After All - Romancing Manhattan

Not when I had a temperamental preteen to deal with.

But that storm has passed, and we’re back on course.

Now, I just need to decide when and where to ask her. It shouldn’t be in bed. It should be somewhere romantic, with flowers and candles and soft music.

Shit, I should ask her parents first.

I swallow hard, remembering how Nora’s relationship with her parents is as tenuous as mine, but it’s the right thing to do.

I’ll call them tomorrow, get their blessing, and then propose this weekend.

I nod, happy with the plan; I slip the ring into its box and tuck it away in my nightstand. Nora snaps the shower off, and I reach for my iPad, ready to do some reading before sleep.

I hear her in the bathroom, opening and shutting drawers, going about her ritual.

It’s become our nightly routine, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

I’ve just sunk into an article on the chemicals they put in coffee creamer when Nora walks into the bedroom. I glance up, and do a double take when I see the concerned expression on her lovely face.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. It might be nothing.”

“What might be nothing?”

“I don’t want to freak you out.”

“You’re freaking me out anyway.” I set the iPad aside and sit forward as she sits on the edge of the bed. “Seriously, talk to me.”

“Okay. Feel this.” She takes my hand and rubs it over the underside of her breast, back and forth. I can feel something firm, about the size of a pea.

About the size of a pea.

Fuck me.

“Do you feel it?” she asks.

“I do.” I sit back and try to keep my emotions under control. I want to scoop her up and take her immediately to the emergency room and demand a mammogram on the spot.

I want to scream.

Hell, I want to curl up and cry like a damn baby.

But I don’t do any of those things.

“It could be nothing, right?” She bites her lip and turns pleading eyes to mine. “It’s probably not cancer.”

Cancer. I fucking hate that word. The mention of it sets my pulse racing and fills me with absolute terror. If it is cancer, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t go through it again. I can’t lose another woman that I love more than anything in the world.

“Probably not.”

I hear the coldness in my voice and cringe when she turns confused eyes on me.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” There, that sounds better. She crawls up onto the bed and lays her head in my lap. Because it’s what she needs, I brush my fingers through the soft strands.

“I’m healthy,” she says, as if she’s trying to convince us both. “I’m young, and I take care of myself. Sure, I like cake as much as the next girl, and I have a few extra pounds that I carry around, but for the most part, I’m healthy. The only pills I take are Advil for the occasional headache.”

“You’re incredibly healthy,” I agree, reminding us both. And God wouldn’t do this to me twice.

Would he?

“It’s probably just a cyst,” she continues. “I think my mom has had a few cysts, and my doctor once told me that I have fibrous breasts, whatever that means.”

I tune her out now, unable to hear her over the roaring in my ears.

A lump.

Cancer.

My God, what will Gabby and I do if we lose her? Am I being melodramatic?

Maybe.

Maybe Gabby gets the drama from me.

But I’ve been here before, and it’s terrifying. Darcy and I had the same conversation.

Young and healthy.

Probably nothing.

It could be a thousand things, no need to jump to conclusions.

Everything’s going to be just fine.

Almost verbatim, it’s a conversation that I’ve had before, and my world fell apart.

How could it be happening again?

Chapter Seventeen

~Nora~

“What’s wrong with you?”

I’m riding in the back of a cab with Christopher, on our way to my doctor appointment to have my breast checked.

“Oh, you know, lump in my breast.” I stare at him like he’s ridiculous. “Nothing to worry about here.”

“No, I get that part, that’s why I’m here. But I sense more than fear. I sense anger in you.”

“Well, Yoda, you’re right. I’m good and pissed off.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Talk to me.”

I take a long, deep breath. “Ever since last night when I asked Carter to feel my breast, to make sure I’m not crazy, he’s gone cold on me. I told him about my appointment today this morning at the office and asked him to come with me. He said he didn’t have time.”

“Maybe he didn’t.”

“I know his schedule. Hell, I make his schedule. I know he could have taken a couple of hours to go to the doctor with me. He’s just shut down on me, and I can’t figure it out. Everything was going so well after Gabby’s meltdown, and then poof. Cold.”