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After visiting with Hoyt and his colleague, it was decided that I reacted worse than most to the treatment, and that it might be better to ramp the treatments down a bit, which would only prolong how long I had to continue the treatments. So, of course, I said no.
But by saying no, I also had to put my family in a tight spot.
Which sucked, because I didn’t want them to have to take care of me like they did last time.
But I also didn’t want to add two more treatments on to make the aftereffects milder.
So I was here, getting the more aggressive form of treatment, and dealing with the consequences later.
“I love you, Zip,” I said as I placed a kiss the top of her head. “Go home. Even better, go to the circus and work on that routine, film it, and then send it to me so I have something to watch.”
She rolled her eyes.
The last thing she wanted to do was go to the circus.
She drug her feet like a petulant child every time she had to leave me, and we both hated every single second of our separation.
But she had responsibilities.
And so did I.
That was why I had a box full of fan mail that Hoyt was bringing with him to my appointment for me to go through.
Speaking of Hoyt, he rounded the corner with the huge box—I’d been avoiding it for way too long—and smiled at the two of us.
Only one of us smiled back.
“Go home, baby.” I kissed her head again and let her go.
She whirled on me. “I’m not going home!”
Then she whirled, her hair flying behind her, and left.
“How long do you think she’ll stay mad at you?” Hoyt asked as he watched Zip stomp back toward the waiting area.
After it was decided that she wouldn’t come to the appointments with me—by me and her doctor—she’d gotten angry.
She’d wanted to come and at least sit in the waiting room, but over the last few days, she’d been so damn uncomfortable with sciatic nerve pain that it seemed sitting was the main cause. And sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the hallway for hours was not something I wanted her to do if she could help it.
“Long enough that she’s coming up with new and inventive ways to show me how angry she is,” I said. “Last night, I made the mistake of telling her it probably wasn’t the best idea to be eating salt straight out of the saltshaker. And then I took it away from her just to get a rise out of her. She got mad as hell and wouldn’t even look at me. But when I got up this morning, I went to grab pretzels because they’re the only thing I can manage to eat sometimes. And found all the salt licked off of every single one of them with a sticky note attached to the bag saying ‘fuck you.’”
Hoyt choked on his coffee, spilling it all over his front.
“Fuck, ow!” he cried out, still laughing.
I tossed him a look, then gestured toward the front desk.
He fell into step beside me, and neither one of us said a word as I was led back to the same private room again.
Hoyt waited until the woman was gone before he replied.
“Craving salt during pregnancy isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “Although, it is when she went through half a saltshaker.”
He shrugged. “Could be worse, I guess.”
I imagined that it could be.
“How did the doctor appointment go?” he asked.
Yesterday was the first appointment, and I was still riding on cloud nine.
“It went great,” I said. “She’s four and a half months along. It goes right up to that day like we thought.”
‘That day’ being the day I’d had surgery to remove my testicles.
“Lines up perfectly, then.” He laughed. “Boy or a girl?”
I looked over at him, my brow raised. “What makes you think I know?”
“Because Mom said that you had a name picked out,” he answered. “She also started knitting a blanket.”
“She’s knitting a lot of blankets,” I hedged.
“She’s knitting all of our first-born children blankets, yes,” he answered. “But yours is the only one that she can do with an actual color.”
That was true.
“And it was blue,” he pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “If you already knew, why did you ask?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to know if you’d actually tell me or if I’d have to pry it out of you like I have to do everything else. Good to know you don’t disappoint.”
“All right, gentlemen.” A nurse came rolling in. “Y’all ready?”
I handed her my arm. “As I’ll ever be.”
She started everything rolling, and I began going through fan mail.
I was on the fourth letter that I needed to respond to when my phone rang.
I reached down and smiled, answering it.
