She nods. “Yup. Men make hair growth meds for other men. And the other most effective medication, finasteride, is bad bad bad. As in, if you come across a bottle of it while you’re still breastfeeding, don’t open it.ButI promised you good news. I’m going to give you a referral to a onco-dermatologist.”
I cringe at the length of that title. That’s an expensive word right there. “I don’t have insurance,” I repeat.
There’s another, more stern, more pained nod. “I was told you’re here because Blaise Sinclair asked Doc Keltner to see you. Is he the baby’s father?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to lie to anyone or—”
“No, no, no! It’s not my business. It’s just that, yeah, this is all really expensive out of pocket, and if he’s not supporting you financially . . .”
“He’s just a friend who’s been helping me with Donovan.” And even that feels like a lie, but there’s not much else I can say.
She thinks for a moment, and honestly? If she’s about to say tough cookies, hair is a privilege, not a right, I’ll accept that. But instead, she scribbles on a sticky note and passes it to me. There’s a name, a number, and a note to have them call her. “I’m not sure how much she’ll be willing to do, but she owes me a favor. Usually, I tell new moms that it’s just part of the process, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case for you, and you don’t need extra stress right now.”
“Especially if your stress is making Sinclair stress,” Keltner jokes, and I give him a weak smile. I know I’m nothingto them except an obstacle in the way of a winning season. I get it.
They send me home with Joss, who’s quiet, worried. Damn, she doesn’t need this. She doesn’t need my mess.
But the quiet afternoon we have is good. We veg. Gabe brings us dinner, a smorgasbord of pizza and wings and other bar fare from a favorite spot of theirs. It’s enough food to feed a family of twelve, but Gabe’s a monster, Joss is pregnant, and the antibiotics are already working their magic. I have a better appetite than I’ve had since I came home from the hospital. There’s a bit of everything left over for Blaise and maybe lunch tomorrow, but that’s it.
“Did he have to stay late because of Donovan?” I ask, watching as Donovan drools all over Joss, who’s so happy to hold him that her eyes have gone wet. With him being premature and then my poor health since coming home, no one’s gotten to see him yet.
Gabe waves my question off with a hearty laugh. “Nah. Well, sure, he got a late start, so he’s probably got some time to make up at the end, just because there’s stuff that needs to be done, but nah. Quarterbacks just have a lot of extra training in general. I’ll usually stay late, too, but . . .” He gives a shrug while he makes moon eyes at Joss, playing with Donovan.
Their jobs are important. They might not be anything but entertainers, not in the grand scheme of things, but there’s so much money invested in what they do that they don’t have lives that normal people do. Normal people do their nine-to-five and then go home and live their family lives. Last year, Gabe was probably training every second he could. But now, he’s about to be a dad, and what’s important for him is shifting.
But that’s going to put more weight on Blaise.
He rearranged furniture the other day, so now the sofa has a position where he can watch the TV from it. Gabe and Joss camp out there and watch a movie while I nurse Donovan in the recliner. I should tell them to go, that I feel fine now, and I’m home, so I don’t need a babysitter, but I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. And now that I’m feeling better, I’m also seeing more clearly how sick I’ve been. Having another set of eyes on Donovan is great, especially when Gabe volunteers to change him for me, and I’m sound asleep by the time he’s finished.
When I wake up, I’m tucked into bed properly, my feet and back propped up so I know it was Blaise who did it when he got home. He’s on his sofa with Donovan asleep on his chest. I should be worried, but the hand he’s got on Donovan makes me think that if the baby started to slip even a little bit, he’d be awake and scooping him up in a heartbeat.
Blaise has taken lots of photos of Donovan. I’ve heard he’s not allowed to post on social media, so I’m not sure what he does with the photos. I’ve even caught him getting a couple with me in them, although I don’t have any false illusions there. He’s surely cropping me out as much as possible.
He doesn’t have any of himself holding Donovan, though, so I take this chance to aim and snap a couple.
I look through them for the best one, debating cropping it so it’s obvious he’s not on a beat-up old sofa. Not for the first time, I wonder why, if he insists on staying, he doesn’t use his millions of dollars to buy something more comfortable. I don’t expect him to buy anything for the apartment, but he has so much money I don’t understand why he wouldn’t ensure his own comfort.
His phone vibrates for half a second, but just like I imagined for if Donovan started slipping, he tenses right up,startling Donovan into a short whimper, then calms again before blinking a couple times and grabbing his phone. Once he sees what I’ve sent, he smiles at his phone and then looks over at me.
In the middle of the night, sleepy and slightly befuddled, there’s a softness to his expression and a gravel to his voice. “Feeling any better?”
I nod. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
“Okay.”
Well, it’s not polite, but it’s not exactly mean. “And I’m sorry if I got you in trouble with your coach.”
“Wouldn’t be a new pre-season if I wasn’t in trouble for some dumb shit,” he mutters.
“Okay, well, I’m sorry I was the source of it this time. Are you in big trouble?”
“Not as long as I don’t do it again. So you need to stop fucking around. And I guess I looked like shit on the field afterward, so now I gotta do a bunch of extra work with my trainer. I gotta sleep.”
He says it with a huff as he resituates himself on the sofa, still on his back but turned into the cushion.
“Hey, Blaise?” I whisper. “Would it help if you slept on the bed?”
He glares at me over his shoulder, peeved at me.
