“Look.” She sighed as she sliced a tomato, “I’ll be excited when the baby’s here. I’ll be happy and will love him and all that stuff. But I’m so overwhelmed, it’s gonna take me a minute to wrap my brain around everything.”

  “Hey,” I said gently as I pulled her back against me. “Hey, look at me.” She finally relented and turned around, looking me right in the eyes. She didn’t just sound overwhelmed, she looked it. “You are exhausted. You have been at the hospital almost non-stop for a month. Everything is out of our control right now, but if you don’t want this baby, I mean, we have options and stuff.”

  “Don’t even go there,” she retorted quickly. “I appreciate that you would be willing to entertain options for the sake of making me feeling better for a few minutes, but you know that’s not happening.”

  I sighed with relief. “I’m really glad to hear you say that. I know you’re really upset right now, but I’m so excited I can hardly stand it,” I said with a smile.

  “I know,” she said, cupping my face with her hands. “You haven’t stopped smiling since Dr. Bates told us. Just do me a favor.”

  “Anything,” I said, kissing her softly.

  “Just…be excited for both of us for a while. I’ll wrap my brain around it eventually. I just need some time.”

  “Oh, I can do that,” I said, still giving her gentle pecks. “Can I ask you another question?”

  “Sure,” she said in between kisses.

  “When can I tell Deuce what a good shot I am?” She paused mid-kiss and started laughing.

  “Like I could stop you and Deuce from comparing penis sizes if I wanted to.” She turned back to the counter, still chuckling, and finished making lunch.

  Pregnant and in my kitchen. The Neanderthal in me was thrilled.

  Thank God for the wonders of modern technology, because it sucked being away from home for a whole month when your kid was sick and your wife was pregnant.

  Scratch that. It just sucked being away from home for a whole month.

  I used to love training camp. And in all honesty, I still loved the workouts and reviewing the plays and studying the tapes. I loved building the camaraderie with my teammates and running drills until we wanted to pass out on the field. I still loved my job. I just wished my job was closer to home this time of year.

  So here I was, FaceTiming my family from my hotel room while they sat next to each other in Jaxon’s hospital bed.

  “How are you feeling, bud?” I asked Jax. “You’re looking a little better than yesterday.”

  “I feel a little better,” he answered, fidgeting with some Legos he was building. If he wasn’t tinkering with something, he would be fidgeting, so it was always best to just let him tinker. “I went to the playroom today and played with that kid, Jonah.”

  “Yeah? What did you guys do?”

  “Played Minecraft.”

  I snorted. I should have known the answer before I bothered asking.

  “And then we played some game called Sorry,” he continued. “I totally kicked his butt.”

  “Glad to hear you’re finally playing some real games,” I said smiling. “I used to whip my mom at Sorry all the time.”

  Jaxon looked up at the screen to make eye contact with me. “You know she let you win, right?”

  “What?” I asked, pretending to be offended. “I won fair and square. I was great at Sorry!”

  “No, Jason.” His head was shaking back and forth, looking at me like he was pitying my ignorance. “She totally let you win. She told me so.”

  Addison put her hand over her mouth and giggled at this admission.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” I asked her with a smile on my face.

  “Yeah. Kind of funny,” she agreed.

  “What else is going on, babe?”

  “Same as always,” she answered. “Chemo, naps, nurses, playrooms, crappy hospital food. Be glad you’re there. We’re getting bored around here.”

  “And the food sucks,” Jaxon interjected. I would have loved to say something fatherly like, “It’s not so bad,” but he was right—the hospital food did suck. Instead, I went back to the question we asked daily.

  “How are his counts?”

  “Good,” Addison said. “Dr. Bates said he’s making great progress, and it looks like we may be quickly moving toward remission.”

  I felt myself smile really big. “That is the best news I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks.” Addison just rolled her eyes, knowing what I was getting at. “So, shall we continue sharing good news and tell him, babe?”

  “Tell me what?” Jaxon asked without even looking up from his Legos.

  Addison and I had debated when to tell Jaxon about the baby. With everything happening, we wanted to wait until Addison had gotten safely to that twelve-week point. And we wanted to wait until Jaxon had a little more strength. It appeared we had finally met both milestones, so I was getting antsy.

  “Do you want to tell him, Addison? Or should I?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t let me hold you back, baby,” she said to me with a smirk. “I know it’s been killing you to sit on this information for the last couple of weeks.”

  The woman knew me so well.

  I took a deep breath, excited to finally let Jaxon in on the secret. “Jaxon,” I started as Addison disappeared from the camera view, “Well, it seems that we are going to be adding a baby to our family.”

  Jaxon’s head popped up and his jaw dropped open. His expression was priceless as he looked from me, to Addison, who sat back down on the bed again, back to me, back to Addison, to her stomach, back to me…

  I wanted to laugh, but I was too busy waiting to hear what he had to say about it. Finally, he regained his ability to speak.

  “You’re having a baby, Mom?” he asked Addison, who just smiled and nodded. “So I’m gonna be a big brother?”

  “You are,” I said.

  Jaxon launched himself into Addison’s arms, and for the umpteenth time, I wished I were in that room with them for this moment. Instead, I watched quietly as Jaxon pulled away and Addison showed him the picture from the recent ultrasound we’d had done. I had a copy sitting on the desk right next to my monitor, so I knew exactly what he was seeing. It looked like a little alien, but it was our little alien, and my heart swelled every time I saw the picture.

  When I had finally fessed up to Deuce about the pregnancy, he’d congratulated me with a manly hug and then said, “Welcome to the pussy side, where grown-ass men tear up at a picture of a tiny blob.” He hadn’t been wrong. I had teared up several times looking at that picture.

  When Jaxon finally tore his gaze from the picture, he looked right at me like he had just solved a puzzle. “Wait, my mom’s having a baby.”

  “Yeah,” I replied skeptically. I recognized that tone in his voice.

  “And you’re her husband.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That means, you…you guys…ugh!” his face scrunched up in a disgusted expression. “That means you guys did it! Yuck! How could you do that? That’s disgusting! Where’s my barf tray?”

  Addison dropped her face in her hands, trying not to laugh. I didn’t even bother trying. I threw my head back and belly laughed harder than I had in a while.

  “How do you even know about that?” I asked when he finally stopped ranting about how disgusting we were and how he was never, ever doing that. “You’re only nine. We haven’t had that conversation yet.”

  “My other dad told me,” he answered. “When Shawn’s mom had a baby. I asked him how it got in her tummy and he told me.”

  “When you were five?” Addison asked, sitting straight up on the bed. Apparently this was news to her.

  “What?” Jaxon shrugged. “I asked.”

  Thank you for that, Austin. That’s one less difficult conversation I have to have.

  She just shook her head, trying really hard not to find the humor in the whole situation.

  “But I didn’t know that you did that!” he said, still looking disgusted. “How could you do something so gross?”

  “Well, someday you’ll understand, and I don’t think now is the time to explain it,” I said calmly. “How about this—just pretend your mom ate some magical baby-making seed and it planted in her belly. Then you don’t have to think about it.”

  “Ugh. I’ll try,” Jaxon said, picking up his Legos again. His nose was still scrunched like he had smelled something foul. “Because just thinking about it makes me want to throw up more than when I had that chemo.”

  Addison and I both started laughing again, partly because it was funny, but mostly because his reaction—his witty, snarky reaction—was a huge sign that he was finally on the mend. And in that moment, we both knew it.

  “So, Jason,” Judy began, “Adam tells me you want to start a foundation that promotes finding and keeping bone marrow donors.”

  “Sure do,” I said as I sat in Judy’s office. I had come up with the idea on my way home the day we found out about the baby, and I’d called Adam as soon as I could. He had thought the idea was a great one and immediately set up a meeting with Judy so we could go over legalities and crap like that. I didn’t care what they had to do behind the scenes. I just knew I’d finally found something I could gladly put my name behind. “After no one in our family came up as a match for Jax, I started doing some research about it. I kept running into stories like ours and how common that was. And how there was a huge need for specific kinds of donors.”

  “What kinds of specific donors?” she asked.

  “In a nutshell? Anyone with a diverse ethnic background.”

  Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Sounds like you’ve done some research. Explain.”

  I smiled, appreciating how no-nonsense she always was at these meetings. “When I came up with the idea, I started looking at the bone marrow registry websites. One of the things I kept running into is how they need ethnically diverse donors.”

  “Why?” she asked, sitting back in her chair.

  “As more and more people are born who are of mixed race, the need for mixed race donors has gone up,” I said, my thoughts running a mile a minute. “I realized that football is one of the most ethnically diverse sports out there. I have black teammates and white teammates and Hispanic teammates. I’ve even had a couple Native Hawaiian teammates, and Hawaii is a tiny little state.” I looked over at Adam. “You remember Robert Stoker? I used to play with him in college. He plays for Arizona now, I think.”

  “Yeah,” Adam said, nodding. “Real nice guy.”

  “He is. Well, his dad was this huge Irish dude. Navy man. Met Robert’s mom in the Philippines. Married her and brought her back to the states,” I explained. “So Robert and all his siblings—and there are a bunch—are half Irish, half Filipino. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing his bone marrow type might be pretty specific.”

  Judy stayed silent. I could practically see the gears turning in her brain.

  “My point is,” I said, “with thousands of ethnically diverse players, that means millions of ethnically diverse fans. If just one percent of those fans became bone marrow donors, there’s no telling how many children’s lives could be saved. Not just children, but adults too,” I tacked on quickly.

  I sat back, done talking. Now I just had to wait to see what Judy thought. She finally leaned forward and put her arms on her desk, leaning in toward the conversation.

  “You know part of my job is to make sure that anything our players get involved with casts the organization in a good light.” I nodded as she continued. “I knew this was a great idea when Adam told me about it, but seeing your passion and the research you’ve put in confirms it. Consider the organization in one hundred percent support of your new foundation.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Judy. But, you know I’d be doing it with or without your support, right?”

  She chuckled. “I know, Jason. It just makes it easier on you if we’re behind you when you do. Also, because I think it’s a great idea on a personal level, I’ve decided to help you guys get this launched on sort of a volunteer basis until it gets up and running.”

  “Really?” I asked. I hadn’t been expecting that. Judy was a busy woman and one of the best in her field. To get her help was going to open up doors we didn’t even know were coming yet.

  “Sure am,” she confirmed, reaching in her drawer for some paper. “In fact, I was sort of goofing around with some ideas last night, and I may have come up with an idea for a name and logo.”

  She slid the paper across the desk toward me. I looked down.

  “Judy,” I breathed. “This is great. You sure you don’t mind if we use this as the name and logo? I feel like we’re doing you an injustice by not paying you for this idea.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” she said, reaching into her drawer again. “Not only will I be taking credit for that when anyone asks where it came from, it’s going into my resume portfolio. You never know when you’re gonna need it.”

  “Absolutely,” I chuckled. “Can I ask why you chose these colors?”

  “Sure,” she said with a smile. “You know the ribbons people wear in support of different causes?” I nodded. “That gold is the color for childhood cancer. The purple is for all cancers, not just ones that affect children.”

  My eyes widened. “You just thought of everything, didn’t you?”

  “There’s more,” Adam said. “Judy and I already talked about an idea for an event we want to run by you.”

  I looked at him with my eyes narrowed. “If this event is a black tie affair, count me out.”

  “Dude, I’ve worked with you for years,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is hear you bitching about having to wear a tux. Give me a little credit.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, relaxing back into my chair. “So tell me about this event.”

  “We’re going to do a bone marrow drive here at the stadium,” she said, flipping through her notebook and looking through her notes. The idea officially had my attention. “Obviously I’m going to have to get approval before we set everything in stone. But the idea is that the bone marrow registry team sets up shop in the stadium to take applications, do the bone marrow interviews, draw blood or do cheek swaps, all the things they need to do to get someone signed up for the registry. Once the donor has completed that process, they get to spend ten minutes on the field.”

  “We’re going to ask all the players and coaches to volunteer a couple hours of their time to be on the field talking to people and taking pictures,” Adam chimed in. “It could be a real team event.”

  “You think they would go for that?” I asked. “I haven’t had time to really talk to anyone about all this because I’ve been coming home during my off days. But do you think they’d do it?”

  “Jay, I don’t think you realize how many times these guys have approached me asking what they can do to help,” Adam answered seriously. “This will be the first time they can make a difference in something that could directly affect Jaxon. You never know when one of these new donors will be his match.”

  “Not to mention, it would be great PR for the team,” Judy added. “The better the PR for the team, the more people are moved by the effort. The more people are moved—”

  “The more they register,” I interrupted.

  “Exactly,” she said with a smile.

  I shook my head with a smile on my face, overwhelmed by this idea and by how many people were willing to help out with it. “I’m going to let you guys sort out all the details. Just let me know where I need to be and when. And Adam, I trust you. If we need to hire people to run Hart to Heart,” I said, looking at Judy, who smiled when I used the name. “Then do it. Just keep me in the loop.”

  “I will keep you updated every step of the way,” he assured me. “I know we’ll have to hire people at some point, but hopefully we can at least pull off this one event before we need to look into that.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath, just absorbing how fast this was all moving. Hart to Heart was happening. And with any luck, it was going to help save some lives.

  “What the fuck are we watching?” Deuce whispered to me as we stood in the back of the hospital great room, watching the kids’ version of “entertainment.” Now that the regular season had started and we were back home, I had convinced Deuce to come to the hospital to meet the kids and talk football with them. But first we had to get through this part.

  “It’s a puppet show, Deuce,” I answered quietly. “You’ve never taken Trace to a puppet show before?”

  “No, because I don’t want my son growing up to be a pansy, but I know enough about them to know you’re not supposed to be able to see the person with his hand up the puppet’s ass,” he whispered again. “That’s just asking for some little kid to have nightmares about turning and coughing.”

  I snickered.

  “And someone really needs to tell him his hot dog stand is open for business,” Deuce added. “This is the children’s ward. It’s about to get real inappropriate, real quick.”

  I heard someone laugh next to Deuce and looked over to see a kid, probably around fifteen or sixteen, in a wheelchair and missing a leg. He glanced up at me when he saw me looking at him.

  “Sorry, man,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. But I was just thinking that his fly is down for all the world to see.”