That was when I realized that Tide was more than willing to tear the world apart to make sure that, in the end, I was always okay.
“What did you ever do to that guy when we left?” I asked curiously.
He’d had his buddy walk us the whole way home.
And he’d stayed.
I’d always wondered what he’d done to the guy in the end.
His eyes darkened. “I’m not a very good person, Elvis.”
Funnily enough, I’d known that.
Tide, though seemingly nice to me and the people he was close to, wasn’t the overall greatest person in the world.
He had the worst bedside manner. If I’d met him as my doctor and hadn’t known him, I would’ve disliked him on general principle alone. He was that much of an asshole.
He wasn’t nice to people that wanted something from him.
He wasn’t nice to people that bothered him.
He wasn’t nice to anyone, really. Not really even his friends.
Hell, he wasn’t even nice to me still, and I was about a hundred-percent convinced that he was head over heels in love with me.
“I have to get up and go to work,” he grumbled, wafting the smell of his breath toward my face again.
This time, I couldn’t fight the urge.
I rolled off of him, kneed him in the balls as I moved, and then made a mad dash toward the bathroom as I hurled my guts up.
I didn’t miss the cursing and crying from the other room, though.
I also didn’t miss the scowl on his face when he walked in on me and glared.
“If you could feel one ounce of the pain that I’m feeling right now,” he grunted, walking to the toilet and flushing it before saying, “If you don’t move, I’m pissing past your face.”
I grinned and pulled back with a swipe of my face on the back of my hand.
He flipped me off and I walked to the sink to wash my hands and then brush my own teeth.
“You know you’re probably pregnant, right?”
He called, looking over his shoulder at me as I brushed my teeth. Very carefully.
“I’m not pregnant,” I disagreed.
I hope.
He hummed. “Keep dreamin’, darlin’. Keep dreamin’.”
He got into the shower moments later, and I waited until he stepped inside before I flushed the toilet. Just for the sake of hearing him scream at me.
“You’re so dead to me, Coreline! Dead!”
• • •
Tide wasn’t kidding about getting me in to see his friend.
Dr. Daniel Proctor was an attractive older man that announced he was ‘very excited to meet me’ the moment I walked through the door.
I grinned at the older man and held out my hand, which he took and shook.
“I never thought I’d see the day that Tide found himself the ‘one,’” he teased.
The bad thing is, I truly believed Daniel thought that.
Tide was a lot.
He worked his ass off, he spent a lot of time with his family, and he didn’t really seem like he cared all that much on the outside.
Only people that knew him knew the truth.
He felt deeply. He loved hard. And he didn’t care who he hurt as long as his end goal was met.
“Roll Tide loves me. What can I say?” I teased.
His eyes widened. “Roll Tide? You do realize that Tide went to A&M, correct? He fuck… freakin’ hates Alabama with a passion.”
I snickered as I said, “Oh, yeah. I know.”
He shook his head and we chatted for another few minutes before he said, “I’m going to call a nurse in here, and we’ll get this exam started.”
So that was what we did.
It was when he was doing the breast exam on my second breast that I saw the change come over him.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the wall, and his fingers stopped as they felt the inner part of my chest, halfway between my breast and my armpit.
My stomach caught at the look I saw on his face.
“Dr. Proctor…”
His eyes met mine, and that’s when I knew.
He’d found a lump.
He wrapped up the rest of the exam, and by the time that I was dressed and heading into his office, he had my urinalysis back, too.
Not only had he found a lump, but I was pregnant, too.
I threw up again in response.
CHAPTER 23
Telling me ‘no’ is literally saying you hate me, and you wish I was never born.
-Things my girlfriend says
TIDE
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Dr. Proctor called and wants to talk to you.” The nurse smiled sweetly at me. “Would you like me to get him on the line?”
I couldn’t recognize anything about her face, clothes, voice, or hair. Meaning she was likely new.
Dr. Daniel Proctor was an OB/GYN who also happened to be Sabrina’s father. He was undergoing cancer treatment, so he wasn’t usually taking new patients.
But if my hunches about why Coreline was so tired lately were correct, I wanted a man that knew what he was doing taking care of her.