Pretty Pink Ribbons (34 page)

“Levi, listen.” A deep sigh passes through the phone and I plop down in a chair, my head landing in my hand. “I know how important it is for you to be there with Laney, but this is important too. This is
our dream,
Levi. Two days . . . we’ll be gone
two
days. Can’t Luke or Mia go just this once?”

Sitting up, I run a hand along the back of my neck as my eyes fall on a pile of envelopes stacked on the table. I know it’s none of my damn business, but I slide them toward me and pull out the papers inside, one by one. Doctor bill . . . doctor bill . . . overdue utility bill . . . doctor bill . . . credit card bill.

“Fuck,” I growl, slamming my hand down on the table.

“Jesus Christ, bro. If it’s that big of a deal, I’ll call them back and—”

“No,” I bark into the phone. “It’s not that. Listen, can I call you right back?”

“Yeah, sure,” Mason sighs then hangs up. I immediately pull up the calculator on my phone and start adding up what Laney owes. As the number gets higher, so does my blood pressure, and by the time I’m done, I’m absolutely fuming.

“
Twelve thousand dollars,
” I murmur, and these are only the bills sitting in front of me. I can’t imagine what others she might have floating around that I haven’t seen yet. My heart clenches in my chest at the thought of Laney struggling financially. She’s already been through so much, and on top of it she has to worry about these damn bills.

I toss the envelopes back on the table and tilt my head up to the ceiling, thinking about how I can help without pissing her off. It irritates me to no end that she didn’t tell me about this, but I can’t say I’m surprised—Laney is one of the most stubborn people I know.

I prop my elbows on the table and rub my thumbs over my eyes, frustration boiling up inside of me. My mind starts racing with all of the small things that I’ve noticed but stupidly ignored over the past couple of months. Like how she’d sometimes walk to and from work if the weather was nice. I never thought twice about it then, but now it makes me wonder if it was because she didn’t have enough money for gas. And all the times she would only eat half of her lunch at work and take the other half home for dinner. She’d said she wasn’t hungry, but now I’m not so sure.

“Shit,” I hiss.

“Levi?” Her soft voice startles me, and I look up to see Laney’s eyes flitting nervously across my face before drifting to the stack of bills scattered in front of me. “Were you going through my stuff?” she asks, furrowing her brow.

“What the fuck is this, Laney?” I snap, instantly regretting my harsh words. But this is important, damn it. She is
mine,
and she shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not she can afford to pay her bills.

“Those, Levi, are
my
bills. What the hell are you doing going through them?” She strides across the kitchen and snatches the envelopes off the table.

“Well shit, Lane. If you didn’t want me to look at them, you shouldn’t have just left them lying around. And frankly, I’m glad I looked at them.” She rolls her eyes and turns away from me, ticking me off even more. “How much debt are you in, Laney? Is this it, or is there more?” I ask, knowing I’m probably going to piss her off more than she already is.

She spins around, her mouth gaping wide, and she shoves a finger into my chest. “That is none of your damn business,” she growls.

“It is my business.
You’re
my business.” My phone buzzes on the table, but I ignore it. “You have almost twelve thousand dollars of bills, just in that stack,” I say, flicking the envelopes in her hand.

“I’m aware,” she grounds out, her teeth gritted together. Her bottom lip trembles and she steps away from me. The anger and annoyance on her face are quickly replaced by resignation and she looks down. Her shoulders rise and fall several times before she looks back up, and when those gorgeous hazel eyes find mine, they’re clouded in defeat and brimming with tears. “You don’t think I don’t know how much money I owe?” Her voice wavers, cracking several times, but my brave girl manages to hold herself together. Any ounce of anger I felt completely dissipates.

I step toward her but she shakes her head and shuffles backward, putting up her hand. I glance down at her hand then back at her face, and it slices me open to see her like this and know that I’m causing her pain. “You’re right,” she chokes out, tears dripping down her face. “This isn’t it. This is only about half.” She bats angrily at the tears. “But what the hell am I supposed to do, Levi?” she yells. “I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I have to see my doctors, and I have to have chemotherapy—”

“You should have told me,” I interrupt as softly as possible, wanting to calm her down. “You should have come to me.” I take another step toward her and pull the stack of envelopes from her hand, tossing them on the table. “I love you, Lane, and I don’t want you to have to worry about anything except beating this cancer.” A harsh cry rips from her throat and she buries her face in her hands. My arms wrap around her seconds before her body goes slack. “I don’t want you to have to worry about money or food or gas or doctor bills or the electricity. Christ, Laney . . . I want you to come to me.” I squeeze her tighter, which causes her body to shake harder than it already is. “I want to help you. You aren’t in this alone anymore—not any of it.”

“I just don’t want to burden you,” she sobs, hiccupping back tears as she pulls away from my chest. Her face is red, her eyes are puffy and her nose is clogged, but she still looks so damn cute. “I don’t want you to feel like this is your responsibility—”

I stop her words by placing a finger against her mouth. “First, I don’t feel burdened. Second, you are my responsibility; I just need to get you to see that. I want to take care of you, Lane.” She offers me a wobbly smile, making me chuckle. “I’m in this, for better or worse. I want forever with you, Laney, and that forever started the second you drove back into town.”

I run a hand up the side of her face and cup her cheek while planting a gentle kiss to her swollen pink lips. She sighs, her body relaxing into me, and I’m about to sigh with relief when she takes a deep breath, causing her to break out into yet another coughing fit. She braces one hand on my shoulder, the other covering her mouth. Her lungs wheeze, and after several seconds I become alarmed because she isn’t stopping. Pulling out a chair, I nudge her into it and grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She takes several small sips but continues to choke and sputter. “Laney,” I ask, trying to keep from panicking. “What can I do? Are you okay?” She nods her head with her hand still to her mouth and finally the coughing subsides.

“I’m fine,” she squeaks, her voice raw.

“You’re not fine.” Squatting down in front of her so we’re eye to eye, I grip her hand in mine. “You need to call Dr. Hopkins. Didn’t you tell me that she wanted to know if you started getting sick?”

“That was when my blood counts had dropped, but they’re a little better now. It’s just a cold, Levi. I’ll be fine,” she says, dismissing me.

“A cold doesn’t last this long. Jesus, Laney, you’ve been coughing for weeks and you don’t have any other symptoms. This isn’t normal. We’re calling Dr. Hopkins.” Standing up, I reach for my phone, but she snatches it off the table before I can get to it.

“No. I promise, I’m fine.” My phone buzzes again while she’s holding it, and she looks down and then holds it out to me. “It’s Mason.”

“Promise me you’ll mention it to the doctor tomorrow,” I say, disregarding my phone because this is much more important. Laney drops her hand back in her lap when she realizes I’m not answering the call.

“I promise,” she sighs emphatically, rolling her eyes. “I promise I’ll tell her about the cough.”

“Thank you.” My phone buzzes again and she shoves it at my chest then stalks out of the room, coughing the entire way. I answer the phone.

“I can’t do it, Mason. I can’t go.”

“You have to go. This isn’t an option, Levi.” I know my brother, and I can practically hear him pacing around his living room. “Look, I get it. You want to be here with her. But this is important, Levi, and I don’t want us to lose out on this opportunity.”

“I know. I don’t want us to lose out on it either, but she’s sick, Mase, and I’m not just talking about the cancer. She’s got this cough and it’s getting worse, and I need to be here with her to make sure she talks to the doctor.”

“She’s a grown woman, Levi; I’m sure she can talk to the doctor on her own. And I know that Luke would never let her go by herself. Fucking hell, Levi,” Mason grunts, his irritation obvious. “This is important. It’s important to me, and it sure as hell is important to our business. You have to go so just make it work,” he says with finality.

I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but the asshole hangs up on me. I toss my phone on the table.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
Spinning around, I come face to face with Laney.

“What did Mason want?” She yawns and tucks herself into my chest, wrapping me in her arms.

“He wants me to go to Nashville tomorrow to sign paperwork for the investors.”

“What? That’s amazing, Levi. I’m so happy for you guys!” Her eyes glitter with joy and it’s like a punch to the gut because I haven’t seen her smile like this in days. I’m realizing now how much I’ve missed it.

“I’m not going.” Untangling her arms from around my back, I walk down the hall and into the bathroom. Seconds later, she comes barging in on me with my sweats around my thighs and my dick hanging out. She doesn’t seem at all fazed that I’m standing here taking a piss, and the sassy little vibes she’s putting off with her hands on her hips and her chin jutted out is turning me the fuck on.

“What do you mean you’re not going? You have to go.” Her mouth comes together in the perfect pout, and I fight the urge to bite one of her lips and see just how sassy she can be. I pull my pants back up, wash my hands and push past her on my way out of the bathroom.

She follows me into the bedroom, which is exactly where I want her. I’m declaring our little argument the first fight since we’ve reunited, and I’m in need of some serious make-up sex. I shove my pants back down my thighs and Laney watches them fall to the floor. Then she looks back at me, trying to appear unaffected.

“I don’t have to go. We can reschedule.” I stalk toward her.

“What? No!” she says, shaking her head furiously. I grab onto the bottom of her shirt and tug it over her head. She looks down at her naked chest in confusion and then back up at me. “You have to go, Levi. You guys worked really hard for this. You
deserve
this.” She yawns, and as she takes in the deep breath, I hear a faint wheeze come from her mouth. Laney coughs once and clears her throat several times before speaking again. “Why wouldn’t you go?”

“Because I need to be with
you.
I
want
to be with you.” Bending down, I scoop her up into my arms and carry her over to the bed. As soon as I set her down, she scoots back and buries herself under the covers and I curl up next to her.

“You need to go,” she mumbles, resting her head on my chest. “I’ll get Luke or Mia to go with me to my treatment.” I smile to myself because she didn’t mention Benny. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy. But if Laney wasn’t with me, I could see her with someone like him.

“I don’t know, Laney—” She rises from my chest and shuts me up with a kiss.

“It isn’t up for discussion. I will be fine, and I’ll be here when you get back.” She falls back on my chest and I grunt. “Speaking of that, how long will you be gone?”

“I would leave tomorrow and come back on Sunday. We’re supposed to approve a building site they selected.” She nods, her smooth head rubbing against my chest. I’m so used to her bald head that sometimes I completely forget she doesn’t have hair . . . or eyebrows or eyelashes, for that matter. With the cold weather, she’s had to start wearing hats. I tried to take her to get a wig, but she didn’t like the way they felt on her head and I didn’t care either way, so she decided to go without.

My fingers trace a loop around the top of her head, over and over, and within seconds, a faint snore drifts through the air.
So much for the make-up sex.
She’s been so tired lately—more so than usual—and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of the chemotherapy or the cold. She slept a full ten hours last night, and it’s not even nine o’clock in the morning and she’s already back asleep. The small wheeze that I heard earlier starts up again each time she inhales and I prop myself up higher on the bed, bringing her with me.

Laney’s breast is squished against my side and her silky smooth legs are tangled with mine. It feels so fucking perfect, except that my mind starts to wonder what the hell I’d ever do if she wasn’t here. I’ve gotten fairly good at shutting off those thoughts because I know they won’t get us anywhere. She’ll get past this. Laney will survive, and when she does, I’m going to put a huge fucking rock on her finger and change her last name.

There is absolutely no way I’m going to fall back asleep, so I do the next best thing—I watch Laney sleep. Her shoulders rise and fall with each shallow breath, and a few times I lay my hand across her back just to make sure she’s still breathing. She’s so tiny and fragile, and I have no clue how her body has made it through everything that it’s been through. I’m in complete awe of her resilience and strength. I’ll never know how she puts a smile on every morning and pushes through each day the way she does, and I think it’s one of those things that I’ll just never understand. Often times I’ve thought about how easy it would be for her to be bitter and angry rather than hopeful. I know that she’s had her moments, but that’s to be expected. I also know that there are days when she just puts on a show, but the majority of the time she seems legitimately happy and upbeat.

“Damn it,” I hiss, tilting my head back on the pillow. I don’t want to go to Nashville, but I know I have to for Mason. I couldn’t forgive myself if he missed out on an opportunity like this because of me. Shifting Laney ever so gently to the side, I roll her onto her back, making sure she has a pillow under her head. I slip out of bed, tuck the covers around her body and throw on my sweats, wondering where in the hell I left my phone. I backtrack through the house and find it sitting on the kitchen table with three missed calls from Mason. Tapping his name, I hit ‘talk’ and he picks up almost instantly.