Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (28 page)

“Well,” he says, “my name is Dr. Jones.
We’re going to get you in for some tests to see why this happened, but if
you’re feeling up to it, I have some questions.”

“Okay,” I agree, trying to keep my eyes
open. I’ve never felt this exhausted in my life.

“Do you have a history of seizures?”

“No,” I answer.

“Does anyone in your family have
epilepsy?”

“No.”

“Do you have any numbness, tingling in
your body right now?”

“My left side,” I tell him, “and both my
legs.”

“All right,” he says. “I don’t think you
had a stroke, your pupils are round and reactive, but we should know more once
we’ve gotten you in for an MRI. For now, you should just get some rest, all
right? The remote next to your bed has a red button on it; just press that if
you need a nurse to come in and give you a hand with anything. Otherwise, just
lie back and close your eyes. It looks like you’ve had a pretty rough day.”

“John…” I start.

“Your friend?” the doctor asks.

I nod.

“He had to go back to the office,” the
doctor answers, “but he said he’d be back later to check on you. Why don’t you
just get some rest?”

I’m scared and embarrassed, but I’m also
exhausted. Even the suggestion of getting rest is enough to convince me to
close my eyes.

When I wake up again, the doctor is
standing next to the bed, saying they’re ready to get me in for an MRI.

They do their tests and get me back to my
room where John is waiting for me, hunched forward in his seat, his hands
clasped supporting his chin.

“Grace,” he says as I’m wheeled back into
place, “are you all right?”

“I have no idea,” I tell him. “What
happened? I mean, I know I had a seizure, but…”

“I don’t know,” he says. “One minute you
were sitting there talking to me and the next, you were on the floor
convulsing.”

I’m not entirely sure why those words make
me cry.

“You’re going to be all right,” John
soothes. “You can have as much time as you need. Just focus on getting better,
all right?”

I would argue with him, but I’m still too
tired to make much of a showing.

“If we don’t take risks,” I tell him,
“we’re not going to survive.”

He just smiles at me. “Why don’t you just
get some rest? We’re not going to make a move on anything for a while anyway,
so you just focus on getting better so you can be back in my office,
monopolizing my lunch hour soon, okay?”

My eyes start to close on their own, but
I’m still muttering, “…got to get out there… people should know who we are…”

The last sound I hear before falling
asleep again is John’s laugh.

*
       
*
       
*

I don’t know what time it is, but it’s got
to be the next morning when I wake up, again with Dr. Jones standing next to my
bed. This time, though, he brought a colleague: a tall, tan, almost statuesque
man with a lab coat, covering what I’m imagining to be a toned upper body.

“Hey, I’m sorry to wake you,” Dr. Jones
says. “This is Dr. Churchill.”

“No relation,” the other doctor says. I’m
assuming it’s a reference to the British Prime Minister. “Grace, I’ve looked at
your slides, and we’ve found an
oligodendroglioma
,
stage two.”

I’m expecting him to say more, but it
looks like he’s waiting for my reaction.

“You’re going to have to give me a little
more than that, doc,” I answer, my throat sore. “I don’t think I can pronounce
that, much less have any idea what that is.”

The doctor smirks, his hazel eyes intent
on mine. “I’m surprised that I could,” he says. “Basically, it’s a small tumor
in your brain. You’ve probably had it for years, as
oligodendrogliomas
are particularly slow-growing.”

“A brain tumor?” I ask. “You seem pretty
calm about that. What’s the plan? Someone goes in and digs it out or what?”

“Unfortunately, due to its location,
surgery isn’t a viable option,” he says. “That said, I think we’ll be able to
combat this with a mild course of oral chemotherapy.”

I think about those words for a minute.

“A
mild
course of chemotherapy?” I ask. “If I’m not mistaken, isn’t chemotherapy poison
that’s just as likely to kill healthy cells as it is to kill cancer cells?”

“Chemo is serious stuff,” he says.
“There’s no way around that, but I think that we can approach this with a
five-day regimen, once a month. Like I said,
oligodendroglioma
is particularly slow-growing.”

“So the seizure shouldn’t worry me?” I
ask. “That’s a relief. I was thinking that I had a major medical event because
of something in my brain that shouldn’t be there.”

Dr. Churchill sighs and runs his hand
through his short, black hair. “I know this is a lot to take in,” he says.

“How long do I have?” I ask. “I mean,
assuming that the chemo doesn’t wipe it out entirely.”

“We’ve found that patients in your stage
of
oligodendroglioma
have a very good shot of making
it past ten years,” he answers.

“Oh, good. I was thinking this might
significantly shorten my lifespan, but hey, I wasn’t planning on living past
the next decade, anyway.”

“It’s difficult to say precisely what’s
going to happen in your specific case,” Dr. Churchill says. “Every case is
different. I’ve seen people live out full lives with this diagnosis and I’ve
seen people who have had their lives considerably shortened-”

“So if you can’t tell me anything, why are
you still talking?” I snap.

Yeah, it was a little rude, but let’s be
fair: this guy just told me that I might not be alive in ten years. I get that
it’s not his fault, but that doesn’t make this any easier to swallow.

“We’d like to go ahead and get you started
on your first course of chemotherapy right away,” he says. “That way, we’re on
top of it and it’ll be that much sooner before we can get a better idea which
direction this is going to go.”

“Five days?” I ask. “I have to get back to
work. I can’t sit here for the next five days while you pump toxic shit into my
veins. I have things to do.”

“I really do think
it’s
best that we get on top of this as soon as we can,” he says. “That said, if
you’d like to schedule a time in the coming days that would be better, like I
said, this is a slow-growing tumor,
so
a few days
shouldn’t make that great a difference.”

“You’re really inspiring that confidence,”
I tell him. “The problem is that I don’t really think a few days is going to be
enough of a wait. Why don’t we just all go back to our lives, you can give me a
prescription for something that’s going to prevent any more seizures, and we
can call that good?”

“I know you’re scared,” he says, “but the
sooner we start your treatment, the sooner we’ll have some clearer answers. And
I know that I’ve said a few times that this is a slow-growing tumor, but it’s
already progressed far enough that you’re having seizures-”

“Seizure,” I interrupt, “singular. What
you’re telling me is that I have a brain tumor, that it’s in a place where you
can’t just go and dig it out, and that even with chemotherapy, you’re not sure
how much time I may or may not have left on this planet, so if it’s all the
same to you, I think I’ll-”

“It’s your choice whether or not you
consent to treatment,” Dr. Churchill says. “This is the best course, in my
medical opinion. If we sit back and do nothing, your
oligodendroglioma
is going to continue to grow unabated and yes, I’m going to prescribe you
something to help prevent seizures, but that’s not going to treat the
underlying cause. So, it’s up to you.”

“You know, you’re kind of sexy when you’re
frustrated,” I tell him.

It’s a deflection, sure, but I don’t feel
the slightest bit comfortable making this decision right now. I don’t know if I
ever will be, but right now, I want to make him feel just as uncomfortable as I
feel.

The problem is, that’s not really possible
given the current situation.

“Thanks?” he says, looking to his colleague
who, for some reason, hasn’t yet left the room. “But I think we should talk
about your treatment.”

“You said oral chemotherapy, right?” I
ask.

“That’s right,” he answers. “It comes in a
capsule that you can take at home.”

“So, it’s less effective than the
needle-in-the-arm stuff?” I ask.

“Not necessarily,” he answers.

“I thought people came to the hospital
when they were taking chemo,” I retort. “Tell me it’s not my particularly rosy
demeanor that’s made you decide to send me home instead.”

He smiles with a mouth full of straight,
white teeth, saying, “That’s not it at all. I just think that this is the
course that would be best in this situation.”

“Then why do other people come in when
they get chemo treatment?” I ask.

“There are a few reasons,” he says. “First
and foremost, when IVs are involved, it’s best to have as close to a sterile
environment as possible. Outside of a sterile or mostly sterile environment,
all kinds of nasty things can enter the system through the IV site and
especially with something like chemo that has a profound impact on the white
blood cell count, that’s not a risk that’s really worth taking.”

“But oral chemotherapy doesn’t have that
problem?” I ask. “I mean, I know there’d be no injection site or whatever, but
the white blood cell count — that wouldn’t be knocked-”

“You’ll still want to be careful,” he
interrupts. “Stay away from people who are sick, have recently been sick, or
are at risk of getting sick — you know, like parents with sick kids and that
sort of thing. There are some other things that you’ll want to know before we
send you home, but first, I’d like to answer any other questions you may have.”

“Is the treatment any better than the
disease?” I ask.

“We’ve found that chemotherapy can be very
effective for people with
oligodendroglioma
,” he
answers.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I tell
him.

“Chemo’s not without its risks,” he says.
“There are side effects, and you’ll need to contact me when or if they happen
to you. That said, I’m confident in this course of treatment.”

“Is the treatment any better than the
disease?” I ask again.

“With any treatment, it’s important to
weigh the risks and the benefits,” he says. “In your case, I feel confident in
this course.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that a few times,” I
scoff. “You still haven’t answered my-”

“It’s not going to
feel
better,” he says. “Most people on chemo, oral or intravenous,
have serious side-effects, many of which are not very pleasant.”

We go on like that for a while. He tries
to convince me that chemo’s the way to go and I try to avoid the reality that
I’ve got this thing growing in my brain that may or may not kill me before I
have a chance to settle down and maybe squeeze out a kid or two.

I’m only twenty-four years old.

This can’t be happening.

Chapter
Two

Being the Entertainment

Jace

I knew when I went into medicine that it
wasn’t going to be an easy thing. That’s not why I did it. I’m not a doctor
because I have some delusion of always being able to save the day, and I didn’t
go into oncology because it’s an easy specialty to deal with.

Still, it never gets easy telling someone
they have cancer.

“Hey,” I call to Melissa, my girlfriend,
“I’m going to be out for a couple of hours.”

“All right,” she calls back from the other
room.

Melissa: she’s been with me since before I
graduated med school. We both knew that my life wouldn’t slow down after
graduation, but we only knew that intellectually.

The reality has been a bit harder on our
relationship than either of us had expected.

It was her idea for me to start telling
her that I’m “going out,” rather than “I’m going to work.” In reality, I don’t
know if it’s made things any better between us, or if it’s actually changed
anything at all.

I’m not headed to the hospital, though.

I didn’t get a page or a phone call. I’m not
scheduled to be in, and I’m not on call.

Where I’m going, well, it’s just part of
the reality of a recent med-school graduate in the second decade of the new
millennium in America.

“Recent med-school graduate” these days
means anyone who’s still looking at six figures in student loan debt. At the
rate I’m going, I’m going to be a recent grad for at least another decade.

I’m wearing my finest set of clothes, and
I’m just hoping that I don’t get recognized by anyone while I’m out on the
town. What I’m doing is a risk in a number of ways, and I’d really rather avoid
an awkward situation if at all possible.

“When do you think you’re going to be
home?” Melissa asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I don’t think
it’ll be any later than midnight, though.”

“All right,” she says. “Just remember the
rules.”

Ah, the rules. I couldn’t forget them.

Where I’m going, what I’m doing tonight…it
wasn’t my idea and it took Melissa a while to open me up to it as a
possibility.

You hear things all the time about people
who do what I do for my second job and none of them were things that I saw as
being compatible with my station as a doctor or as a man in a committed
relationship.

Unfortunately, with the way the interest
is accruing on those student loans, I had to find something to fill in the
gaps.

“A bit heavy on the cologne, don’t you
think?” Melissa asks. The fact that she’s asking from the other room is enough
for me to wash my wrists and my neck until I can barely smell the stuff.

I dry myself and button my shirt back up before
I take one more look in the mirror.

Sure, Melissa may have talked me into
doing this initially, but the fact remains that I’ve come to love what I do. If
nothing else, it’s a great way to disconnect from my day job.

I walk out into the living room, but I
don’t bother asking Melissa how I look. I just give her a kiss on the forehead
and tell her that I’ll be back before too long.

I’m an escort and I’m on my way to pick up
my date.

I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve
never had sex for money. That’s not what I do; I’m simply good arm candy for
single women who don’t want to go out alone.

I don’t kiss and physical contact even on
the level of holding hands or putting my arm around my client is a rarity.
That’s not to say that I’ve never been propositioned by a client, but I’m
content in my relationship.

All right, maybe it’s been a while since
I’ve been able to say that I’ve been “happy” in my relationship with Melissa,
but I haven’t felt the need yet to risk everything—and I do mean everything—by
sleeping with a client.

Melissa is a beautiful woman and, what’s
more, she’s intelligent. Even if she didn’t have the long, flowing blonde hair,
the big blue eyes,
the
large—if fake—breasts, and the
tight butt, I still would have fallen in love with her mind.

The rest is just a perk: a very, very nice
perk.

She purses her lips as she looks down at
her crossword, completely ignoring my lingering presence.

This is how it goes before I head out for
a job.

The service sometimes springs for a town
car, but it looks like I’m stuck in a cab tonight.

I don’t have fancy tastes or anything like
that; the problem is that the kind of transportation arranged is indicative of
a client’s pocketbook. Town cars are generally somewhere in the middle of the
road. Limousines, while one might think they’d only be requested by a wealthy
client, are generally reserved for recently-eighteen-year-old girls looking for
someone to take them to prom, and those ones never pay very well.

The best of all possible worlds is when a
client asks that I show up driving some exotic sports car, although I’ve only
ever gotten that particular call a couple of times in the year that I’ve been
doing this. Those are the clients with the deep pockets.

Getting a call to pick someone up in a
cab…I’m not expecting a big tip at the end of the night.

I head downstairs and wait for my cab.

The rules for tonight, just like any other
night on the job, are simple.

First, never am I to give any kind of
physical contact other than incidental touching of the hands. Putting my arm
around someone or allowing them to put their arm around me is extra, and that’s
as far as it can ever go.

Second, Melissa insists that I don’t have
more than two cocktails on any given night while out on the job. I don’t know
if she thinks people want to get me drunk to see what happens or what, but I’ve
never been in a situation with body shots or beer bongs.

Not since college, anyway.

Third, if we have plans and I get a call,
I don’t take the job. This one has never really been an issue, though, as we
never seem to have plans anymore.

Finally, at the end of the night, it’s my
sworn duty not to tell her anything about what happened on the date — and I
mean absolutely nothing.

She doesn’t want to hear where we went or
who I was with, she doesn’t want to know if things went well or went poorly.
Despite this whole thing being her idea, she’s a little squeamish with the
reality of it.

I tried to tell her once a while back that
the most anyone’s ever asked me to do is to escort them by the arm — that was a
prom thing — but that itself was too much information for her.

To be honest, I don’t know why Melissa
suggested that I do this if she feels the way she does about it, but the extra
money it’s bringing in has been enough to keep me going out when I get the
call.

The cab pulls up and the driver calls my
last name out the window.

“Yeah,” I answer and get in the back.

I pull out the card on which I wrote the
address and read it off to the driver.

He starts the meter and we’re on our way.

Tonight is supposed to be a low-key event.
What Jenny, my agency contact — that’s not really her title, I just like
referring to her like that — told me about the evening was that a young woman
needed someone to escort her to “some minor charity event, or an opera
performance or something.”

Jenny’s not that great with details.

When we pull up to the building, I’m a bit
surprised that my client asked that I show up in a cab. I’ve never been inside,
but I’ve lived in the city long enough to know this place is on the upper end
of things.

I get out and ask the driver to wait.

He answers with the obligatory,
“Whatever,” and I make my way to the door.

The doorman stops me and asks where I’m
going.

I pull the card back out of my pocket and
read off the name. “I’m here to pick up a Miss Miller,” I answer and he directs
me to the elevator.

“You’ll find her on floor fifteen,
apartment 105,” the doorman says as I’m walking away.

I wonder if my client’s just slumming it
with the cab. It’s happened before, but if that’s the case, I really should
have dressed down a little.

Jenny really needs to get better with
specifics.

I get up to the apartment and pop a mint
in my mouth before I knock on the door.

“Just a minute!” the muffled voice from
inside the apartment calls back.

And so I wait.

I wait for about five minutes before the
door opens, but as soon as it has, I’m wishing I was somewhere else.

The woman standing in front of me is a few
inches shorter than me, probably 5’7” or 5’8”, with long, red hair in a loose
up-do, emerald eyes, and pouty lips. She’s in a chic, but understated and
tight-fitting black dress, just revealing enough to titillate the senses
without being risqué, but none of that bothers me.

What bothers me is that she’s been a
patient of mine for a few weeks now.

“Dr. Churchill?”

“Grace?” I respond.

“Oh, this is just great,” she says and
throws her arms up before turning and retreating back into the apartment.

I’m just standing in the doorway, not sure
whether I should follow her in or make a mad dash for the elevator.

“You may as well come in,” she says, so I
do.

The apartment is spacious and well
appointed. Her chart says that she’s twenty-four.

“So, what’s up?” she asks.

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

“I’ve got a date coming,” she says. “If
you found an aneurism or something, would you mind just letting me know and
getting out of here? I haven’t been out once since my last round of chemo, and
I was really looking forward to trying out this wig. It looks real, doesn’t it?
Here, feel,” she says and turns her head.

I reach out and awkwardly feel her new
hair, saying, “You know, I honestly wouldn’t have even known that it wasn’t
yours.”

“You’re just saying that,” she says. “My
hair wasn’t this long when you were treating me, and I’m not a redhead.”

“Well, people do dye their hair,” I start.

“Yeah, but their hair doesn’t usually grow
six inches in a couple of weeks,” she says. “So, hurry up. Am I dying, or did
you screw up the diagnosis and I actually just had some bad sushi, or what?”

“It would have to be pretty bad sushi to
cause a seizure,” I laugh, but my attempt at humor isn’t appreciated.

“So, I’m dying,” she says. “That’s all
right. I kind of figured that out when you started talking about ten-year
survival rates. Well, thanks for stopping by to tell me, but unless there’s a
solid chance I’m going to keel over at dinner, I think it’s probably for the
best that you go.”

So, the good news is that she doesn’t
realize that I’m her escort, but I’m in a bit of a dilemma here. I can either
come up with some fake medical information to give her and then quickly show
myself out, or I can be honest about why I’m here.

For the sake of my job—the day job, that
is—it’s probably for the best that I try to find a third option, but I’ve got
nothing.

“Why don’t I wait with you?” I ask.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “He
shouldn’t be long, and I’d really rather not have him walking in here to find
my oncologist. Although,” she continues, “you are quite the looker, and a
doctor, no less. Maybe you waiting here with me is just the kind of thing I
could use to make my guy jealous. Yeah,” she decides finally, “have a seat.”

I chuckle and sit down. The laugh isn’t so
much because I’m confused as it is that I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m a
little scared of what’s going to happen here.

The longer I stay, the more likely it’s
going to be that she figures out what’s going on. At the same time, though, I’m
not doing anything illegal and I really don’t have any other way to explain my
presence here.

“What time is he supposed to pick you up?”
I ask, buying myself a little more time to think.

“Any minute now,” she answers. “So, why
are you here?”

I guess I didn’t really buy myself that
much time at all.

“I was just in the neighborhood,” I tell
her. “I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” she says, but stops. “How do
you know where I live? I get that you’ve got that information at the hospital
or whatever, but it’s kind of weird that you’d remember it.”

“I didn’t,” I tell her. “I wrote it down.”

With that, I hand her the appointment card
Jenny gave me when I went in for my paycheck this afternoon.

“Your name is Jace,” she says. “I didn’t
know that.”

“Notice anything else?” I ask, hoping
it’ll click for her that the name of the escort the service set her up with is
on the front of the card, but she just shrugs and hands the card back.