“Good morning, Sam.”
“Morning. Yeah, yeah, what do you have?”
He sighed and with that, I slumped in my chair. “It wasn’t a lab error, Sam, I’m sorry.”
I let his words sink in. “Okay, so then what’s next?”
“More tests, and I’d like to run some scans. You’re not feeling any symptoms and I’m glad, but with your type of myeloma, you know we need to be diligent, even obnoxious with our search.”
“Yeah, I know…I remember.”
“I’m sending in more tests to be done. It’s snowing pretty fiercely right now, but tomorrow, head to the hospital, so we can get the blood and scans done in one go.”
“Okay.” I swallowed.
“Sam, breathe. We’ve talked about the possibility, even the likelihood of this happening. But I’m optimistic. You have no symptoms. I have patients just like you who came out of remission and have stayed stable on medications for years. Let’s not lose faith.”
“Thank you, Dr. Marin.”
I disconnected the call and stared out the window in Lukas’s tea room. While he’d never had tea that I’d seen, I supposed with so many rooms, each needed a name. I replayed everything Dr. Marin said. Have faith. I hadn’t really ever had that when it came to my health.
Even after I’d had my bone marrow transplant, I hadn’t believed it would work. When it did, every second for the first year was me waiting for the next shoe to drop. And it did—my parents died. It had taken Natalie, Ben, Maggie, and the Abbadellis to stop me from sinking into a deep depression. As the years went by I almost had hope…faith. Maybe that waswhere I’d gone wrong. Perhaps I wasn’t supposed to think I’d be okay.
A knock on the door startled me. A beat later, Lukas walked in.
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah.” I pasted on a fake smile. “Just some things I have to do tomorrow. Don’t want to.” I chuckled, stood up, and slipped my phone into my pocket.
“Anything I can help with?”
How had this super grumpy, mean man, become so sweet? “I appreciate that, but I got it.”
“Okay.” I saw the concern in his gaze, but he didn’t push. “Winston made some hot chocolate for you.”
Genuine happiness took over my face. “Seriously?”
“Yes, come have it before it gets cold.”
I slinked by him, brushing my hand over his stomach as I did. “Then it’s chocolate milk, and I love both.”
He followed me into the living room, and for the rest of the day I focused as much as I could on Lukas, on us, and not tomorrow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lukas
I’d decidedI’d give Sam some space. He had errands to run, and instead of texting him at the end of the day asking how his day was I simply told him good night, which he returned with the like. After that, every day was good morning and good night. He didn’t ask to see me, and I didn’t invite him to my home. His mood had changed after the phone call the other day. I could have eavesdropped to find out but it had felt like an intrusion. Now I was wishing I had.
Anger bubbled at the surface and I wanted to get in my boat, head over to his place, and demand he tell me what was going on. Perhaps he wasn’t my eternal; maybe he wanted to break things off with me. Well, fine. He could do that; I didn’t care.
I stared at my mug with only a quarter of blood remaining and flung it against the wall. “Fuck!” I shouted.
“I’ll get that cleaned up,” one of my staff said as they scurried off.
I did care, and that irritated me too. I figured the best way to stop myself from nagging Sam, and keep my frustration at bay, was to take a trip somewhere.
The council had a few private islands strictly for vampires. You’d go, drink blood until you were drunk, bathe in it if you wanted, and decompress. It was a mecca for my kind. Perhaps that was what I needed.
