"No shit?" he asked, reaching out to grab me. He lifted my arm up and touched the desensitized skin there with gentle fingertips. "What kind?"
"A form of soft tissue sarcoma," I explained. “Cancer in my muscle, pretty much.”
Slim's wide expression drooped before a frown crossed his lips. "Why didn't you say something?"
That wasn't exactly what I was expecting. "I'm telling you now."
"But you could've said something before," he shot back solidly. "Hey, Slim, I used to have friggin’ cancer. Just thought you should know."
I opened my mouth to argue back with him when Blake made a noise I hoped to never hear from him again. Ever. "JR has acute lymphoblastic leukemia."
Any argument in my mouth or Slim's died quickly.
It was Blue that spoke first. "Sorry, B," she said, throwing her arms around the much bigger man.
"Dude," was the one thing Slim muttered harshly.
Oh shit. I slipped my knees onto the seat and leaned across the table, careful not to knock over any of the bottles, and put my hands on Blake's arm. "I'm sorry."
He let out a weak, worried exhale. "The doctors called to say his red blood cell count was off. They ran a few tests to figure out what was wrong," he explained from Blue's shoulder. "I'm scared outta my mind."
"They have all kinds of treatment for cancer now," Slim piped up.
Blake nodded just a little bit. "Yeah, that's what the doctors said. They told us his kind is one of the most treatable, but it still scares the shit out of me."
Of course it would. We sat around, trying to offer our best words of comfort and reassurance that Junior would get better. No one drank anything else while we talked to him but by the time we left over an hour later, it seemed like he was a little more calm.
I didn't have the heart to say that he'd probably freak out a hundred more times over the course of the next few months, but I hoped he'd turn to one of us for moral support.
What did get me was that Dex didn't say anything on the walk to his bike, his hand on my hip. When we got home, I'd barely sat on the couch when he came to stand in front of me. Four fingers flicked up. He growled, "Take it off, babe."
I raised an eyebrow slowly. "Excuse me?"
"Your shirt," he said like he was telling me to get on the back of his bike.
"Why?"
Dex ducked enough to grab the bottom of my sweater, slipping it up and over my head while I squirmed.
"What the hell, Dex?" I swung my hand out toward him, catching him on the stomach.
He wasn't fazed at all by my pathetic swing. Dex dropped to his knees in front of me, lifting my arm without another word. A crease lined his eyebrows, his mouth set into a grim line. He brushed a tapered, neatly groomed finger over the inside of my arm. One, two, three times. I couldn't feel it well but the act itself seemed more intimate than what we'd done on his bed the day before.
When was the last time I'd let anyone look at my scarring so closely, let alone touched it? Never.
His breathing grew labored, the pressure of his pad increasing before he finally spoke in a low grumble. "You didn't think to tell me about this?" he asked, eyeing the knotted skin. "You didn't think to tell me you're sick?"
"I was sick, Dex." I tried jerking my arm away but he held it too tight. "I haven't been sick in a long time."
"How long?" His voice was low, hot and seeking.
"I've been in remission for five years."
Dex's body jerked. "A long time is ten years ago, twenty years ago. Not five, Ritz." He shuffled forward on his knees, ducking his head closer to mine. "Not five fuckin' years ago."
"I'm fine, I promise." The assurance fell on deaf ears based on the look he gave me. "My chances of getting it again are pretty slim."
"I don't care," he rasped. The words sounded ripped from his throat. “You had cancer, not the goddamn flu.”
“Dex, it’s nothing.”
“Baby, it’s not fuckin’ nothin’. You wouldn’t be missin’ half your bicep if it was nothin’. You wouldn’t have been hidin’ this if it wasn’t a big deal. This shit is not nothin’ to me.”
Leaning forward, I grabbed his shoulder and pressed my forehead to his nose. "I'm sorry for not telling you before but it's not that big of a deal. I'm okay, and hopefully I'll be okay the rest of my life."
He repeated the last sentence so low I missed half the words. His breath washed over my face, minty with just a hint of cigarette smoke. "Babe, is there somethin' else you haven't told me?"
"No. Nothing important."
Dex shook his head. "You're gonna give me a fuckin' heart attack. You sure?"
I reached up to place my hands on his cheeks. "I'm positive. I promise. That's all."
The tip of his nose drew a line from my forehead to my temple. "Don't do that shit to me again," he pleaded. "Swear to me, Ritz. Tell me you won't drop some shit like that on me again."
His tone. Christ. The tremble in his voice pulled at the threads of tissues in my spine.
My body started shaking. "I swear."
Dex's hands went for my ribs, kneading the skin and bones. "You'll tell me if you start to feel bad? Anything, babe. Any time you start to feel sick, you swear you'll say somethin'?"
I didn't know where this was all coming from. His need for me to tell him something so simple, but I could feel the tension under his skin. He wouldn't take anything but yes from me. Dex wouldn't accept anything less than a promise. "I swear."
He nodded so slowly it seemed painful for him. The breath that left his mouth was a wisp and a flutter, shaky and emotional. “I’ll put you on the insurance plan first chance I get tomorrow. It ain’t that great but I’ll see if I can get you a better policy. You know, in case...” he trailed off, nostrils flaring, face tight.
It made every blood cell in my body redirect itself to my heart, filling it with so much blood, so much life-giving sustenance, that I thought it was going to burst out in a bloody explosion. I wanted to tell him right then everything. About my surgeries, about the timeline of my loved ones' lives, about the sacrifices made that had shaped the outcome of my life.
Tell him everything that had led me here. To him.
But instead of remembering how to string along the twenty-six letters in an alphabet that suddenly didn't seem so important, I tipped my mouth up to brush my lips against his. He let out a long, shuddering exhale that wafted across my mouth, dragging me in deeper to the vortex that was Dex Locke.
To have this man care about me, not just a little bit, but enough that it tipped the axis of his temperament, calmed me. It was an anchoring acknowledgment. Because I cared about him too and I wished in that moment that I would have had the opportunities to show him that I felt the same way. But all I'd done was keep things from him.
Just like I kept things from Sonny. My beloved half-brother that was so mad he hung up on me—not that I could blame him but still.
I didn't want to push people that I loved and valued away because I made decisions that were well-meaning but stupid.
"I'm sorry," I whispered just a millimeter from those firm, full lips that graced his beautiful mouth. "I don't want to keep things from you, but it's a bad habit to break." I kissed his top lip for just a moment, closing my eyes as the reality of what my bullshit could lead me to set in. "Please don't give up on me, I won't do it again."
Two large hands cupped my cheeks. "Iris," he purred in that silky voice that made me lose my breath all over again. "I already told you I don't give up what's mine." Dex kissed my bottom lip like I'd done his. "Ever."