The Girlfriend (The Boss) (27 page)

“I feel the same way.” I leaned my head against his. “I thought it was just because you were spoiling me rotten.”

“Ah, the real Sophie rears her materialistic head. I knew she was in there.” He squeezed me tight and buried his head in my neck, tickling and nibbling until I squealed with laughter.

“Stop, stop!” I gasped, trapping him beneath me. I pinned his hands to the pillows beside his head, and he grinned up at me.

“I want to remember exactly this,” he said with a happy sigh.

“Hang on.” I jumped from the bed, ignoring his protests, and ran to get my phone. I slipped back into bed beside him, and arranged the sheets around my body so I wasn’t showing too much. I held the phone above us and leaned my head against his.

“Okay, smile you grumpy old man,” I ordered. The camera flashed, nearly blinding us, and when my vision cleared I saw the image of the two of us, happy and smiling against hotel pillows. Our hair was wet and mussed. My makeup wasn’t quite washed completely off, leaving black smudges beneath my eyes. Anyone looking at the photo would know instantly that it was a “we just fucked” picture, but I hadn’t taken it to show anyone else. This was just for us.

It was absolutely perfect. “There. You can look at that whenever you want, and we’ll always have Paris.”

He kissed my forehead. “And I hope we have it again and again.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Upon our return to London, shit got incredibly real.

One of the bedrooms in Neil’s house in Belgravia were opened up for the live-in nurse who would stay throughout Neil’s induction chemotherapy. Our bedroom now held a hospital bed in addition to the actual bed, a change that wasn’t necessary yet, but likely would be.

Three days after our return from Paris, Neil went for an outpatient procedure to put in a port for his chemotherapy. And even though it was a “procedure” and not an “operation,” I was freaked out.
 

Neil had decided, after much deliberation with his doctor in the preceding two days, that he would opt to try chemotherapy to get his cancer in remission or as close as possible, then proceed with an autologous stem cell transplant. He’d have a catheter placed today, and a second one placed for the stem cell harvest at a later date. I didn’t know why they couldn’t just use the same catheter for everything, but I hadn’t asked. When Dr. Grant had brought out an actual catheter and showed us how it would be inserted in a vein deep below Neil’s skin, I’d almost passed out. I didn’t want Neil to worry about me, when he should be worrying about himself. I was keenly aware of what he’d said to me the night we’d reconciled.

After they took Neil back for the operation, I sat in the waiting room, bouncing my knee, checking the clock. They’d told me it would be a thirty minute procedure, but it had been forty-five.

What if something had gone wrong already? What if his “counts,” numbers I didn’t fully understand, were too low, and he bled to death? Could that happen? What the fuck was going on?

I resisted the urge to bother the nurses, until an hour had passed. I got up, rubbing my palms against my denim-clad thighs, and tried to look casual as I approached the desk.

A harried-looking brunette in a dark blue uniform raised her eyes from her computer screen as I approached. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, um... I’m really sorry to bother you—” The woman’s expression made it plain that by beating around the bush, I was making it worse. “They said the procedure only takes thirty minutes, and it’s been an hour—”
 

“If you’re here with someone, a nurse will come for you when the patient is out of surgery.” She wasn’t being unkind, but I got the sense that her efficiency was born from years of dealing with worried family impatience.

“Thanks.” I went back to the chairs and sat, bouncing my knee.

An older woman, probably in her sixties, with what I expected was dyed ginger hair, gazed at me sympathetically. She wore her glasses on a chain, and she peered over them while her busy hands worked a crochet project in her lap. “Nervous, dear?”

I nodded. “Yup. Just waiting for my boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry, this is a very good hospital.” She frowned and undid a stitch, re-situating her yarn around her fingers. “I’m waiting for my sister. She’s doing her second go. First time it was cervical, now it’s ovarian.”

I’d always had this impression that British people were stuffy and proper; here this woman was spilling her sister’s lady cancer details to me. It reminded me a little of home. Not New York, but Calumet, where every conversation with a family member began with a long list of chronic ailments.

It put me right at ease. I gestured to the doors. “Chemo port.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s not serious?” she asked hopefully.

“Um, I mean, it’s cancer, so...” I shrugged. “But we’re hopeful.”

“Are you engaged?” It was a super blunt question, but she asked it with such authority, I thought I should give her an answer.

“No. No, we haven’t talked about marriage.” We’d talked about children. That was scary enough. I could only imagine the prenup I’d have to sign:
In the event of a divorce, Mrs. Scaife-Elwood will receive eleventy-bajillion dollars and Mr. Elwood will continue to blame himself for the dissolution of the marriage and the ruining of Mrs. Scaife-Elwood’s life, in perpetuity, even though it’s probably not his fault.

“If I were you, you might want to get on with it,” the woman advised. “If he has cancer, why waste time?”

“I don’t know.” I looked to the doors, and for once in my life, silently willing something made it happen. The door opened and the surgeon came out in his blue scrubs. “Ms. Scaife? Will you come with me please?”

I grabbed my purse and stood, the woman’s intrusive chit-chat prickling in my brain. What did she mean? I should get married to Neil before he died? Was that supposed to be a concern in the forefront of this whole situation? Not ending up a spinster?

Now, the surgeon’s distracted, serious demeanor was making me a little edgy. Why were we going into a private office to talk? One that had a framed inspirational poster of a butterfly on the wall?

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair. I surreptitiously scoped out his name tag as he sat, because in all my nervousness about the surgery, I had forgotten it. “Things didn’t go as well as we had planned, but the port is in. He had more bleeding than we anticipated, and he was a bit uncomfortable during the procedure, so we’ve given him something for the pain. You should expect him to be groggy for a few hours.”

“Can he still come home?” Neil hated the hospital, and he’d expressed anxiety that he might end up admitted.

“As soon as we push some fluids and he’s a little less sedated, I don’t see why not. No strenuous activity, he can’t get the stitches wet, but other than that he should be fine. When does he start chemotherapy?” The doctor reached into his pocket for a pen, and flipped open a chart on his desk.

“Um, next week. Next Monday?” I watched as the surgeon scribbled something I couldn’t read.

“I’m going to leave a note for the attending oncologist. I think I’m on that day, so I’d like to check up on him while he’s here.” He said all this with the grim demeanor of a dentist who knows you haven’t been flossing.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, raising my eyes a little to see if I could nonchalantly peer down at the chart.

He closed it. “Yes, of course. As you’re not Mr. Elwood’s representative, I can’t give you specifics, I’m sure you understand.”

“Um, yeah.” I nodded. I hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t enough to just be there with him; if something went wrong, I needed paperwork.
 

“If you’d like to see Mr. Elwood, he’s in recovery. I can take you back.”

I followed the doctor into a hallway with individual rooms with glass doors and pale blue curtains for privacy. He paused before one, knocked briefly, slid the door open and said, “Mr. Elwood, are you ready for company?”

“Sophie?” I heard Neil’s voice, small and tired, and I pushed back the curtain enough to step through.

“Hey,” I said with a stupid little wave. What was it about hospitals that drove such distance between me and my loved ones? My mom had her gallbladder out when I was in high school, and I’d felt like I was visiting a stranger when I’d gone to see her in her room that night. Neil hadn’t even been admitted overnight, and I was already afraid that inability to be normal in a medical setting would drive a wedge between us.

No. I would not let hospital awkwardness defeat me where Neil was concerned. I went to his side, pulled a chair close to the bed, and said, “How was it?”

“Awful.” He shook his head, then relaxed with a little sigh and closed his eyes. “Even with the sedatives and the local anesthetic. But it’s over now.”

“Yeah, apparently there was a complication? Do they ever give you straight answers in hospitals, or...”

“Never.” He reached over without opening his eyes, and I took his hand. He still had an IV in it, so I kept my palm under his and his arm low.

“Well, at least you’ll get some down time to heal up before the chemo. Of course, that sounds kind of like in
The Princess Bride
when they heal Westley up before they torture him.” Gently, I moved the unsnapped shoulder of Neil’s gown, to see the surgical site. There was a gauze bandage on his chest, just below his collar bone. “I wonder if that will leave a sexy scar.”

“It will probably leave a scar, but I’m not sure how sexy it will be.” His voice was hoarse. “Could you pass me that water?”

I saw the Styrofoam cup on the rolling table at the end of the bed. I picked it up, brought it to him, and held the straw to his lips. “Drink.”

“You’re an angel,” he mumbled between sips.

“Pretty much.” When he was finished, I sat back down and held the cup in my lap. “I was thinking about ways that I could help out while you’re in and out of the hospital.”

“Being with me is a help.” He grimaced as he sat up. “Ah, that’s going to be sore for a while.”

“I’ve always heard that the third day is the worst for surgery. So, you have something to look forward to.” I squeezed his knee through the thin hospital blanket. “What I meant was, you can’t be focused on getting better if you’re trying to run a household. And Emma has a job and a whole life going on. She really can’t be worried about making your doctor appointments and hiring staff. That’s not fair to her.”

“Are you suggesting...”

“I think I could do that stuff for you. I mean, I don’t know the difference between all the forks they set out on our dinner table, but I think I can handle telling them what we want to eat. And if you don’t want me to deal with your medical stuff, I won’t. I just feel... helpless.” I had originally thought to propose the idea as a boon to him. Now I just sounded needy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come off so whiny.”

“Am I to assume this desire to be more involved is due to sitting in a waiting room, worrying about me?” He turned his head to smile at me sleepily. “Or an attempt to wrest control from the king while he is sedated?”

“The king now, is it?” I pretended to consider the title. “I think you’re lucky you’re on pain meds. I’ll let that remark slide.”

For a long moment, he said nothing, and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, when he said, sounding more awake than I had expected, “I wasn’t sure exactly what I could ask of you. We’ve only been together for three months, and though I do feel very close to you, I didn’t know how we would deal with all of this.”

I rubbed my palms on my thighs. “I didn’t mean to start this whole conversation when you’re just a few minutes out of surgery. It was on my mind and I let it run away with me.”

“I’m not upset. It’s as good a time as any.” He visibly struggled to snap out of the effects of the drugs. “I can call my attorney when we get home—”

“It doesn’t have to be anything serious. I don’t want to make any decisions
vis-á-vis
the proverbial plug,” I clarified. “I just want to be able to help you with making appointments and talking to the doctors. You know. When you’re loopy like this. You had complications in there, and the surgeon kind of danced around it.”

“Oh, yes, there were complications.” He gingerly touched his shoulder. “It took them a while to find the vein. By the time they did, I wasn’t entirely numb anymore.”

I recoiled, horrified. “Oh my god, Neil! You poor baby!”

“But I survived. At least I had the sedative to entertain me.” He looked around the room, squinting. “I can’t see anything.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out his glasses. “You probably need these.”

He took them from my hand and kissed the backs of my fingers. “You’re very good at this, you know.”

I sat up straight in my chair, my hands pressed primly in my lap. I smiled and lifted my chin. “And I’ll only get better.”

Although I wasn’t sure better was the word for it. I would get more used to it, because I had to.

“I do want to make you my medical advocate or next-of-kin, whichever they call it these days,” he said after a pause. “Right now, mine is Emma. Rudy is my backup. They’re both spending more time in New York than here. You live with me, it only makes sense that you should be in charge of such things.”

“These are the words of a man who’s had far too many drugs in his system at one time,” I said dryly.

“I’m completely serious.” He reached over and took my hand, squeezing my fingers in his. “This will take months. You heard Dr. Grant, my total recovery after the transplant could take up to a year. I can’t ask Emma to stay at my side every day for a year.”

“You would murder each other,” I conceded.

“With our bare hands.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll call Alan when we get home.”

“No, you just had surgery,” I reminded him. “You can call Alan in a few days. When we get home, you’re going to rest.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I’m doing the bloody chemotherapy,” he complained, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “You’re probably right, though, I do need the practice.”

“That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” I stood up. “I’m going to go find a nurse and see when they’re going to release you.”