Garrett(42)

“You fucking asshole,” I growl at him, and his eyes become wary. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

Giving a long, drawn-out sigh, Alex steps back from the door and waves me in. “You know about Olivia?”

I walk into his house, itching to punch him in the face. My hands fist up tight, and the need to do violence to something is almost driving every rational thought out of my head. “Yeah, I fucking know. I went over there to see her and found her heaving her guts up in the toilet.”

“Is she okay?” Alex asks with worry as I slump down on his couch.

“She’s sleeping now,” I tell him as I scrub my hands over my face. When I look up at Alex, I ask, “Why, man? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Guilt flashes hard in his eyes, and before he can answer, Sutton walks in and comes to stand beside Alex. “Because Olivia asked us not to.”

“Fuck that…you should have told me,” I say, leveling my gaze on Alex. Because I’m his best friend, and he is the one that should have told me. “You knew I was interested in her. I had a right to know.”

“Come on, Garrett,” Sutton says calmly. “You don’t have the best track record with women. We figured you’d be losing interest right about now. It’s your pattern.”

Hot, molten rage bubbles inside me. Surging up from the couch, I brush past both of them and jerk their front door open. Turning back, I pin my eyes on Sutton, and I know I must look pissed because she flinches. “Don’t you dare fucking stereotype or judge me. You don’t know a fucking thing about how I feel.”

I walk out of their house, slamming the door behind me. I haven’t made it down the front two steps when I hear the door opening back up and Alex is calling out, “Garrett…wait.”

I hear Sutton’s voice also call out to me. “I’m sorry, Garrett. I didn’t mean it like that.”

I don’t even bother turning around to look at them. “Yeah…well, fuck you both,” I call out over my shoulder. “Thanks for the friendship. Means a lot.”

Practically jerking my car door off its hinges, I throw myself into the front seat and peel out of their driveway. My phone starts ringing, so I fish it out of my pocket and answer, “Samuelson.”

“Yeah…this is Dr. Velia. I’m a friend of Mark Godson’s. He said you had some questions for me.”

Taking a deep breath, I start to tell him what I know and hope that he can enlighten me about what I’m facing.





Chapter 12


Olivia


“You have about another hour to go,” the nurse says as she makes an adjustment to the IV bag hanging above me. “Need another warm blanket?”

I shake my head at her with a smile. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“Nausea okay?” she asks.

“Much better than yesterday,” I tell her, and Sutton reaches over and grabs my hand for a squeeze.

“Okay…just holler if you need anything,” the nurse says with a smile and a comforting pat on my leg. “I’ll check back in a little bit.”

“I can’t believe how sick you got yesterday,” Sutton says. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Oh, stop it,” I grumble at her. “I didn’t want anyone there watching me vomit.”

Stevie had taken me to yesterday’s chemo treatment. It was a bit longer than today’s, as I got both Rituxin and bendamustine, and it took almost five hours for those concoctions to drip into my veins. Today’s treatment is just the bendamustine. It’s not going to take as long, but the pisser is that this is the drug that made me sick yesterday. Dr. Yoffman didn’t seem too worried about it, and just said that some people can get really sick. He did increase my antinausea meds, and they even gave me an infusion of them via IV before they started the treatment.

Sutton is on chemo duty today, and she brought a ton of magazines for us to read. Instead, they’ve lain untouched because I ended up dozing for a bit. I’m still wiped out from all the toilet hugging I did yesterday.

I still can’t believe Garrett came over. I so didn’t want him to see that. I so didn’t want him to even know I had cancer. I thought this fling was over because it definitely exceeded his timetable.

When he had texted me yesterday morning, I didn’t respond because the nurse was at that very moment sticking a needle in my vein. I didn’t respond later, once I had nothing better to do than listen to Stevie gossip, because I didn’t want to encourage him. I knew I’d be out of commission for a few days, and the farther Garrett stayed away, the better.