“Look at her,” Blaise snarls. “That’s why I brought him.”
“You can’t just bring babies to practice!” the coach roars while Keira shoots him another admonishing “Blaise!”
He huffs and finally sets Donovan down, but only because he notices the stroller I’ve pushed in, the tall one he hates because it doesn’t go very fast. We all watch as he delicately lays Donovan down and buckles him in before taking the stroller handle from me.
“Thank you,” he says to me, his expression so rigid I genuinely can’t tell what he’s thinking. “Now, can we pleaseget back to practice? He’ll fall asleep by the time we get to the field.”
“Blaise,” I murmur more carefully, making sure I have my head screwed on tightly this time, but the spin has passed. I’m fine. “I’m going to take him home, okay? I’ve got him from here.”
His eyes narrow. The room, the crowd around us, everything seems to fall away as he steps into my space and towers above me so I have to crane my head to look up at him. “You look like you’re about to drop dead. You’re not taking him.”
The commotion stirs up again, everyone saying different things. The coach still insists the baby needs to go with me. Keira attempts to take the stroller. Kai puts his arm around me again, although Blaise gives him a look that warns him away, so he grabs a chair for me to sit in. Gabe has his phone out, undoubtedly calling Joss.
It’s Blaise’s bellow of “Stop!” that gets everything back to quiet.
My brain is swimming again.
Blaise holds one hand out as he drops the bonnet of the stroller and starts to rock it back methodically. “Let me think. Let me think.”
The coach starts a “Sinclair—”
“Let me think! Let me think.” He takes one last deep breath before he points to me. “You’re sick. You keep telling me this is just C-section recovery and you’ve got an appointment in a week, but I don’t care. We have doctors here. You’ll go see them right now.”
“That’s not really what they’re for,” the coach mutters, but he seems to be relieved that at least Blaise is looking for a solution that’s not a baby at football practice.
Blaise’s arm swings to Gabe. “Get Joss here. Now. Cora, too, if she’s in town. I can’t fucking do practice and take care of Donovan all goddamn week if she’s going to crap out on us.”
Several people call him out, but he shrugs them off as he swings back to the coach.
“Iwilltake them to the medical suite, and Iwilltalk to Doctor Keltner. Keira, if you can stay with Tilly and Donovan until Joss or Cora gets here, that’d be killer. And then I will return to practice. And it’s going to be the best fucking practice you’ve ever seen from me. I’m about to wow everyone’s goddamn socks off.”
“I . . . I don’t really have a way to pay for this,” I admit to Doc Keltner two hours later, after Blaise has gone back to practice and Joss has come by so Keira can go back to work, too. Over on the other side, the training complex, there’s actually some of the fancy massage chairs, and with how pregnant Joss is, she hoofs it over there the moment one of the nurses suggests it. There’s a quick exam of Donovan done and some blood drawn before Joss takes him with her, but the doctors and nurses all come together to agree that he’s of perfect health, at least.
Actually, they have a conference call with a NICU doctor. Not even a local one. Johns Hopkins. I guess that’s where Doc Keltner has connections.
But Doc Keltner isn’t nearly so quick to release me, even after I offer to go to urgent care instead.
“What Sinclair wants, Sinclair gets,” he says with a shrug as he examines my incision scar.
That’s what he says when I admit I don’t have insurance, as well.What Sinclair wants, Sinclair gets. He’s the headquarterback, so I get it to a point, but none of this is cheap — especially once I explain that the incision wasn’t messed up, I just had an ovary removed last year and then it was an emergency C-section.
That’s the moment he gets back on the phone, has a quick chat with another doctor, and then tells me we’re moving to the training complex, as well. We’re met there by a gynecologist.
A gynecologist at a men’s football training complex.
Apparently, Dr. Saad and Keltner are friends, she has Mondays off, and she’s a big fan of the Jugs. If helping Sinclair’s gal out is going to make a stronger team in the fall, she’s happy to volunteer her time.
I don’t know ifvolunteeris the right word, though. Nothing here is volunteer. There’s a ludicrous amount of money going around. But after I stress it enough times, Doc Keltner reminds me that it was Sinclair’s decision that I be treated here for now until he gives me a referral for a specialist, so it’s Sinclair’s money. Which I’m sure he has in abundance. He is the head quarterback, after all.
I’m given a powerful antibiotic for the infection I’ve apparently gotten as well as something that Dr. Saad says will help with any hormone issues stemming from, well, everything. I allow myself a private, vulnerable moment to take off my cap and ask, “You don’t happen to know if there’s anything that will help get my hair growing again, do you?”
“Is that since giving birth?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s been struggling to come back in since my second round of chemo. I heard the prenatals would help, but I’ve had barely any growth this year.”
“Well, there’s some bad news and good news there,” she says honestly. “There haven’t been good studies on the effects of minoxidil on breastfeeding patients.”
“That sounds like a patriarchy thing,” I mutter. Having cancer in parts of the body that men don’t have has given me a particularly harsh view of the medical field.
