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“Of course,” Jaxon replied. “I’ll make sure you get to meet him. I’m not sure how I’ll introduce you, but we can work that out as it gets closer. Now then, we still have a few hours before we have to leave. What shall we do in that time?”

I smiled and lay back down on the bed before surrendering again to Jaxon’s lips as they moved down between my legs.  

-*-

I’d never been one of those people who hated hospitals, but that was probably because I’d never had a traumatic experience in one before. Unless you counted being born, although that was likely more memorable for my mom than me. I’d been to hospital a few times to get stitches after falling over as a kid, but other than that I’d never had cause to visit one. Now I saw why people hated stepping foot inside them.

As we walked to the Neuro-Oncology Ward for Jaxon’s appointment, I knew we were going to have an unpleasant experience, and that warped the way I thought about the entire building. Everywhere I looked I saw patients who could be here for anything from a simple x-ray to a final dose of chemotherapy that may or may not save their life.  

I was overwhelmed with the need to live for the moment, and considered running out of the hospital and telling Dad that Jaxon and I were a couple. I knew that thought would fade before I even made it back home, and that was probably for the best, but remembering how fragile life could be was something I could do with remembering more often.

Jaxon and I sat down in a large but mostly empty room and waited for the doctor to arrive. I’d expected to see expensive equipment everywhere, but instead there was just a desk, a bed to lie on, and basic supplies like rubber gloves and stethoscopes.  

The doctor joined us and Jaxon introduced me. The conversation Jaxon had with Doctor Lee sounded terrifying to me, but there was some positive news. Doctor Lee did not see the need for any more brain surgery at this point and instead wanted to kill the tumor with radiotherapy. Apparently this tumor was ‘only’ a grade two tumor and therefore not as life-threatening as the previous one. It was still a tumor, so I wasn’t taking it lightly, but this was an improvement on the worst case scenario I’d been picturing in my mind.  

I deliberately hadn’t done any research on radiotherapy before this appointment because I knew what sort of information online research could throw up. I’d get all the horror stories and wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Doctor Lee explained that Jaxon would need to come into the hospital a few times and take a series of tablets over a course of about three months. There could be an adverse reaction to this treatment, but some nausea was far preferable to brain surgery.

I asked the doctor whether there was anything I could do to help, but other than keeping an eye on Jaxon there didn’t seem to be a lot I could do. He was bound to have bad spells, and the only solution was just to push through them.

There was one question—the most important of all—that I couldn’t find the courage to ask. What are his chances of making it through this? Jaxon kept insisting that the odds were on his side, but I didn’t know what that meant. Fifty-one percent? Seventy-five percent? ninety percent? For the most part, I’d managed to keep these morbid thoughts out of my mind, so perhaps not knowing the exact odds was for the best. It didn’t make any difference anyway. I had to be there for Jaxon until he had beaten this thing, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with the gruesome alternative.

We left the hospital in relatively high spirits. Jaxon collected the medication from a pharmacy within the hospital and we were free to leave. Looking at the bottle of pills made everything feel a little more normal. He still had to visit hospital for radiotherapy, but on a day-to-day basis he would be taking pills and that was easier to relate to.

The second we walked out the hospital we were greeted by a large group of photographers and reporters. They were just milling around and talking to one another as if waiting for something to happen.

“Has there been a big accident?” I asked, assuming there must have been a major incident for all the press to be gathered around like that.

“I don’t think so,” Jaxon replied quietly. “I have a bad feeling I know who they’re waiting for.”  

Jaxon stopped and looked around, but there was no way to get around the photographers without them noticing. Suddenly I heard a man yell from in the middle of the pack. “There he is.”  

The man was pointing directly at us. I’d seen evidence of Jaxon’s fame on my brief visit to England, but other than my employer desperately trying to woo him, I hadn’t seen much to suggest that Jaxon was truly a household name in the US. If this pack of reporters was anything to go by, then Jaxon was far more famous than I’d realized.

“Shit,” Jaxon muttered. “Just follow me and keep walking. Whatever you do, don’t talk to them.”

Jaxon stormed forward and headed straight into the group of reporters who were now picking up cameras and microphones desperate to get a comment from him. There were no major news networks, but there were lots of sports stations, including ones from England.  

A reporter pushed his way in front of Jaxon and shoved a microphone in front of his face. “Jaxon, do you have any comment on the recent story concerning your health?”

Jaxon pushed him out of the way and looked around at me to make sure I could follow safely. A few people tried to get comments from me, but because none of them recognized me they mainly focused their efforts on Jaxon.

“Jaxon,” a young, blonde female reporter said, once again blocking his way. She probably knew he wouldn’t push her out of the way in quite the same aggressive manner he had done with the male reporter. “Is it true you have cancer? How is that going to impact your potential transfer to New York United?”

How the hell did she think it would impact the transfer? I know sport—soccer in particular—is often seen as life and death, but surely this should put things into context a bit.

Jaxon tried to squeeze past her, but she was persistent and kept shoving herself—and her annoyingly perfect breasts—in front of Jaxon.  

I tugged gently on Jaxon’s arm, careful to avoid any contact that looked overly intimate, and squeezed past him. The reporter shoved the microphone past my face to get to Jaxon, but I reached out an arm, grabbed her firmly by the shoulder and shoved her to one side. She went flying and ended up giving me a view of her underwear when she crashed to the floor.  

For a few moments, I’d been impressed with my own strength, but when I saw the news later that night I discovered that my shove had barely moved her. She’d tripped over the cable instead and that had been what sent her to the floor. Still, the end result was just as amusing.

We made it into a taxi and soon escaped the reporters who were unable to get in their vehicles quick enough to follow. That was my first real taste of Jaxon’s fame as far as the media was concerned, and I hadn’t liked it one bit.

“How did they know about your tumor?” I asked. “You could have just been in the hospital for a physical.”

“I have a fair idea,” Jaxon growled. He told the driver to take us to a hotel instead of going straight home. “That woman has crossed the line this time and I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

Daisy couldn’t be trusted. She’d acted without my permission plenty of times before, but it had always worked out to my benefit, so I’d backed down and let her off. Usually she just did things like spreading rumors about me potentially moving clubs in an effort to get me a better deal. I’d told her explicitly not to do that, because I didn’t like playing those games, but eventually she’d won me round to her way of thinking. By the time she’d proposed I pretend to be interested in a move to New York United, I’d barely needed any convincing at all.

Daisy liked to play games—most agents did—but this time she had gone too far. Messing around with the business side was one thing, but to spread confidential information about my health was quite another. No doubt she had her reasons, but they wouldn’t be good enough. Not this time.

I’d paid for Daisy to spend the summer in a five-star hotel in the city where she had every luxury available to her. Judging by the bills the hotel sent me each morning, she was making full use of the amenities. As long as she did her job well, I looked after her and paid her a generous commission—more than most agents got—but she always wanted more.

“Why are we stopping here?” Jenny asked, when the taxi pulled up outside the hotel. “We still have the house to ourselves for a bit if we head home now. You know, if you want to continue where we left off this morning?”    

“I’d love to,” I said, handing the taxi driver a wedge of bills, “but I have to sort something out first. I suppose you’re going to insist on coming as well.”

“Of course,” Jenny replied. “I might as well make the most of it, because any second now I’m expecting to get inundated with emails and phone calls from the club asking about your illness.”

“Don’t answer them,” I said. “Not yet.”

“You’re going to have to come clean at some point.”    

“I know, but I’ll do it on my own terms, when I’m ready. Unfortunately, I’m going to need Daisy’s help to do that.”

I’d insisted on having a key to Daisy’s suite which she was all in favor of because she thought I might actually get desperate enough to call on her for a booty call one evening. We went straight up to her room and found her on the couch juggling two separate conversations; one on her cell phone and one on the hotel phone.    

She didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me, although she did look slightly displeased to see that Jenny was with me. I stared at her in a way that made it clear she had better wrap up those conversations pretty damn quickly, and she took the hint. Both the calls were about me, but I couldn’t tell who she was talking to. Probably the press.

“I explicitly told you to keep my illness a secret,” I yelled, as soon as she hung up the calls. I didn’t even bother asking if it was her; the only people who knew were Jenny, Daisy, and a small handful of doctors. “I wasn’t ready for everyone to know and you had them fucking ambush me outside the hospital.”

“I know, I know,” Daisy said, holding her hands up in defense. “And I agreed with the whole keeping it a secret thing at first, but you have a fantastic opportunity to boost your profile here.”    

“You did that to boost his profile?” Jenny asked. Jenny hadn’t known Daisy as long as I had, so she could still be surprised at Daisy’s lack of compassion. I’d long since realized she didn’t care about anyone apart from herself.

“Everyone’s talking about you now,” Daisy said, trying to pretend Jenny wasn’t there. “Americans love a winner. If you get through this, you’re going to be as famous here as any of the American football players. The sponsorship deals will roll in.”    

“There’s no
if
about it,” Jenny said defiantly. “He
is
going to get through this. Don’t talk about it like he might not.” I loved Jenny’s positivity, but I worried where the line was between being positive and ignoring reality. If she was just trying to put a positive spin on things then that was okay, but if she hadn’t accepted what might happen to me then that was a problem.

“All the better then,” Daisy said, finally acknowledging Jenny’s existence. “Look, no harm was done in the end.”

“The harm is that I now have to go through all this under the public gaze. I wanted to handle this in private for as long as possible. You could have at least given me a heads up so I wouldn’t have looked like such an idiot walking into that crowd of reporters.”

“The element of surprise was the best bit. I didn’t want it to look orchestrated. Trust me, you look fantastic in the video footage, which, by the way, is running on ESPN at the moment.”

“You still shouldn’t have done it,” I said. “You can make it up to me right away.”

“Whatever you need,” Daisy said.

“Aren’t you going to fire her?” Jenny asked. “She’s completely betrayed your trust and she isn’t even sorry about it. You should get rid of her straight away.”

“Let the grown ups talk, honey,” Daisy said.

I desperately wanted to wipe that smug grin from Daisy’s face, but I needed her to do me one last favor first. Jenny would be pissed at me for not taking her side, but I could explain later.