We got to the waiting room of Dr. Plunkett’s office and made ourselves comfortable on one of the big poufy couches. I wasn’t sure why they were in an OB’s office. There was no way a really pregnant woman would be able to maneuver herself back out of that couch.

  I picked up one of the magazines while we waited. Not that there was much to choose from—Parenting, FitPregnancy, American Baby. I opted for the pamphlet about prenatal vitamins.

  It wasn’t a very intriguing read, so I started looking around. There were quite a few pregnant women sitting in the chairs scattered around the room. Just a couple of men, though. I guess it made sense, but I was kind of surprised by how many of the dads weren’t there. I was so excited about this baby I couldn’t stand it when I couldn’t come to check ups.

  I looked to my left and noticed some guy eyeing Addison. At least, I think he was eyeing Addison. Either way, I chose that moment to reach over and put my hand on her stomach. Yeah…I did that. Look all you want, but that’s my bump, asshole.

  “Why don’t you just pee on my leg while you’re at it,” Addison said, not even looking up from the magazine she was flipping through, and quietly enough that I was the only one who heard.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you staking your claim on me in front of that guy.”

  “Do you blame me?” I whispered. “He keeps checking you out.”

  “He’s not checking me out, Jason. He has a lazy eye.”

  I turned my head to look at him again.

  “Huh. Well, what do ya know,” I said in acknowledgment. “He should get that looked at.”

  She snorted. “Yeah. You go right ahead and tell him he needs to go to the eye doctor. That’ll look great in tomorrow’s papers, Mr. Celebrity.”

  I shrugged as a nurse opened the door next to the receptionist desk.

  “Addison?” she said with a smile. “You’re up.”

  I popped up from the couch and watched as Addison struggled to get her body weight to shift forward so she could get up.

  That’s exactly why a poufy couch wasn’t a good idea in this office.

  I reached down and grabbed her hands, helping her to her feet.

  “Thanks,” she said as she started walking toward the door.

  “No, thank you,” I replied. “You looked like a turtle on your back for a minute. It was the most entertaining part of this waiting room.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and smirked as we made our way to the back, following the nurse through all the regular triage stuff they did.

  We were finally ushered into an exam room where Addison was handed a gown and instructed to take everything off and hop up on the table.

  As I made myself comfortable, I looked around the room and spotted, what I assumed, was an ultrasound machine. But what caught my attention was the really long, wand-looking thing sticking up on the side.

  “That is a really big fake-penis-looking thing,” I said as Addison changed behind the curtain.

  She snorted. “You’re talking about the ultrasound machine, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m talking about the big fake-penis-looking thing attached to the ultrasound machine.”

  “Jealous of a machine, Jason?” she teased as she came out from behind the curtain and climbed up on the table. “It is longer than you by at least a couple of inches.”

  “I got him on girth, baby,” I said with a wink. “And skill.”

  She smacked her hand to her forehead as the door opened and Dr. Plunkett walked in.

  “Hey, Addison,” she said, heading to the sink to wash her hands. “How’s it going?”

  “It was going fine until our little monster decided his daddy was having too much fun with our child-free day,” I answered for her.

  “Ohmygod,” Addison said with exasperation. “Ignore him. He is in rare form today. I don’t know what his deal is.”

  The doctor laughed. “I take it you have an ornery baby already, huh? Lie down for me.”

  “Jason seems to think so,” Addison said as she lay back on the table. “But anything that gets in the way of his fun these days seems to be a tragedy in his eyes.”

  “Hmph,” I grunted in response as the doctor pushed and prodded on Addison’s stomach. “It depends on what kind of fun I’m trying to have.”

  “I take it you were in the middle of sex when you started bleeding?” the doctor asked as a nurse knocked and walked in the door.

  “Nope,” I said. “Got blocked before I even got that far.”

  “Like I said,” Addison interrupted. “Ignore him.”

  “Okay, so no actual penetration before the bleeding started,” the doctor clarified.

  “No,” Addison said, shaking her head as the nurse rolled the giant penis and its machine closer to the table. “I had to pee first. That’s when I saw it.”

  “What color is the blood?”

  “In between pink and red.”

  “Okay, let’s see what’s going on.”

  As the machine turned on, Dr. Plunkett squirted some goo on Addison’s stomach and grabbed the not penis wand off the stand. “Sorry, man, looks like you got blocked too,” I said to the machine under my breath. Addison smacked me on the chest.

  As soon as the images started coming up on the monitor, the nurse turned the lights out, and we got a good look at our baby.

  “Look at that good-looking kid,” the doctor said. “Wow, you’ve got an active little baby, don’t you?”

  “Always,” Addison said.

  “Heartbeat looks nice and strong,” she said, clicking a button on the machine. “Now that we’ve checked that, let’s take a look at the placenta.”

  For the next several minutes, she moved the wand around, and we saw different parts of the baby and Addison’s insides. Even I could see how active he was. His feet kept coming in and out of the picture, and one time it looked like he flipped off the camera. I thought it was funny. Addison just smacked me again.

  “Oh…lookie there,” the doctor said. “I’m pretty sure…yep…do you guys want to know the baby’s sex?”

  My mouth dropped open as I looked at Addison. “Really? You can see what it is?”

  “Sure can,” she said. “It’s up to you guys if you want to know. Some people prefer to have the surprise in the delivery room.”

  “Do you want to know?” I asked Addison.

  “Do you?”

  “Hell yeah!” I replied with excitement.

  “Then yes,” Addison said. “Lay it on me, Dr. Plunkett. Am I still going to be outnumbered in my own home?”

  “Sadly, yes,” she replied with a smile. “It’s a boy!”

  “Ohmygod…it’s a boy,” I said, barely able to contain my excitement. “We’re having a boy, Addison!”

  She laughed as I tried not to jump out of the seat and fist pump the air.

  “And he’s okay?” I asked, suddenly feeling very protective of our little man. “There’s nothing wrong with him?”

  The nurse flipped the lights back on, as the doctor started putting things away.

  “Everything looks great with him,” she answered as she wiped Addison’s bump clean of the gel stuff. “He looks healthy and he’s measuring great. What I was most worried about was the placenta. But it’s right where it’s supposed to be. And your cervix looks nice and thick, too.”

  The nurse folded part of the table underneath Addison and helped her to a sitting position.

  “So why am I bleeding?” Addison asked.

  “That is the million dollar question,” she said as she washed her hands again and sat back down in the rolling chair. “Everyone who has bleeding problems when they are pregnant wants an answer, but sometimes we just don’t have one. Baby, placenta, and cervix look good. No pain. No cramping. It seems like perfectly normal pregnancy bleeding.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “My recommendation: take it easy. When your body starts having strange, unexplained symptoms like these, it means you need a break. And your circumstances have been more stressful than the average person’s lately.”

  “Yeah, but Jax is out of the hospital and doing great now,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, that’s great!” Dr. Plunkett said. “I’m glad to hear that. Last time you were here, he was still in treatment. I’m glad to see it worked.”

  “So are we,” Addison agreed, squeezing my hand.

  “That just makes it easier to take it easy,” the doctor continued. “Stay off your feet while you’re bleeding. Limit your activity. And listen to what your body is telling you.”

  “Wait, wait, wait…” I said, finally realizing a very important piece of this. “Are you saying no sex?”

  Addison rolled her eyes, but the doctor just smiled.

  “I’m saying I recommend you wait until she has been symptom-free for forty-eight hours before engaging in any form of penetration. And even then, being very careful not to get too rowdy.”

  “Buuuut, we can do other stuff right?”

  “Okay,” Addison interjected quickly. “Thank you, doctor, I think we get it.”

  “Anytime.” She laughed while standing up and making her way out the door.

  I couldn’t believe it. I had just gotten sex back a few weeks before, and I was already being cut off again. But on the flip side…

  We were having a boy.

  That almost made up for the fact that he was a little cock blocker.

  Almost.

  “Mom?”

  Through my sleep, I heard a soft voice. I couldn’t figure out why I knew the voice. Maybe it was a dream.

  “Mom,” the voice said a little louder.

  “Hmmm,” I heard Addison say. That voice I recognized as I started pulling closer to consciousness.

  “Mommy, I don’t feel good,” the voice said. It sounded like… Who was it? Jaxon. Oh yeah, I thought to myself. Jaxon must be in our room for something.

  I felt Addison shuffle around and sit up as I got comfortable and started to fall back asleep. Then I heard her gasp.

  “Jason, get up!” she said in the dark. I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes, not quite sure what was happening or why she sounded so urgent.

  “Jason, he’s burning up,” she said, launching herself out of bed as Jaxon climbed right in next to me. Next thing I knew, the lights were on and she was in the bathroom, rifling through cabinets and babbling something about a thermometer.

  “What’s wrong, buddy?” I asked as I reached over to stroke his head. He was burning up. “Holy shit, Addison. How high is his fever?”

  “How should I know?” she retorted, moving the blankets around and the popping the thermometer under his arm since he had fallen back asleep. “I’m taking his temperature now.”

  We waited several minutes for his temperature to register. When the thermometer finally beeped and Addison took a look, she paled almost instantly. “Oh god. It’s 102.7. Under his arm.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “That means you add a degree. We have to take him to the hospital. Now.”

  In less than five minutes, we had managed to get dressed, brush our teeth, and gotten Jax in the back of my truck with a wet towel on his head, trying to get the fever down. He never woke up enough for us to get him to take any Children’s Tylenol.

  As I drove, I pulled out my phone and dialed. I only needed to wait a couple of rings before there was an answer.

  “Hello?” the groggy voice said, surprisingly friendly considering I had just woken her up.

  “Bri? Hi, this is Jason Hart. You were my son Jaxon’s nurse back in August and September.”

  Immediately she sounded wide-awake. “Hi, Jason. What’s wrong?”

  “We’re headed to the hospital right now. Jaxon has a fever that’s pushing around 104. This isn’t supposed to be happening, right?” I asked, praying she’d tell me that was normal for kids and everything was probably fine.

  “No, that’s not normal at all. He’s only about six weeks out of treatment, right?”

  “Right.”

  I heard some rustling around in the background. “Listen, I’m going to call Debbie right now since she’s the nurse practitioner over his care and can get through to everyone we need. She’ll give the ER manager and security a heads up that you’re coming so they can get you straight back. I’m heading up there now.”

  “Bri, you don’t have to come up to the hospital,” I argued, punching the gas to make it through a yellow light before it turned red.

  “I don’t have to,” she said. “But I want to. I don’t like when a recent patient has a setback like this, so I’d feel more comfortable being there.”

  “Well thank you.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you in a bit.” And she hung up.

  Bri wasn’t kidding when she said we would get straight back. When we drove up to the emergency room entrance twenty minutes later and walked through the door, security escorted us straight back to a private exam room while someone, who I assumed was a valet, went to park the car. I hadn’t seen the setup down here before, but it was nice for an emergency room. There were probably twenty or so small and fully enclosed private rooms, each with a bed, a TV, and a sliding glass door so you could close out all the other ER noises.

  I gently laid Jaxon down on the bed as Addison explained to the triage nurse his diagnosis and when his last treatment was. I was only halfway listening. I was scared. So scared. I thought we had gotten through the worst. I thought the fear and panic were over. But now it was all back again.

  Within a few minutes, Jax was hooked up to an IV, he’d finally been given a dose of Tylenol, and several vials of blood had been drawn.

  And then the waiting began.

  I pretended to watch mindless TV without any volume while Jax slept, reaching over to check his forehead every once in a while. It took a couple hours, but his fever started to come down. Even I could tell it wasn’t back to normal, but it was better.

  Despite all the adrenaline, Addison couldn’t stay awake either. She finally fell asleep, leaning on Jaxon’s bed, arms folded beneath her head.

  But me… My brain wouldn’t shut down. Too many thoughts were racing around in there.

  Is it just a virus?

  Is the cancer back?

  Are we looking at six more weeks in the hospital?

  As much as I didn’t want to know because I didn’t want to deal with it, the wait was excruciating.

  I quietly reached for my phone when I heard it ping in my pocket. It was Deuce.

  Deuce: What’s up, douchebag? Why am I sitting at the gym by myself? You stay up too late working out with the little lady?

  I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Deuce to relate everything back to sex.

  Me: At the hospital with Jax.

  Deuce: Oh shit! What’s wrong?

  Me: Major fever. Running blood work now.

  Deuce: Relapse?

  Me: Don’t know yet.

  Deuce: Ok. I’ll let Vanessa know so she can get all her praying people on it. Let me know if you need something.

  Me: Thx

  That was the thing about Deuce that most people didn’t see. When he wasn’t cracking jokes and being a perv, when life truly fell to shit, he was always willing to step up.

  His text reminded me that I needed to let Adam and the coach know what was happening. Job or not, I wasn’t leaving this hospital until we knew what was going on and everyone was situated.

  As soon as I had sent my messages, I heard the sliding glass door open and the curtain rustle.

  “Knock, knock,” a voice said, and I immediately knew the news was not good.

  “Come on in, Dr. Bates.” I felt my entire body sag in defeat. Dr. Bates didn’t work in the ER. There was only one reason he would be here. When Debbie and Bri followed him in, I knew we hadn’t dodged a bullet like I had thought just a couple of weeks ago.

  “Good morning, Jason,” he said quietly. “How’s he doing?”

  “He still has a fever, but it’s hovering around 100.5. So that’s better, I guess.” I rubbed my hand down my face as Dr. Bates rolled the circular stool over next to the bed and sat down. “You’re here, so I’m guessing I need to wake Addison up for this discussion.”

  He flashed a small, compassionate smile. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes momentarily, steeling myself for what was about to happen. Then I leaned over to stroke her hair. “Babe,” I said in her ear. “Hey, you need to wake up.” She stretched her arms, not fully waking up. “Babe, Dr. Bates is here to talk to us.”

  At that, her head popped up and she looked around. First at the doctor, then Debbie, then Bri, then back to the doctor. Then she sagged against me in defeat. No one had to say a word. We knew.

  “How bad?” she asked quietly as she grabbed my hand and clung to it for support.

  “His neutrophil counts are low,” Dr. Bates said. “Very low. Lower than when he was diagnosed. And his platelets are struggling, too.”

  “So it’s back,” I stated, knowing what the answer would be.

  He nodded. “We won’t know for sure to what degree until we do another biopsy. But yes, it appears that he is having a recurrence.”

  I put my arms around Addison and buried my face in her hair. I felt her begin to cry as tears slid down my own face as well. No one spoke while we stayed that way for several minutes. Once I finally felt myself in a little bit more control, I looked up.

  I cleared my throat. “So what’s, um…what’s the plan now?”

  “We’re admitting him immediately,” the doctor said. “With his counts so low, we don’t want to waste any time. Debbie already has the diagnostic team back in place, getting prepared for whatever the biopsy shows.”

  I nodded.

  “And Bri has already set up his room with Minecraft and hidden some squirt guns in the room,” he added with a smile.

  I nodded again. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll give you guys a few minutes before we move you upstairs.” And then they all walked out.