Merry Ever After

Dee

I tell myself to calm the hell down, but myself isn’t listening. Wyatt is fine and has told me repeatedly there’s no reason to worry about a routine cardiac checkup. Try telling that to my blood pressure, which must be sky-high as I’ve counted down to Christmas Eve and the only thing that truly matters to me on a day that’s usually full of family, food and fun. I’m the one who’s going to end up with a life-threatening cardiac condition unless I can find a way to chill.

Easier said than done.

I need him to be okay.

That is all I need to be okay myself, and it’s all I want for Christmas.

I’m so brittle with anxiety that I fear one wrong look from someone will break me, which is why I’m going with Wyatt to the hospital rather than helping with Nochebuena preparations tomorrow.

I’ve never once, in my entire life, missed that time with the women in my family, but I’ve also never had to deal with the possibility of losing the man I love to the heart condition that’s been at the center of his life since he was eight and diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.

Wyatt tried to save me fr

om days like tomorrow by attempting to talk me out of loving him. He failed miserably at that, thank goodness. Every other day I’ve spent with him has been pure bliss. Today—and tomorrow—are the only days on which his situation has invaded our happily ever after. I tell myself I can get through two days of hell to have the rest of the time with him, but I have to be honest. The worry is more debilitating than I expected it to be when I decided to fight for the life I want with him.

I’m so upset, I feel sick, which I’m going to have to hide from him when he comes to bed after a shower. I hear the water turn off and steel myself to be my usual chipper self when I’m with the man of my dreams. And everything about our life together is a dream come true.

Except for this one thing—the specter of his uncertain health that hangs over days like today when we’re forced to confront his reality. The rest of the time we do a pretty good job of pretending like we have nothing to worry about.

He jokes about having outlived his warranty.

I don’t think that’s funny, but I laugh so he doesn’t think I’m fretting over him.

He doesn’t like when I do that.

I’m wound tighter than a drum tonight, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to hide that from him. I need to remember this for next year and have my doctor fiancé prescribe me a sedative that’ll knock me out for two full days so I can wake up when it’s over to hear he’s fine. What do you suppose the ethics of something like that would be?

Before I can think of something I can do—immediately—to diffuse my stress, he’s coming out of the bathroom, naked as the day he was born with the gorgeous, elaborate chest tattoo that hides his surgical scars on full display.

“I love that freaking Peloton,” he announces. “Best workout I’ve ever had. Makes me sweat my balls off.”

I hate that freaking Peloton and hold my breath every minute he’s on it, pushing himself to extremes that cannot be good for his transplanted heart. Okay, I admit it, living with a man who’s outlived his warranty is harder than I thought it would be.

“Don’t sweat your balls off. I need them for procreation.” I try for a flip, nothing-on-my-mind tone that I think I pull off rather convincingly, since he laughs at my comment.

Here’s the truth—he was right, and I was wrong. But even knowing how hard it is to live with his potential medical challenges, I wouldn’t change a thing about days that end this way, with him curling that hot, muscular, perfectly healthy body around mine and setting me on fire with needs I never knew I had until Dr. Wyatt Blake showed me.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, zeroing right in on the fact that my muscles are so tense they must feel like concrete to him.

“Nothing. What could be wrong two days before Christmas?”

He raises a dark brow that manages to call me out on my bullshit without him having to say a word. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

“What am I doing?”

“Freaking out over what will be a perfectly routine annual check of the ticker.”

“I’m not freaking out about that.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m worried about how Abuela assigned the sweet plantains and yuca to me for the first time ever, and I want to get them right. She’ll never let me hear the end of it if the plantains aren’t sweet enough.”

“You did a trial run last week, and I ate every bite of what you made. I think you’ve got this, babe.”

“You’re hardly an impartial customer. You like everything I make for you.”