God, I can’t even imagine how much money he’s spent on me behind the scenes, what with the medical care I’ve gotten and haven’t seen a single bill for. Maybe the reason he hasn’t done anything about the shitty apartment is he’s already hemorrhaging money so badly because of me that he couldn’t.
I focus on his hair with laser accuracy, dividing out a perfect square and giving it the perfect twist, but my eyes blur with the tears pooling in them. He should leave me. He’ll be better off without me, and I’ll never have to face his grandmother, who’s bound to either see me for who she’s warned Blaise away from or see me for who I really am. Blaise will fight for me when she tries to tell him. I’ll ruin the only family connection he truly has, and it’ll be my fault.
I don’t notice that I’ve frozen up until Blaise runs his giant hand briskly up my leg as though to warm it, to breathe life back into me. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. I understand why you did what you did,” he assures me. “I’m not mad at you anymore. I just want to focus on the future. I’ve got money coming in from my trip. That should hit in a couple weeks. And then there’s a huge check that will roll in right before pre-season. Everything’s going to be . . . just . . . a lot once the season gets going, but we’ll get through that, and then we can start working on . . .”
The way his voice trails off has me alarmed. There’s something else stressing him out. The obvious answer is Donovan’s illness, but there’s more. I can tell. I want to give him a hug, but my hands are covered in cream right now, so I scratch his scalp in what I hope he reads as a reassuring gesture. “Hey, just tell me whatever it is.”
He tips enough to kiss my knee, just an absent show of affection, just what I need from him when I’m feeling raw already and scared of what he’s about to drop on me. “I’m, uhhh, I’m not a viable donor for Donovan.”
That does sting in a different way. I’ve spent the past week ingesting all the information I can about sickle cell anemia. I scheduled with a doctor and lucked out with an opening this week, but we’re stuck in a holding pattern until then. There’s been nothing to do but join mommy groups and read medical sites. The internet being what it is, I’ve been flooded with worst-case scenarios. I get now why Blaise has been so proactive about this. The cases in my family have mostly been mild and manageable, but some are not. If there’s any chance to get a viable donor, just in case, it would change his life. And it is only a single bone marrow donation. It’s very muchnota fun donation, and this certainly isn’t something I would be anywhere close to considering right now if not for this need, but . . .
But yeah, of course I want another baby. It sucks that my sister and I aren’t close anymore, but we were each other’s rocks growing up. I want that for Donovan.
“We’ll start trying for another. We . . .” I take a deep, ragged, squeaky breath and try to stave off the fuzzy feelings in my brain. “We should start now. It’s goingto—”
“No.”
“There’s nono. You already knew this was a possibility, and you said it yourself. Donovan’s going to need a little brother or sister to help him. He should have one anyway. Siblings are a good thing.”
“You can’t have another kid, Tilly.”
I nod even though he can’t see it. It’s a reminder to myself. “No, I can. I didn’t think I could get pregnant after the cancer, but I had Donovan. I still have my uterus, and even if my ovary isn’t up to the task anymore, I have eggs on ice. We can do IVF.”
“No, Tilly, youcan’thave another kid.”
I shouldn’t push, not when I feel the frustration radiating off of Blaise. The tension running through his body, vibrating against my legs and through his hair. But he can’t tell me what I can and can’t do. “I still have all the equipment. I can.”
All that tension bursts out of him. “You died on the fucking table, Tilly!”
It knocks the wind out of me. I knew this. Sort of. I was told this after coming out of anesthesia, when I was still out of it and only able to process it to the extent ofbut it was just a short death. I even told myself that since I didn’t hear anything else about it, it probably wasn’t nearly as dead as the last time it happened. No big deal. Everyone dies a couple times in their life.
I knew this. I just wasn’t ready for it to be used as ammo against me.
I can’t respond. Thankfully, I don’t need to. Donovan starts crying, and Blaise hops to his feet. I’m not sure which happens first, and it all happens so quickly I can’t help but think Blaise needed the minute away as much as I did and Donovan was a great excuse out. He’s only a few feet away from me in the tiny apartment, but the chore of tending toDonovan is enough to make it a wall between us. By the time he’s returning to my feet, he has Donovan in a fresh diaper, sucking away at a bottle. Blaise flops right down, and I’m ready to pretend this conversation didn’t happen, but he leans away to avoid me.
“You’re not getting pregnant again, Tilly. Not by me, and if I have my way, not by anyone else, either. I’m not letting you die like that. We’ll just have to find a surrogate. We’ll have the money. You just can’t fudge with my money this time, okay? Just promise me you won’t fudge with it again.”
I don’t know what he thinks I’ll do with his money, and it’s not like I asked him to cover my medical bills, but I just want to be done with this conversation. “I won’t. We’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work.”
I run the back of the comb down Blaise’s scalp to trace out a new section, and it’s enough to have Blaise relaxing back finally. And this moment? With Donovan in Blaise’s arms, staring up at him with all the love a baby has in his tiny, fierce heart, while Blaise trusts me to set his hair properly for the next few weeks of training?
This is all I want, honestly.
Blaise must feel the same way because he settles Donovan into his arm just right to free up a hand to grab his phone. He opens the camera and holds it out to get a selfie, but the second he’s got all three of us in frame and I see the short, thin, lackluster tufts my hair is drying into, I shy away.
“No,” Blaise says quickly, his voice brushing on distressed. “I want you like this. We’re all a mess, right? This one’s just for me.”
The thought of him having this private, intimate photo that, he’s right, I know he’ll never share with anyone when his hair’s all sectioned out and goofy and his chest looks soft fromthe hunched position he’s in, makes the last of my bristles settle. Just as he goes to snap it, I lean down to kiss his cheek, and he’s beaming in that picture.
We’re going tofigure this out.
Chapter 25
Blaise
“Not to sound gay or nothing, but you’re looking good.”
I snort out a laugh at Denny. That might have been the straightest thing he’s ever said to me, and I’m going to take the compliment for what it is. “I feel good. Man, if you told me when you were sticking that thong to my dick that this is where that was going to get me, I’d . . . well, I’d probably kick you out of my room for putting such a lame curse on me, but it turns out this was exactly what I needed.”
