“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. They said it was still okay for me to get chemo.”
“With Hodgkin’s we’ll treat with incredibly low white blood cell counts.” She stopped at a red light and looked over at him. “I’m not taking you to the hospital where you could be exposed to all sorts of weird infections until I know what your number was. Look it up or I’ll call Emma and find out myself.”
Andrew shifted in his seat, partially because her demanding tone was a little arousing, but also because he didn’t want Lauren to call Dr. Patel’s physician assistant and tell her they were together right now. Yesterday at his pre-chemo appointment, he let it slip that Lauren had spent Thanksgiving with his family. He hadn’t meant to, but Emma asked how his holiday was and it just kind of came out. The look of shock on Emma’s face, followed by one of suspicion, had concerned him. Worried he was going to get Lauren in trouble, he’d quickly tried to clean up his mess by explaining that Lauren and his sister had become friends, and Jeni had invited her. Then he asked some stupid question about chemo to move the conversation in another direction.
“Okay, woman,” he said in a teasing voice. “Calm down, I’ll look.”
The light turned green and she drove forward as he pulled out his phone. He logged into the system and pulled up the lab results from yesterday.
“Which one do you want to know?”
“What’s the white blood cell count?”
“One thousand eight hundred.”
“What about the absolute neutrophil count?”
“I like it when you talk science to me.”
She shook her head, appearing amused. “Just tell me the value, man.”
“Man?”
“You called me ‘woman.’”
Yes, he supposed he had.
“Okay…absolute neuro-whatever is one thousand and twenty.”
Lauren pursed her pink lips together, and Andrew fisted his free hand. Damn, he wanted to kiss her.
“It would be best if your neutrophils were above fifteen hundred, but I’m okay with above one thousand.”
“Great.” He locked his phone and lifted his hips to slide it back into his pocket. He glanced over to see Lauren’s eyes on him, but she quickly looked away, pink staining her cheeks.
He grinned.
Soon Lauren pulled into the parking garage connected to Children’s Hospital. They rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, which housed walls painted floor-to-ceiling with clouds and bright flowers. Lauren greeted several people wearing scrubs as they passed.
Finally, they reached a large, open space that reminded Andrew of the youth room at the church he’d attended as a teenager. Each wall was painted a different color, and there was a television at each end of the room, flanked by overstuffed chairs and sofas. A foosball table sat against the wall, and in the middle were several stations with varying activities just as Lauren had described.
The second they entered the room, a little boy jumped up and yelled Lauren’s name. He was thin, looked to be seven or eight years old, and completely bald. Based on how excited the boy was, Andrew wondered why he stood there looking at Lauren expectantly—Alva would have run and jumped into her arms by now.
That’s when he noticed the IV line taped to the boy’s arm, and the tall, metal pole parked next to him, a large bag of fluid swaying slightly with his movement. Lauren made a beeline for the boy and knelt down to wrap him in a hug.
Andrew’s eyes scanned the room, and his chest tightened. Several children were present, ranging in age from toddler to teenager. About half were in the same situation as the boy Lauren was talking to, rolling an IV pole around wherever they went. Others had nothing visibly attached to them, but most rocked the hairless style like Andrew.
Emotion rose up inside him unbidden, and he suddenly regretted his decision to do this. These were kids…and they were going through something so horrible…it was almost too much to bear.
A hand touched his arm, and he found Lauren back at his side.
“Look at their faces,” she murmured, looking up at him with worried eyes.
“What?”
“Their faces. They’re smiling.” She squeezed his bicep gently. Another time he would have been embarrassed that the muscle she touched was smaller than usual, because he hadn’t been able to keep up his usual regimen at the gym, but right now he didn’t care. She continued in a near whisper. “Yes, they have cancer. But they’re happy. They’re playing. Focus on their smiles, okay?”
He swallowed and nodded.