Chapter 23

Griffin

I sat in the chair in the ENT doctor’s office, trying not to squirm as I waited. Beside me, Lee radiated calm but he’d been nervous-babbling on the way to this appointment, so I figured he just had a good game face. If I took his hand, his palm would probably be as sweaty as mine. Still, I was ten times better with him there than on my own.

The doctor came in and sat at her desk. “Okay, here’s the plan. Griffin, as you know, I planned to do an endoscopic biopsy of your mass in a week. However, that new discomfort you’re noting is because the mass has become bigger. That could just be because you traumatized a benign polyp further.” She frowned at me. I’d confessed to Rocktoberfest and she’d called it ill-advised, which was kinder than what Lee had called it.

Still, even now, I couldn’t regret having gone. The money was in the bank, my sales were trending upward, and I’d reconnected with Pete and the band. And Lee said he’d gained a deeper understanding of what music meant to me. So sure, if I’d fucked myself over, I’d be sorry. But as long as there was hope not, Rocktoberfest had been awesome.

“You have a different plan?” Lee asked the doctor.

“I want to do an excisional biopsy.” She turned to me. “That’s where we take out the whole mass and send it in for histopathology, instead of just samples. There are several advantages. It removes the mass before more growth happens. If it’s benign, we may be done with surgery. We get better results on identifying tumors. Sometimes the scope biopsy samples come out too small for complete diagnosis. We can get some lymph node aspirates while we’re at it, to look for spread.”

“What are the disadvantages?” I asked.

“Mainly that scope biopsies let that next surgery be more complete. This way, we may have to come back a second time. And sometimes a second cancer surgery, working around the scars and healing of the first, is messier. More likely to miss tissue we should remove, more likely to permanently damage your voice.”

“Oh.” I turned to Lee. “What do you think?”

The doctor said, “I wouldn’t be offering this if I didn’t think there are ninety percent odds of it being benign. I’m hopeful it can be a one and done.”

“I’d go for it,” Lee told me. “But it’s your call.”

I swallowed past the annoying thickness in my throat. I wanted the damned thing gone. “Let’s do it.”

The doctor pulled up her calendar app on the computer screen. “I can’t do it on the fifteenth. That was an office slot. But I had a cancellation on Monday the eighteenth. That work for you?”

“That’s fine,” I agreed, noting it down.

“We’ll send you all the presurgical info. You’ll need bloodwork the week before. Someone will call you Friday with pre-op directions.” She closed out of her screen and stood. “Griffin? Think good thoughts. Your voice is a gift and I’m going to do everything I can to preserve it. Be gentle as possible on your throat— use low normal tones when necessary, not whispering— and I’ll see you on the eighteenth.”

When she’d ushered us out of her office, I followed Lee out onto the sidewalk. A cool fall breeze whipped under my collar as we headed for his car and I shivered.

“Well, good news, bad news, I guess,” Lee said, popping the locks.

I got in and turned to him, trying to speak softly. “I’m sorry. You told me Rocktoberfest was a bad idea.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but you know, if it gets you to surgery faster? Not the worst thing in the world. And she thinks it’s benign. I’m going to hang onto that.”

Me too. “Is that you working on an optimism reset?”

“Yep. Don’t expect too much, though. I’m still going to make you keep your voice down as much as possible for the next two weeks.”

I took a deep breath and lowered my volume further. “What do you want to do now?”

“We both have the afternoon off.”

“Shows even Zhukov thinks you’re essential.” The bastard had kicked up a fuss about “all the time Robertson is taking off” but when Lee threatened to quit, he’d backed down fast.

“Right. How about the cat café?”

“Great idea.” I would never say no to a purring cat on my lap in times of stress. I might’ve visited Lee’s Mom an extra time last week, just to have Willow de-stress me.

We arrived before the after-work crowd and found a table near the back. Lee picked up tea and cupcakes for us at the counter, stuffing the price in the donation jar. Since the concert, the owner hadn’t let us pay for anything, but he couldn’t stop us giving the cats our money. Lee passed over my cup, saying, “Honey lemon,” and sat next to me, inhaling the fragrant steam from his own.

A short-haired black cat wandered our way and peered up at me, giving a tiny squeaky meow.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I murmured.

The server called, “Don’t encourage her,” a moment too late as the cat made a graceful leap to the tabletop and took a big lick of icing off my cupcake. “I’m so sorry.” The woman hustled over and lifted the cat down. “We might have to stop bringing her. She’s practically addicted to vanilla.”

The cat met my eyes and smugly licked icing off her whiskers.

“I’ll bring you a fresh cupcake,” the server offered.

“Just a knife. I’ll trim that bit.” I eyed the cat. “What’s her name?”

“Cinder.” The server frowned down at her. “Should be Trouble. She’s super sweet but gets into everything. She’ll be hard to place, too.”

“Why?” Cinder was now butting against my ankles, stroking her cheeks on my jeans. I scooped more icing with my finger, since I’d be trimming it off anyway, and held the treat down to her. She ate daintily, her barbed tongue rasping on my calluses.

“She’s old. She may not look it, but she’s almost fifteen. No real health problems, but that’s still elderly for a cat. We have lots of younger ones.” The woman gestured around the café at the cats lounging in climbers and sitting in the big windowsill and batting toys around the floor.

“Fifteen’s not that old,” I protested. “Not if she’s healthy. And there’s nothing wrong with being old.”

Lee set a hand on mine. “Soft voice, hon.” He told the server, “He’s not supposed to strain his throat. But he’s right, health matters more than age in figuring out how long you’ll live. Age is just a number.”

As if she heard him, Cinder prrrp ed, paced to his feet, and began headbutting, anointing the hems of his scrubs with his share of black hairs.

Lee leaned down and stroked her. “You are a silky black beauty, aren’t you?”

I was struck once again with how gorgeous he was, with the soft look in his eyes and the smile on his lips. Maybe he didn’t have the classic cut-glass beauty of Pete Lebraun or Quinn’s babyfaced appeal, but Lee was big and strong and yet kind and warm. That red hair and beard framed his generous mouth and stunning gray eyes. His capable hands moved over the cat’s fur, his scrubs outlining the arms that held me almost every night now. Perfect for me.

Someday, when his mom was ready, I’d ask him to move in with me and wake up to that sight every morning.

“Um, here?”

I startled and turned to find the server holding out a knife to me, handle first.

“Oh, thanks.” I trimmed off the cat-licked icing and eyed the remnant. “How terrible would it be to let Cinder eat this?”

“We tell people not to feed the cats, but between you and me, she’s pretty slim. I can’t imagine it would hurt. Just don’t encourage her to eat off the plate or get on the table.”

“I would never.” I swiped the icing off the knife and held my hand down. Cinder immediately abandoned Lee to come running over and lick it.

“Cupboard love,” Lee complained. “Outbid by the rock star.”

A woman at the nearby table exclaimed, “Oh, you are Griffin Marsh,” pushed back her chair, and hurried my way. That led to about ten minutes of signing things for the patrons, while Lee petted Cinder in his lap, fed her tiny bits of my icing, and kicked my ankle when I forgot to baby my voice. The server said something about deserving my privacy, but I told her it was fine. I asked folks to donate, and the jar on the counter was a lot fuller by the time I was done.

Lee said to Cinder, “I’d bring you home, but the last cat I brought home became Mom’s. She doesn’t need a pair.”

“I’ll take her,” I told him, dizzy at the image of Lee at our breakfast table every day, the cat in his lap. “Less for her to get into at my place and I could use the company.”

“A pet’s a commitment.” Lee fixed his gaze on me.

I lowered my tone further, barely a breath. “Are you saying you wouldn’t take her if something happened to me?”

“No, I— fuck!” He set Cinder on the floor and called to the server, “Hey, we’re going to adopt this cat. Just not today. Can you put Griffin’s name on her? We’ll be back soon.”

“Sure,” she called back. “Lucky cat.”

“Why not today?” I asked, although I let Lee haul me to my feet and hustle me outside.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Lee’s grip cut off my circulation at the elbow. “You’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” For a moment, I’d even forgotten the potential crisis. Which won’t happen.

Lee let go of my arm. “No, of course not. I’m overreacting.” He sighed. “Sorry.”

“Maybe we should walk for a bit.” I gestured down the sidewalk.

“Maybe. Yeah.” He turned and paced off.

I caught up with him in three strides and waited for him to find words.

“Sorry,” he said eventually. “I don’t like that the tumor got bigger.”

“Polyp,” I murmured, determined to look on the bright side.

“Growth. Yeah, whatever. I’ve just found you and things are awesome, so of course my brain is catastrophizing. What-ifs bouncing around in my head. You’d think being a medical person means I could believe the odds, but instead it means when I can’t sleep, I’m reading JAMA articles on—” Lee cut himself off with a glance my way. “Well, on shit you don’t need to also have in your head. I’m trying to be cool. Just doing a really shitty job of it.”

I took his arm, pulled him to a stop in a shallow nook between two stores, and wrapped him in a hug. “Sweetheart, I get it. We need to get through the next two weeks.” I kept my voice low, my mouth beside his ear. “I’ll try to stay quiet, you try not to freak out, and we’ll make it to my surgery.”

“But afterward—”

“Nope. I made it through the long, long slog of my arrest, indictment, and trial by not looking too far ahead. We don’t go there till we get there.”

“You were able to do that?”

I sagged in his hold and let him support me this time. “Mostly? Kind of? I mean, I cleaned out my fridge and packed up the apartment in case I got jail time—”

“Jesus!” Lee gripped me tight. “That had to be fucking scary.”

“Yeah.” I remembered those bleak months, the creeping conviction that I’d end up in prison and I deserved it. I murmured, “The judge totally could’ve given me two years. Maybe she should’ve.”

“Fuck that sideways with a cactus.” Lee shook me back and forth. “Don’t even think it. You fucked up, but there is nothing about you that deserves to be locked away. In no world does that make sense.”

I lowered my forehead to his shoulder. “Thanks. It was a weird time. I got through it by looking one step ahead. Arraignment. Meeting with the DA. Plea bargain. Trial. Sentencing. The whole time knowing that my victim’s family was going through a much harder experience. I got way up in my head.” I had to laugh and then my throat hurt. I swallowed and dropped back to a soft voice. “My lawyer didn’t want me to give my money to the family at first. Admission of guilt. But knowing I could at least get those girls through college was the only thing that kept me going. In the end, she decided it would look good, but fuck that. I needed to do something positive to justify living while Linda died. Back then, I’d have thought this cancer scare was karma.”

Lee kissed my forehead, ignoring the frown we got from a man walking by. “And now?”

“Now I guess I know shitty things happen but we can’t give up. Rocktoberfest helped, seeing the joy in fans’ faces, seeing Yolanda light up like I made her year.”

“You did.”

“Wellhaven helped, Owen and Harvey.” I paused as a woman stopped on the sidewalk to eye us for a moment. When she’d moved on, I continued, “But you helped me more than anything. For you, I’m going to keep hoping and doing whatever it takes to be a good patient and I believe we’ll get through this, one day at a time.”

“I’ll try too,” Lee promised. “My one day at a time with Alice was a slow walk toward disaster. I know that warps how I look at things now.”

“Your mom’s doing well, though,” I pointed out. “So things can get better.”

“She is.” His hold on me loosened, until we stood with his arms looped around my waist. He met my eyes. “I had her therapist recommend someone for me to talk to. Online, and we haven’t had our first appointment, but I’m trying.”

“That’s awesome. I’m glad.”

“Should’ve done it years ago, if I’m honest. I always said I was too busy, but that was an excuse.”

“Maybe you needed to take care of your mom before you could take care of yourself.” Wisdom said to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, but Lee would always be the guy making sure everyone else was safe first. I didn’t expect to change that about him.

“I guess.” He straightened and stepped back. “Hey, want to come home for dinner? Mom’s been bugging me to bring you over, Willow’s there for lots of lap-sitting, and I started a tagine in the slow cooker before I headed in to work.”

“Food, the second most perfect cat in the world, some mothering, and you? How could I say no?”

“Second most?”

“Well, I just committed to adopting Cinder. So she gets first billing by default.”

Lee reversed down the sidewalk. “That is the cat that stole the icing off your cupcake.”

“Cuteness personified.”

He grinned, and I liked seeing his expression look lighter. “You are so going to be pussy-whipped.”

I managed to choke back a laugh before it could escape, and murmured. “Eloquent.”

“But true.”

“I resemble that remark.”

“Now stop talking.” He nudged my shoulder. After a minute of side-by-side silence, he added, “You’re going to let me be there when you have the surgery, right?”

“I’m going to beg you to be there.” I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “You and me, we’re a team now, baby.”

“Going back to your pop star roots?”

I wanted to break into my corniest, “I Got You Babe.” Instead, I hip-checked him lightly into a lamppost.

We walked on, grinning at each other in the thin November sunshine.