“Are you sure?” she asked. Her voice dropped an octave. “I have lots more to offer.”
He gave her a nod. “Thank you, but no thank you.”
She swished away from him. He was still thinking about a certain dark-haired, gray-eyed woman who was probably well into her first meeting of the day. The flight attendant reminded him of the Paul Newman quote he’d read years before, the one in which Mr. Newman was asked how he managed to resist the women who cast themselves into his path, despite the fact he was married: “Why eat hamburger when you have steak waiting at home?”
The older guy sitting next to him waited a grand total of thirty seconds before he said, “Does that happen to you often?”
If he said “yeah,” he’d be an egotistical ass. If he said “no,” he’d be a liar. He smiled and shrugged one shoulder.
“I’d be happy to help her out,” the guy said.
Drew gave him another nod and went back to reading the book he’d stowed in his backpack before he went to Kendall’s house. He’d seen the economist who wrote it on The Daily Show. The pilot was flying over South Seattle, descending into Sea-Tac Airport. He’d be through the airport, in his car, and on his way in half an hour or less.
DREW WALKED THROUGH the front doors of Children’s Hospital with a couple of poorly-concealed Dick’s Drive-In bags an hour later. The nurses behind the desk on Nolan’s floor pretended like they couldn’t see what he was carrying.
“He’s in the room,” one of them called out. “He’s about to have a treatment.” She glanced at the bags and glanced up at him. “A few bites, okay? Don’t let him go crazy.”
“Okay.” He moved closer to the desk. “How about I bring enough for you ladies next time?”
“Sure,” she grinned. Her colleagues shook their heads, wagged fingers at him, and laughed. Even health care professionals couldn’t resist Dick’s food.
Nolan was sitting up at the rolling table in his room with an older-model computer tablet playing a game. He was so deep in concentration that he didn’t glance up when Drew walked into his room.
“Hey, buddy. How ya doing?”
Nolan’s face lit up. “Drew! You’re here!”
He put down the tablet and tried to scramble off the bed like any other ten-year-old boy, but his movements were slow. Drew knew Nolan would be feeling even worse in a couple of hours due to the chemo treatment he’d just been warned about. He crossed the room for a fist bump and wondered if he should help the kid back into his bed.
Nolan wouldn’t want Drew to treat him like he was sick.
“Of course I’m here. It’s Tuesday.” He put the Dick’s bags down on another rolling table. “Listen, dude, the nurses are onto me.”
Nolan’s brow furrowed. “Did they tell you I can’t have any of that?”
“Nawww. They told me to take it easy, though. I’ll tell you what.” He pulled the chair that sat next to the bed closer to Nolan. “You can have some, and I’ll put the rest into the mini-fridge for you later.”
“My mom can heat it up?”
“Sure.” Drew grabbed the bag with two chocolate shakes. “Let me get you set up here.” He spread a paper napkin over the rest of the rolling table, pulled one of the shakes out of the bag, and put a straw in the lid. He handed it to Nolan. He shook a few still-hot French fries out onto the napkin, unwrapped a cheeseburger with ketchup for him, and uncapped a small plastic cup of ketchup for the fries. He pulled a cheeseburger out of the bag for himself.
“Can I have more fries?”
“In a while. I have plenty, you know. And another cheeseburger, but we’ll save that one for later. What were you doing with the tablet over there?”
“My mom got me some games,” Nolan said. “I wanted the really bloody one, but she got me Fruit Ninjas and a tower game. They’re okay.”
“You can’t play Madden on a tablet, can you?”
“I don’t think so.” Nolan was stuffing French fries in his mouth. He already had ketchup on one cheek. He sat up on his knees and took another sip of chocolate shake. “Do you play Madden?”
“Sure. We play when we’re done with practice and sometimes on the weekends.”
Nolan fell silent while he chewed more of his cheeseburger. Drew polished off a cheeseburger and ate a few fries. He could hear his phone vibrating in his pocket; his teammates were most likely on their way over here for an hour or two and texting to see if he’d join them.
“So, N-man, got a question for you.”
Nolan grinned at him. For all of his protests about wanting more food, he’d taken a few bites of the burger and was having a tough time polishing off the fifteen or so fries Drew shook out of the little paper sack. He’d taken more sips of the shake. Maybe it was easier on his stomach.