Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (30 page)

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“When?” I said, proving that Jake wasn’t
the only one with a head full of fluff.

She laughed and said, “On our date. What
were you thinking we would do?”

“Oh um, see a movie, maybe?”

“Okay,” she said. Just like that, we had a
date.

“Tomorrow night?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said again.

“Pick you up on Suzie at eight?” She
opened her mouth, I think she was going to say okay again, but then processed
what I said.

“No,” she said, “I don’t do motorcycles.”

I smiled at her. “It would be a lot of
fun,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m sure it would be,” she said,
again with the sarcasm. “Too much fun for me.”

“How will we get to the movies?” I said.

“The bus goes there.”

 
I
waited for the grin, to tell me she was kidding, but she was dead serious.

“Okay then.”

What else could I say?

I asked her to dance three times before I
finally got a yes. I was beginning to wonder if she just liked messing with me.
As we were dancing I said, “This music is crap. No wonder they’re looking for a
band.”

She smiled and said, “From what I heard at
your concert the other day, you’re much better than this.”

I think she meant it, so I said, “Thanks.”
Something about this girl made me lose my vocabulary.

When we got back to the table, Jake and
Megan left again. Molly leaned over and looked at my right arm and said, “You
have a cancer symbol on your arm.”

I have tattoo sleeves. In the middle of a
lotus flower, next to a lily pad with a lime green frog on it, I had the artist
slip in a yellow ribbon. Most people never even notice it.

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought it was cool.
You know, to show my support.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That is cool. Did they
hurt?”

“You don’t have any?” I asked her.

“Not a one. I’m not a fan of needles.”

I laughed. “Who is?” I asked her. “It’s
not the same as getting a shot, or getting blood drawn,” I told her. “It’s more
of a scratching sensation.”

“Oh,” she said. Then she added, “I’m not
really a fan of scratching either.”

I laughed; she looked like she was serious.
All in all, it was a great night, and I was so glad that I went.

The next day, I woke up with a knot of
excitement in my belly. I couldn’t wait to see her. As I mixed my juice and
took my meds that morning, it suddenly dawned on me that today was day four.
Not a great day to be going out on a first date. I thought about the movies and
popcorn. Not that I planned on eating any, but the butter smell was going to be
enough to put me over the top while we’re sitting there in that dark theater
looking up at a huge screen. I almost had to run to the bathroom and throw up
just thinking about it. Damn it! What was I going to do? I wasn’t going to
cancel our date.

As I was thinking about it, I walked over
to the window and noticed that it was raining. I smiled suddenly as I realized
that was my out. “Thank you God,” I said it out loud and smiled. I grabbed my
phone and called Molly.

“Hello?”

The sound of her voice made my stomach do
a somersault. Jeez, I was a mess.

“Hey Molly. I was wondering if you minded
terribly if we changed up the date a little.”

“Okay,” she said. “What did you want to do
instead?”

“I was just thinking, since our options
were the bike or the bus and it’s raining…maybe you would want to come to the
apartment and we could cook dinner and watch a movie here?”

She was suddenly silent. Shit, I blew it.
She was going to cancel now. She wouldn’t agree to it again, either. I should
have just risked it.

“Okay,” she said in the middle of my
self-lashing.

“Okay…okay, great!” I said. I am astounding
myself with my words lately.

“I’ll ask Megan to drop me off,” she said.
I couldn’t stop smiling. I had to clean house, and go to the store and hide my
medications. Jake came out of his room then, doing that sleepy shuffle walk he
does every morning.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I told him as I went back to making
my juice drink. “Do you mind not being home for a while tonight?”

Jake grinned then. “You bringing Molly
here?” he asked.

“Yes, but stop grinning like a pervert. I
remembered that it’s day four of my meds. I don’t want to be puking at the
movies.”

“Oh, man. I forgot. Does Molly know?”

“No, Jake. Same plan as before okay? No
one knows.”

“Sure,” Jake said. “Of course, no one
knows.”

“Good,” I said, “Help me clean up?”

Jake was reaching for his cereal bowl.
When I said that he looked around and said, “Clean up what? It looks fine.”

“It’s a sty, Jake.”

He shrugged and said, “Okay, I guess.”
He’s a good friend.

By the time Megan dropped off Molly, the
apartment was clean, the medications were hidden and the ingredients for dinner
were bought and prepped. I hoped she wasn’t expecting steak or seafood or
something fancy like that. Not that I minded fancy, per se, but my nutritionist
had me on a pretty strict diet, and if I faltered on that even for one day, it
can make me pretty sick. Not even the day four of my experimental meds could
rival how sick I got when I go off my diet. Something about the fat content of
a lot of foods just no longer sat well with my stomach.

Molly knocked on the door. I knew it was her,
because she had texted me before they left the dorms. I wanted to run over to
it, but I made myself wait a decent amount of time before I did. When I opened
the door I said, “Hi, I’m glad you’re here.”

She smiled, “Thanks, me too.”

She didn’t look glad though. She looked
nervous. She was glancing around like she was looking for the dungeon and the
chains that I would use to cuff her to the wall.

“Have a seat,” I told her. “Do you want
something to drink?”

“Just some water, thanks.”

My heart actually went out to the poor
girl. She really looked about ready to crawl out of her skin. I didn’t know
what to do to put her at ease, but I knew that sometimes keeping busy helped me
when I felt anxious so I said, “Do you want to help me cook?” She smiled.

“Nice trick, guy. Invite a girl over for
dinner and then get her to cook.” I laughed; she was loosening up a bit.

“Oh you don’t have to help me. I think I
can cook the salmon without burning it, and you fry asparagus, right?” She
really perked up then.

“Salmon and asparagus, really?” she said.
“I’m impressed.”

“I’m kind of on a diet.”

She did something then that sent a jolt of
electricity down my spine. She looked me up and down. The she cracked me up by
mimicking what I had said to her that first day that we’d met.

“Looks like it’s working for you,” she
said with a grin. “I’ll do the asparagus.” I got the asparagus and the steamer
out for her. She also seemed surprised by that. “You have a steamer, really?
Did you buy this today just to make yourself look good?”

“No,” I said as I seasoned the salmon.
“It’s Jake’s.” That made her laugh.

“No offense, you know I love Jake right?
But I doubt if you hit him in the face with that thing he would know what it
was.”

“No offense taken and I bet you’re right,”
I told her. It was fun, cooking with her. She was so different from the other
girls that I’ve dated. Since I was sixteen, girls always seemed so worried
about their looks or how cool they sounded that I would find myself incredibly
bored by the end of the first date. With Molly, she was so natural. She didn’t
look like she was trying. I don’t know if a woman would take that as a
compliment or not, but it was absolutely one. She didn’t wear much make-up, and
her hair looked like it just fell into place without trying. She wasn’t always
running to check that it wasn’t messed up, or that her lipstick was reapplied.
It was refreshing. She probably wasn’t even wearing any.

When dinner was ready, we sat in the
living room and ate off the coffee table. Jake and I have an island in the
kitchen and some bar stools, but no dining room table. Molly said she didn’t
mind, and she didn’t seem like she did.

“You want to watch a movie while we eat?”
I asked her.

“Sure,” she said. “What do you have?”

“What do you like?” I asked her. “Between
me and Jake we have every comedy and thriller that has come out in the past few
years.”

“Comedy like Laurel and Hardy, or comedy
like Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey?”

I laughed, “I said the last few years, not
the last few hundred years. Laurel and Hardy, really? How old are you?”

She laughed and said, “My grandmother says
I was born thirty five.”

“Well if that’s the case that would make
you about fifty-three or four. Laurel and Hardy make sense,” I said. “But I’m
sorry, no Laurel and Hardy here.”

“Okay, I’ll take Adam Sandler then. Which
ones do you have?”

I named them off and she picked
Fifty First Dates
. It was his chicky-est
movie, so I wasn’t surprised. Is that a word? Chicky-est? I don’t think so. I’m
glad I didn’t say that out loud. I put it on and then I took our plates to the
kitchen. “Do you want seconds?” I asked her.

“No, thank you, I’m stuffed. You did a
good job on the salmon.”

“Thanks,” I said. “The asparagus was
divine.”

“I think divine is laying it on a bit
thick, don’t you?” she said with a grin. “I mean, I might have gone with
heavenly, or celestial.”

“And divine is laying it on thick?” I
asked with a laugh.

I put the plates in the sink and reached
into the freezer to get the desserts. “I can’t really eat dairy,” she said. I
guess she thought I was reaching for Jake’s box of Dreyer’s.

“Me neither,” I told her. “It’s lemon
sorbet with crushed raspberries. Is that okay?” She grinned and said, “Bring it
on.” We ate our dessert and watched the movie. I suddenly couldn’t believe my ears
as I heard my own voice announce out loud that this was Adam Sandler’s
“chicky-est” movie. When did my brain give my mouth permission to speak?

“Chicky-est?” she said with a grin.

“I’m sure you would have gone with a
better adjective, perhaps?” I said, smiling back at her.

“I’m sure anything I went with would have
been a better adjective,” she said.

“Are you sure you’re not an English
major?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said, “but I’m not sure why.”
That made me laugh until I felt that old familiar rise of nausea from my
stomach, to my esophagus and into my cheeks. Damn it!

I excused myself and headed down the hall
to the bathroom. Sometimes I puke once and it’s over, and other times I
literally can’t get away from a toilet, or a bucket. Please God, I prayed as I
walked down the hall. Let tonight be the former.

I went inside the bathroom and as I closed
the door I leaned up against it and took some deep breaths. Sometimes if I
slowed my breathing, and didn’t allow myself to get too anxious, I could make it
go away before it even really started. As I took my third breath, I could feel
the vomit in the back of my throat and I knew that tonight wasn’t going to be
one of those nights. I quickly pulled up the toilet seat and bent over it.
Within a few seconds, the entire beautiful meal that Molly and I had cooked and
ate together was in the toilet. I had meant to turn the water on before I
puked. I hope the television was loud enough that she didn’t hear that.

I flushed the toilet and turned around to
the sink and turned the cold water on. I splashed some on my face and then
reached for my toothbrush. I hadn’t got as far as the paste before I had to
turn around again, this time ridding myself of our dessert…I think. I leaned
there for a few minutes with my knees against the toilet and my forehead
against the wall. I didn’t usually feel pity for myself. In spite of having
cancer, I live a pretty normal, full life. But tonight, all I wanted to do was
spend the evening with Molly. I wanted to look at her pretty face and talk to
her about…everything. Yet here I was with my head in the toilet, and now I’m
having a pity party in my head to boot.

I tried it again, turning slowly this time
and keeping my eyes I one spot. That’s what my doctor had always told me to do
when I got really nauseated. No quick movements of the head or the eyes. It
makes you lose your equilibrium which makes you a little dizzy or lightheaded,
which makes the nausea even worse.

I washed my face again, this time with a
washcloth, and slowly. Then I reached again for my toothbrush. I hoped that the
paste wouldn’t make me want to throw up again, but I’d be damned if I was going
to go out there with puke breath.

I made it through the teeth cleaning,
flushed and washed once more, and then headed out the door and back down the
hall, the whole time trying to come up with an excuse for why I was gone so
long. As soon as I saw her face, I knew she had heard me throw up. I felt my
face going hot with embarrassment and the anxiety stirring in my chest was probably
going to make me want to puke again. Then she smiled and said, “Are you okay?”