One More Day (5 page)

"Good excuse to wrap our arms around the guy driving?"

"I see," he teased, glancing over to her.  "I'll tell Ryan to take you for a ride then.  It's his."

That was not what she'd expected at all, but some how it fit.  She could see him on the bike, in a set of matching leathers, with a full face helmet.  She could also very easily imagine how nice his ass would look leaned over that thing.  As her mind daydreamed - only for a split second - Colby watched, smiling bigger and bigger when she had nothing to say.

"Stop!" she demanded.

"You got the hots for him, huh?"

Mack just sighed, and pulled her seatbelt on.  "Not fucking my boss does not mean that he doesn't have a nice ass.  I can't say anything about yours since your pants look like you took a shit in them."

"They do not!" he assured her.

She nodded her head slowly, grinning.  "Yep.  That sag in the back, yeah.  Looks like you dumped a load.  Good thing you don't smell like it."

The teasing didn't slow between them for the few blocks until she got to her apartment.  When she told him the last turn, he slowed and looked at the buildings on either side.

"You fucking live in Cement City?" he asked.

"Only place I can afford." 

"Yeah.  That fucking sucks.  Look, I'll be here tomorrow at one thirty, if you're ok with that?  Gives us enough time to get into work early?"

"You're picking me up now, too?"

Colby sighed, and the smart ass slipped away.  "Mack, I used to live here.  I know how many people get shot.  Yeah, I'm giving you a ride.  So which one is yours?"

"Seventeen, bottom floor here on the left."  She pointed as he slowed to a stop. 

"Wanna give me your number, too, so if I'm late or something I can call?"

"Sure."

"Not flipping out about sharing personal information?"  He seemed honestly confused by that.

"Still not dating my co-workers," she teased.  "Besides, I know how to block your calls."

He smiled, the easy going man quickly returning.  "Yeah.  Tomorrow then.  Going to be even more crazy, you know."

"Makes me the money."  She waved as she closed the truck's door and jogged around the front.

He didn't leave until she'd not only unlocked her door but stepped inside and turned on a light.  For all of his bravado, Colby seemed to be a genuinely nice guy.  Ryan was beautiful, Colby was kind, and she enjoyed what she was doing.  Everything seemed perfect for just a few minutes, until she saw the note on the fridge.

Chemo, 8am, Monday morning!

Chapter 5

The weekend went by in a blur.  Colby managed to find countless ways to pick on her, always hoping to get her to blush.  Each time she gave as good as she got, he was more impressed.  By Sunday night, the two of them had grown comfortable with each other, and she was even thinking of him as her friend, not just her co-worker.

Ryan still hadn't shown off his tattoos.  Sunday he'd gone as far as pushing his sleeves up, but the purple surgical gloves obscured nearly as much as the shirt.  Of course, Mack had looked.  She'd been looking the whole time.  She couldn't help it.  The more he tried to hide it, the more she was dying to see exactly what his tattoos looked like.

Of course, he was always friendly, but in a timid and shy way.  Mack couldn't help but think that it made him even more appealing.  Men who looked like underwear models were supposed to act like Colby.  Not that Colby was unattractive, but he wasn't exactly her type.  He reminded her of a Harley rider with better tattoos.

That was the other thing she'd learned.  With a line of clients steaming into the shop, she saw good tattoos, bad tattoos, and really bad tattoos.  She saw piercings that were tasteful, and those that were good for nothing but shock value.  She couldn't understand why the size of a piercing would be something to brag about, but Colby let her watch while they adjusted a plug, helping the client stretch the holes in his ears one more size.

When he dropped her off Sunday night, she felt like she'd been living a dream for the last three days.  Ryan kept the coffee on all night, and both guys had taken to bringing her a cup, each of them trying to be the first.  She'd learned which tattoos were easier than others, and did her best to make sure that one of them didn't get all the tough jobs while the other got all the easy ones.  By the time things started to slow down that night, they were working like a well oiled team.  Mack just felt like she fit in.

But as soon as she walked in her apartment, the reminder on the fridge brought it all back.  Stage IIB cervical cancer.  Sixty percent survival rate.  Chemo.

Through the front window, she watched Colby drive away.  At least she had something to look forward to.  She actually liked her job.  She loved her art, and working at Sterling Ink gave her the excuse to use it.  Now all she had to do, was figure out how to explain why she was going to lose her hair.

The doctors said it would probably start falling out about ten days after her first treatment.  Mack could accept being bald.  It wasn't like she was vain.  Hell, it wasn't like she was pretty enough for it to even matter.  The only thing she was terrified of was losing the one thing that had finally gone right for her in the last year: her damned job.

So, with a new determination, she found her way into her bed, planning to sleep the night away and start the next stage of her life, but her body had other ideas.  All night she tossed and turned.  Every time she was close to sleep, some thought would creep in her head, making her mind whirl, and pull her back awake.  When the sky began to grow light, she just gave up.

Her appointment was at eight.  She'd been warned to eat something and drink plenty, so made herself a lavish breakfast: sausage, eggs, and orange juice.  Sitting at the tiny bar, the closest thing she had to a dining room, she scarfed back the food before taking a long hot shower and finding comfortable clothes.  A short sleeve shirt, to make accessing the veins in her arm easy, and a comfortable pair of baggy jeans would work for both her treatment and for work. 

Mack grabbed a zip up hoodie and headed through the door, refusing to pay attention to the sinking feeling of fear in her chest.  Chemo was pretty standard now.  She already had cancer, and this would help.  Survival for her stage of cervical cancer was pretty high, so long as she treated it, so that was the plan.  That's what she was doing.  She wasn't a victim, she was going to kick the shit out of this fucking cancer and show it that Mackenzie Lawrence was one mean damned bitch.  She worked in a tattoo shop after all.

The session was much easier than she'd expected.  Granted, the first attempt to start the IV hadn't gone well, but except for the bruise, it didn't hurt.  She'd been given anti-nausea medication and loaded up with two different types of drugs.  While the poison dripped into her veins, Mack finally managed to get a bit of sleep.

Things seemed to be going well.  The nurse woke her, removed the catheter, gave her a handful of brochures and phone numbers, and she was done.  Thirty minutes early even!  She felt great as she walked out of the clinic - a bit tired, but overall not as bad as she'd feared.  She found a bus stop, and made the nearly forty-five minute trip home. 

She kept telling herself that it was the lack of sleep making her feel so tired.  She couldn't think of anything except how comfortable a bed would be.  That's how she ended up laying on the couch and letting her eyes slip closed just an hour before Colby was supposed to pick her up for work.

A loud banging pulled her from a near comatose state.  Confused, Mack tried to remember where she was, and it came again, this time, a man was yelling her name to go with it.

"C'mon Mack, get your ass out of bed!" Colby yelled, thumping on the door.

In a daze, she staggered across the living room and pulled open the door.  "Fuck," she said, positive she looked like a mess.  "I sat on the couch for a second, and passed out."

He chuckled.  "Yeah, and didn't answer your fucking phone either.  Don't scare me like that, babe.  Go fix your hair, I'll tell Ryan I'm running late."

"Yeah," she grumbled, staggering into the other room.

It felt like she was trying to walk through water.  She found the bathroom, ran a brush through her hair, and debated makeup for a moment, before realizing that she was supposed to be at work in just ten minutes.  Instead, she just splashed water on her face and added a flick of mascara, enough so she didn't look like the walking dead. 

Staggering back into the living room, she found Colby had made himself at home easily.  One foot on the coffee table, he sat sprawled across the sofa.  He heard her come back in and glanced over.

"I can see how this thing would eat you.  It's fucking awesome."

"It's evil," she agreed, reaching beside him to grab her hoodie from the sofa.

His hand shot out and grabbed her forearm.  "What the fuck?" he growled, turning it so he could see the dark bruise.  "Someone hit you?"

"Doctor's appointment this morning.  They took blood and missed the first time."  Well, it was kinda true.  They had taken blood, and run a few tests.

"What the fuck time did you get up?" he asked.

Mack just shook her head.  "More like when did I go to sleep.  The fucking appointment was at eight.  I'm as good as I'm going to get. Lets go before Ryan finds a reason to fire me on my first week."

Colby nodded and peeled himself out of the couch.  Together, they made their way to his truck.  She had to work to keep up.  It felt like he was power walking, but she knew it was her own exhaustion.  On the drive there, she felt her eyes wanting to close, and struggled to fight it.

Mondays were relatively slow, but they still had a few clients from the weekend who needed a second session or those who'd been put off.  A steady trickle started around three o'clock, but oddly slowed down not long after the sun set.  It was during the first lull that she caught herself trying to doze off.

Her elbow was propped on the desk, with her chin in her hand, and her eyes began to slip closed.  She was nearly asleep before she knew it.  Her head began to lean to the side, causing her to jerk awake quickly.  Sucking in a breath, her heart racing, she checked to see if anyone had noticed.  Colby was at the back of the room messing with his equipment again, and Ryan was no where to be seen.

Rubbing her face, she pulled the large board with Colby's back section out, and decided drawing would keep her awake.  She'd made a few lines, and had almost found the zone, when she began to feel warm and bloated.  Very warm.  It had to be the hoodie, so she peeled out of it, draping it over her chair, and tried to start again.

One line, then the next, the vines tried to fight the mechanization of their oasis.  Mack carefully edged each leaf, adding a few thorns and simple flowers, as if the vegetation was mutating when it touched the geometrical lines.  She blocked out the way her body was feeling, and her mind finally start to cooperate.

The smell hit her only a second before the cup touched the desk.

Mack dropped the drawing board and shoved herself out of the chair, rushing down the hallway as her stomach revolted.  The coffee.  The smell of it.  She couldn't take it.  Unfortunately, her desk was on the complete opposite side of the building from the single bathroom, and with each step, her guts began to heave.

Spotting a trash can just inside Ryan's office, she shoved her face inside and puked like a national champion.  Over and over she heaved, nearly crying with the pain of her body's revolt.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, another at the base of her neck grabbing her hair, then heard Ryan's voice.  "Mack?"  She just shook her head and retched again.  "Fuck, grab her a cloth and a glass of water or something," he said.  She could only assume he was talking to Colby.

She puked yet again.

"Mack, you gonna be ok?"

She nodded, her eyes closed, on her knees praying to a plastic trashcan in the hall of her work place.  Her oh so sexy superman of a boss was holding her hair back.  With a deep sigh, she wiped the heel of her hand across her mouth and tried to sit up, wishing she was anywhere else.

"Hey, baby," Colby said, squatting beside her.  "You fucking pregnant or something?"

"What?" Ryan asked.

"She went to the doc this morning, man.  Now she's puking like a train."

"I'm not pregnant," Mack said, grabbing the damp cloth.  "Gotta get fucking laid before that happens, and I'm on a dry spell."

Colby chuckled at that.  "Well, sounds like you're feeling at least a bit better."

She shifted, intending to sit on the floor, but the guys were having none of that.  With Ryan on one side and Colby on the other, the helped her stagger to her feet and guided her over to the plush leather chair behind Ryan's desk.  She didn't even complain as she sank into it.  Holding the cool cloth to her face, she could hear the sound of plastic, and knew that one of them was taking out the trash she'd just filled with her breakfast.

"Leave the can," Ryan said.

"Yeah, man."

Mack wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and pretend like this had never happened.  "I'm sorry," she tried.  "The smell of the coffee just hit me wrong or something.  God, how embarrassing."

"Not a big deal," Ryan assured her.  "Happens all the time with piercings.  I'll get Colby to run you home."

"I'm fine," she insisted.  There's no way she was leaving sick on her first week of work.  Not at a job she liked!  "I probably just ate something bad."

His finger slowly traced the inside of her arm, careful not to press on the dark bruise there, and he glanced up at her.  "Right."

"They missed," she said.  "It was just a bad stick at the doctor this morning."

Carefully, he grabbed her other arm and pulled it away from her body, exposing the red spot and remnants of adhesive from the catheter.  "Right.  And that's where they put the snoopy band-aid?"

Biting her lips together, she fought to keep the sudden urge to cry at bay.  Instead, she tried to nod, but her eyes were fighting back.  With each bounce of her head, they warned her that she should stop, or they would take control, leaving her not only a pukey mess before the Super Hot Guy that she liked working for, but a blubbering pukey mess.

"I can't lose this job," she whispered.

"Not gonna happen," Ryan promised.  "What the fuck are you doing Mack?"

"I'm making it through one more day," she said softly.  "I'm fine, Ryan.  I got this."

"Bull shit," Colby said from the doorway.  "Man, I wasn't running late, she was passed out when I went to pick her up.  Didn't answer her phone, took fucking ten minutes of banging on the door before she woke up."

"Yeah," Ryan said.  "It's good.  Look, what ever it is, Mack, you're not losing your job, ok?"

She nodded, not trusting herself enough to speak.

"Baby," Colby said, taking a step into the room.

That's when the door chimed, letting them know a client had arrived.  Both men sighed, but when Mack tried to stand, Ryan grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back down.

"I got it," Colby said, waking to the front.

When he was out of earshot, Ryan pulled a chair over beside her.  "This have anything to do with last week?"

"I'm fine," she said again.

"Right, and your dad's still on the road, and you don't have anyone to turn to.  Seriously, you really want to keep what ever this is all to yourself?  Already said I'm not firing you.  You got the fucking Cadillac plan, Mack.  No one gets the Cadillac plan.  Now you have fucking marks from an IV in your arm, and your puking your guts out?"

"It's not contagious.  I'm fine.  I just might have some off days.  Ok?"

"K," he said, his tone never changing.  "Tuesday at lunch you looked like you'd lost your puppy.  Tuesday evening you managed to cry on my shoulder, and we both know it wasn't just that damned job.  You worked all week harder than the rest of us, and now you have catheter marks?  Being pregnant makes sense, but you say that isn't it."  Ryan caressed her arm gently.  "I won't make you tell me, but I'll listen.  I've still got two good shoulders."