good. Beats the shit out of corrosive metal aftertaste.” He glared at the bag with the skull and crossbones insignia that was the source of the corrosive metal aftertaste, “Thank you for being a sucker for the baby blues.” He turned them my way, along with the smile tha
t had also sucker punched me that first day and that still made me go weak in the knees.
Leaning forward, I licked a tiny bit of whipped cream from the curve of his lip, then kissed him. Thank God, that, at least, was the same. No matter how much weight he lost, no matter how much the rest of his body changed, his mouth felt the same—made me feel the same. “Always and always, Ethan,” I whispered against his lips.
He lifted his free hand to my neck and pulled me closer, another smile curving his lips as he returned my kiss. “So what else didja bring me?”
One more small kiss, then I eased back and reached into the bag I’d placed next to the tray. “Black and white cookie or a chocolate-chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate frosting?”
Mere formality. I knew which he’d choose.
“Chocolate.”
“Sensualist.”
His hand captured my wrist as I was swiping my finger across the frosting. “You know it.” His gaze locked with mine, he brought my frosting-laden finger to his mouth, sucking off the chocolate blob, his tongue teasing the sensitive skin.
My heart skipped a beat at the familiar touch—at the heat pooling low in my stomach. Maybe Marco was right. Maybe this time would be different.
• • •
An hour later, I eased out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind myself. He’d had his foofy drink and cupcake, and had even managed to dictate a column before drifting off. I could only hope that the anti-nausea meds, for once in their misbegotten existence, would actually help and he’d get some decent rest. One way or another, I probably had another hour or so to kill before we knew for sure. Wandering in the direction of the waiting area, I stopped dead in the middle of the hallway.
“Nick?”
No response. As I approached, I realized his eyes were closed, even as the rest of his body swayed, fighting even in sleep to stay upright on the sofa.
“Nick?” Softer now, because I didn’t want to startle him.
I was the one who wound up startled as he jerked and started hacking and coughing—a horrible, familiar sound that shook me straight to the bone.
“Por tú madre, Nick. Hang on.” Backing away, I blindly reached toward the water dispenser, and filled a cup, never once taking my gaze from him. Taking a seat beside him, I began rubbing his back, high up between the shoulders, those small soothing circles I was so practiced in. Heat radiated through his knit shirt, making the fine hairs on my arm stand on end. “Jesus, you’re burning up. Here.”
As the coughing subsided, I held the cup to his lips. “Small sips—you don’t want to start again.” I tried not to flinch as his hand came to rest over mine, hot and damp.
“Thanks.” His voice was hoarse, barely audible.
“Nick, have you seen anyone for this?”
He shook his head.
“Are you insane?”
He made a sound like a barking seal as his hand tightened around mine. “You honestly don’t wanna go there, Libby.”
Well, then. I studied his bent head as I continued rubbing his back. With my free hand I fished a napkin from my pocket and used it to wipe away the sweat beading along his neck and up beneath the ragged ends of his hair.
So I wouldn’t go there—yet. But only because we had other things to take care of first.
“Kath getting her treatment?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Nurses kicked me out of the room, though, soon as they heard the first hack. Not like she wants me anyway.”
Oh man, I could see I was going to have a whole list of things to nail his ass on. Because if he thought I was going to let him keep this all bottled up… “Works both ways,” I muttered under my breath.
He jerked his head up, then cringed, as if it had about killed him to do so. “What?”
“You look like shit,” I said instead, as I got my first good look at his face and hoped like hell I didn’t look as horrified as I felt. Sunken eyes, rimmed in a vicious red, stared dully while beneath the heavy stubble of his beard, the edges of his nose and upper lip were raw and angry, probably from repeated blowing and wiping. Pretty much the works. “What the hell have you been using on your face—sandpaper?”
“Whatever’s handy,” he said with a shrug that had him cringing again. And yet he hadn’t seen anyone? Damn arrogant, know-it-all Cuban man, hockey jock.
“You wait right here and don’t you dare move,” I ordered as I made certain his hold on the cup was secure.
“Don’t wanna.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to.”
He sighed and shifted, squinting up at me. “I mean, I don’t want to move, Libby. Don’t think I can.”
“Even better.” I took off for the nurse’s desk where I asked that they page Marco. Maybe he was one of the preeminent oncologists in the country, but last time I checked, he was also just a plain old doctor and for now, that’s what I needed. Got lucky in that he was nearby, checking on Kath as a matter of fact, so I only had to wait about ten minutes. Ten long, miserable, interminable minutes spent rubbing Nick’s back through another vicious coughing fit and making certain he drank more water.
“Bueno, m’ijo, Kath mentioned you had a little cold.” Marco stood in front of us, shaking his head. “Taken up bullshitting as a hobby?”
“She doesn’t know how bad it is. Downed about half a bottle of all-purpose cold shit before we left Boca. Didn’t want to be coughing and sneezing the whole way down.” He sighed and looked up at Marco. “It’s not like you haven’t told me over and over how fucked the treatments leave her immune system, so I did my best to keep it away from her.”
But…still, he was so sick. Whatever Nick had, it couldn’t possibly be something that had just cropped up overnight. Even keeping it away from her, how could she have not realized it was more than a…a…little cold? I glanced up at Marco, who clearly got what I was thinking and let me know, with a nearly imperceptible shrug, I don’t know either.
“Vamanos,” he ordered Nick. “Gracias, m’ija, for the page,” he said to me. “Last thing este cabrón needs to be doing is developing pneumonia. As it is, from the sound of it, he might be close.”
God, no. I sucked in a sharp breath at Marco’s casual diagnosis, a familiar, sick feeling kicking me in the stomach.
“It’s not pneumonia.” He pushed himself to a standing position, swaying and looking decidedly green.
Marco's brows rose. “No me digas.”
“It’s not,” he insisted. “I’ve had pneumonia before—it wasn’t like this.”
“So if you’ve had it before, then you know you’re predisposed to get it again. And that it’s not necessarily the same every time. Vamanos,” he repeated, putting his hand beneath Nick’s elbow and leading him away. As they walked away, Nick looked back over his shoulder with what I’m sure he thought was a really pathetic expression. Well, actually, it really was a pathetic expression—maybe not in the “Save me” sort of way he intended, but pathetic in a quiet, heartbreaking way.
Another ninety minutes passed. Time I spent sitting by Ethan’s bed with my laptop working on my own column—reassured by the steady rise and fall of his breathing as he continued to sleep. So far, so good. I could only hope that things remained steady and calm, although past experience suggested that was wishful thinking at best. But hey, I was good at wishful thinking. It’s what kept me going most days.
At the quiet creak of the door opening, I looked up to find Corrine gesturing that I should join her in the hallway.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Dr. Aguirre knew you’d want to know how Nick’s doing.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“Nasty upper respiratory infection, but his lungs are clear.”
“Well, small favors at least.” I sighed and looked into the still deserted waiting area. “Has he left?”
“That’s the thing—” I returned my attention to Cory. “Marco already doused him with cough medicine with codeine—combined with what Nick took be
fore, he doesn’t want him driving. Don’t you both stay at Las Palmas when you’re here?”
“Yeah.”
“He tried to make noises about not bothering you, but Doc wasn’t having anything of it. Took his keys.” She held them up. “Think you can?”
“Oh, for the love of—” God, but he gave a whole new meaning to stubborn. I took them from her and shoved them in the pocket of my jeans. “Yes, of course.”
“He’s down at the pharmacy waiting for his prescriptions to be filled.”
“Okay, I’ll get my stuff and meet him down there.” I paused and glanced back at the closed door behind me, hesitating, even though I knew Nick was waiting, that he needed me. But Ethan—my Ethan…
“He’ll be fine,” Corrine reassured me, before adding, “You know, when he wakes up, it’s likely to be bad anyway.”
Yeah, I knew that. And now with this new cocktail, the uncertainty of not knowing exactly how he’d react—he definitely wouldn’t want me around for that. “But you’ll call if he needs anything or if anything changes?”
“Always, honey.” She patted my shoulder. “You’re a good woman, Libby.”
“I’m thinking more glutton for punishment.” Because on top of my ever-present worry for Ethan and all the added concerns that came along with a new course of treatment, I had to also go and find some other deathly ill person to care for. Clearly, I was out of my fucking gourd.
But any put-out feelings I might’ve had went straight out the window the minute I caught sight of Nick slouched in a chair in the pharmacy, eyes closed, a crumpled white bag sitting in his lap.
“Let’s go.”
He blinked owlishly, his eyes puffy and red. “Thought I could drive myself,” he mumbled as I put a hand under his elbow and helped steady him as we took the escalator up to the glass-walled crosswalk that connected the hospital to the garage.
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