Chute Yeah (The Valentine Boys 3)

She told me, though she sounded sick to her stomach, as if she was about to hurl any second.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Sarah,” she whispered.

“Last menstrual period?” I continued.

“Started end of last month,” she mumbled.

I looked at my watch and noted the date before writing it down.

“Who’s your primary care physician?” I continued.

“Hoff.”

“Address of primary care physician?” I continued.

“How the hell would I know that?” she asked, blinking open one eye. “I don’t live there.”

My lips twitched up in amusement.

“I’ll Google it in a second,” I said. “Pregnancies?”

“Yes, please,” she mumbled, sounding amused.

My eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Was that a yes, I’ve had them? Or a yes, I want them?”

“I want fifteen kids,” she said. “All of them boys except one. The last one has to be a girl, or all my hopes and dreams will be crushed.”

I snorted. “Candy, darlin’,” I said. “I’m not having fifteen kids. Five, maybe yes. Fifteen? Hell no.”

She opened both eyes this time and said, “That’s just selfish.”

I grinned. “I don’t think it’s selfish not to want fifteen kids.”

“How about we average out the two numbers?” she offered. “Ten?”

I was already shaking my head.

“Have you taken anything oral…”

“I did oral with you two days ago, yes,” she confirmed.

“I see that the drugs are kicking in,” the doctor said, sounding amused.

I winced, then looked up as color flooded my cheeks.

“Her father told me last night that she didn’t react well to pain meds and anesthesia,” I said. “Which, I witnessed firsthand. This is pretty mild compared to last night.”

“I’m a wild thing,” Candy burst out.

Then she started dancing in the seat, her eyes closing, and her body shaking to the music that she was singing. Horribly.

Dr. Sheffield started to chuckle.

“I’m going to go get a bathroom break in and we’ll get started, okay?” he said.

I was already nodding my head.

“Candy,” I said. “It wants to know if your family has a history of cancer.”

She stopped dancing abruptly.

“My mom died of breast cancer,” she said. “Sometimes I still dream about her and that night that she passed away. I went to bed and had a dream that she’d said goodbye. When I woke up, she was dead.”

I felt my heart sink.

“Candy…”

“I also had a dream that she turned into a zombie the next night, and I had to chop her head off and burn the body.” She paused. “I had to call Sam and Dean off of Supernatural. They comforted me later… together.”

I was shaking my head in amusement as I moved back to the questionnaire, not wanting to broach the subject of her mom again so I didn’t have to see her sad.

“Have you been experiencing any problems relating to the pain?” I continued.

“I gagged the other day when…”

I closed my eyes and hoped that she wouldn’t finish that sentence seeing as the nurse had walked into the room.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen.” The nurse snickered. “Everybody ready?”

I handed the nurse the questionnaire.

“This is everything that I could do on my own while she was drugged,” I laughed, slightly embarrassed.

“You did better than most,” she said. “There are some husbands that come in here that’ve been married to their wives for fifty years that still can’t do what you did.”

Feeling slightly mollified with that statement, I stood up and then kissed Candy on the head.

When I went to pull away, she latched her fingers onto my hand and said, “Don’t leave.”

I smiled softly down at her, then looked at the nurse.

“You can stay until she’s under,” she said.

I stood next to Candy’s chair as the nurse started an IV then began the sedation process.

Right before Candy was about to close her eyes, they popped back open and she whispered, “I’ll never let go, Jack.”

I blinked.

“Titanic?” I guessed.

She batted her eyelashes.

“Rose was such a bitch,” she said. “If we had hit an iceberg on the Titanic, I wouldn’t have been dumb. I’d have shared the fuck out of that piece of wood. There was so much room for both of them on there.”

I agreed.

Yet I didn’t say anything aloud.

“I’d share that with you for my entire life if I had to.” She paused. “I’d even pee on you to help you keep warm.”

With that her eyes drifted closed, and I looked over at the nurse and the doctor that were silently chuckling away.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of things we hear,” she said. “Your girl is one of the funniest, though.”

I let Candy’s limp hand go, watching it fall to the chair beside her with a dull thud.

My heart skipped a beat at witnessing the movement.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” I wondered, backing slowly out of the room.

“There was this one time that a woman sat with her husband who was waking up from anesthesia after having his wisdom teeth removed,” she said. “He confessed to cheating on his wife for the last six months and having a baby on the way.”