“See? No one else plays your position. Of course you play the whole game.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, you said it yourself. Next time, just ask whoever says anything if they want to play third while you take a break. I bet they won’t because they’re too scared.”
“Third is scary. The balls come so fast.”
“Yeah, they do, I remember that, but you get used to it.”
“Well, I won’t tell Sara or Lisa that part.”
“Yeah, don’t tell them that part. Just ask them to prove they’re better than you. They won’t be able to, of course.” I patted her leg.
“When will you teach me how to be better?”
“As soon as I get better, we’ll practice every day.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“But what about when you’re in Boston?”
“How would you feel if I lived here instead?”
“Like with me and Daddy?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes got big. “I would love that!”
“Good because I want to.”
I was able to get Cheyenne to come out of her room. No one said anything as she came out. I whispered to Easton that I would tell him everything when she wasn’t around. I knew that she asked me not to, but he deserved to know what the girls on the team were saying.
“Now that everyone is here, Nicole, and I have some news,” Avery said.
I looked at her hand, but she had no ring. “Let me guess. You’re moving here?” I asked.
“Yes, but that’s not it,” Nicole said. “I’m … I’m pregnant!”
“Oh my God! Really?” I squealed and wrapped her in my arms. I winced a little from the pain, but I didn’t care. My best friend was having a baby!
“Yeah.” She nodded when we let go.
“I’m going to have a cousin?” Cheyenne asked.
“Yeah, C.C., you are.” Avery rubbed the top of her head and messed up her hair.
“Awesome! I can’t wait to teach them how to catch.”
My best friend was pregnant. I was happy for her, but at the same time, I was sad. Life was strange. I’d always thought that I’d have children by now. I didn’t even know if Easton wanted more kids. I didn’t even know if he wanted to marry me.
“You okay?” Easton whispered into my ear.
“Yeah,” I answered, giving him a tight smile.
“Avery’s a good guy. He’s going to treat her right. He’ll do the right thing.”
“I know.” I wrapped my arms around his waist.
Nicole told us when the due date was. By the calculations, she got pregnant on the cruise. They were both smiling, happy, and in love.
The day finally came for me to start radiation. It seemed like yesterday I had surgery, but it was actually almost five weeks prior. A week ago, the four of us had rented a U-Haul truck and moved Nicole and me to New York. I sold most of my stuff, and Nicole did the same, so we had very little.
Nicole found a nursing job that allowed her to work while she got her license transferred to New York, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a paralegal. If I did, I would need to be re-certified in New York, and that involved going back to school. Plus, Ian didn’t know that I wasn’t coming back. I was still on disability from my surgery and now from the radiation. I wasn’t due to go back for another two months.
“You’re getting that look in your eye,” Easton said, grabbing my hand as we drove to the radiation center. “You have nothing to be worried about.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t need to lay there topless while they burn your insides.”
“Well, when you put it that way …” I shot him a glare. “I’m just kidding. The doctor said that it doesn’t hurt. The only thing that will happen is your skin might get irritated and burned, but I’m going to put lotion on you every night.”
“You’re supposed to put it on right after the treatment.” I laughed and shaking my head.
“I’ll still put it on you every night. You know I like touching your boobies.”
“Oh, I know all right.” I playfully hit his shoulder.
Living with Easton was perfect. It was like we were a family. Cheyenne accepted me. His parents accepted me, and, of course, Avery accepted me. I never imagined having my family like this—but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Easton was my best friend, my boyfriend, my lover, my soul mate.
Easton waited for me in the waiting room when I went back to have my first treatment. I didn’t know what to expect. Of course, they gave me a crash course, made me watch a short video, but I didn’t know what would really happen until I was going through it.
Before I could get the first dose of radiation, they took me back to have a CT. They explained that it was to take images so they knew exactly where to line me up each day. They were going zap the exact spot every day for the six weeks.
“Brooke, I’m going to mark you with this black marker and then poke the spot with a needle so it’s permanent. It’s so we can get the lasers set up properly.”
“Like a tattoo?”
“Yes, but they’re small dots and will just look like freckles,” the male technician said.
“Okay,” I replied, averting my eyes.
He opened my hospital style gown and marked me in three different places: two on both breasts on the side and one in the center of the valley of my chest. Once he was done marking me, he left my gown open, my breast uncovered, and took several images with the tube-shaped machine. I had pants on, but was uncomfortable having my boobs uncovered. I tried to tell myself that he did this every day, but I just wanted it to be over—fast.
Once he was done, I sat in a waiting room for patients until it was my turn to have the treatment. As I sat there, a woman around forty came in, crying. I didn’t know why she was crying, but she didn’t have any hair. A nurse was rubbing her back, whispering words to her as she cried.
Once they left, I saw a woman about my age across from me.
“First day?” she asked when she saw me looking at her. She had all her hair.
“Yeah.” I smiled, trying to hide how scared I was.
“This is my second round. I have chemo after this and they’re running late. I hope I don’t miss it.”
“What … Why do you have both?”
“I have stage three colon cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” I frowned.
The waiting room was filled with women in hospital gowns, doing puzzles and talking like we were on someone’s porch having lemonade. I figured that most of them had cancer. It was heartbreaking. We were all fighters in our own way. They were fighting for their lives, and I was fighting to be pain free.
“It’s my first day, too,” an older Indian woman leaned over to tell me.
“How long do you have to go?”
“Four weeks. You?”
“Six.”
Before we could talk about whether either one of us had cancer, I was called back to the radiation room.
The room was cold and a huge machine sat in the middle. It looked like something you’d see on Star Trek; a giant C with a long tongue and wings. The tongue was where I lay with my arms above my head and my hands clenched to bars that stuck up.
While I lay on the table, my gown opened so the technicians could see my dots. They placed six more dots and lined me up with lasers while my gown stayed open and my breasts were uncovered. I stared at the orange leaves that hung on tree branches with a blue sky in the background that were used instead of the typical light panel for fluorescent lights.
The actually zapping only lasted a few seconds, but getting the bench in the correct places, took close to thirty minutes total. After I was done, they moved the bench out and I covered up my chest with the gown and left—only to return the next day and do that part all over again—for six weeks.
I didn’t talk much on the way home. I tried to tell Easton everything, but I was exhausted—mentally and phy
sically. He didn’t pry and knew I would eventually tell him everything.
When we got home, I took a shower and crawled into bed. It was only four in the afternoon, but I needed a nap.
I woke to Easton running his fingers along my side where my scars from my surgery were still healing. They were almost healed, the stitches were gone, but they were still a little sensitive to the touch. I had four total. One on my back, two on my right side and one under my right breast.
“Hey.” I turned to face him.
“It’s almost eight. I just wanted to see if you needed anything.”
“Just some water.”
He left to get me a glass of water and when he returned, he laid next to me, running his fingers through my hair. Easton knew I liked it when he did that—it calmed me and sometimes helped me fall asleep.
“I didn’t get to rub lotion on your chest and back, yet,” he said with a smirk.
Not wanting to burn my skin more than radiation was going to, I grabbed the lotion on the nightstand and handed it to him. He first applied it to my back and then I turned so he could do my chest. I could do it myself, but I knew he liked touching me—liked caring for me.
“Want me to show you all of my tattooed dots?” I asked.
“Tattooed dots?”
“Yeah, they tattooed dots on me so they can line up the lasers to pinpoint the radiation on the exact spot each day.”
As I pointed out all nine dots, he kissed each one. “Every time you look at these, I want you to remember how strong you are. You’re my Superwoman.”
Watching Brooke go through radiation for six weeks made me truly believe that she was my Superwoman. She’d told me about the women she met, and the children she saw every day. I didn’t know how she made it through.
Avery and I hired two new managers so I was able to go with Brooke every day. I cut back my hours to a few in the morning and a few in the afternoon until five o’clock. I didn’t mind that I had to travel back and forth; it was better than Boston.
“You know this is going to make me look bad,” Avery said.
“Not my fault. You should have already done it.”
“I told you that I didn’t want to propose because she’ll think I’m doing it because she’s having my baby. Now, she’ll think I’m doing it because you’re doing it.”
“Not my fault.” I took out the black velvet box from the locked drawer of my desk.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Are you trying to talk me out of it?”
“Of course not. I just want you to be sure. We know how your first marriage worked out.”
“Avery. Two words. The one.”
“All right, good luck.” He slapped my back.
“I don’t need luck.” I laughed and shook my head.
“Break a leg?”
“I hope not.”
“Fine. Go get the next Mrs. Crawford.”
“Brooke Crawford. Has a nice ring to it.” I smiled.
The night before, I’d soaked white roses in water that I’d squeezed yellow highlighter into. I had read that it would make them glow in black light and I thought it was appropriate since today was her last radiation appointment.
As she took her afternoon nap, I grabbed the roses from my storage shed in the backyard and Cheyenne and I started to make my signature chicken carbonara for dinner and crème brûlée for dessert. Peanut knew I was proposing. I showed her the princess cut diamond in a halo setting.
Cheyenne thought it was perfect. “It’s a princess diamond because Brooke is your princess and a halo setting because your bar is called Halo.”
My daughter was a genius. I didn’t think of either one of those things when I picked the one and a half carat ring out. I just thought it was pretty and it reminded me of Brooke—now I knew why.
“Okay, go close the curtains. Brooke should be waking up soon,” I said to Cheyenne.
She went around the living room and kitchen, turning the blinds and then drawing the curtains closed. Not to be obvious, we sat in the living room, watching TV and waiting for my princess to wake up.
I was anxious to say the least. My leg bounced up and down and Cheyenne told me a few times to stop moving the coffee table with my foot. What did she expect? I was about to ask my soul mate to marry me.
Finally, as the sun started to set, Brooke walked in. “It smells good in here. Whatcha makin’?”
“Cheyenne and I made chicken carbonara and crème brûlée since it’s a special occasion.”
“It’s a special occasion?”
“Yeah, no more radiation.” I grabbed her hands in mine then leaned down and kissed her.
“Gross,” Cheyenne said under her breath, and Brooke and I laughed, our mouths still connected. “Let’s eat. I’m hungry,” she whined.
We followed Cheyenne to the kitchen and after she’d made herself a bowl, I made Brooke and myself one.
“Are these for me?” Brooke asked, looking at the roses.
“Of course …”
“Shouldn’t they be red?” she asked, cutting me off before I could explain why they were white. “I remember something about red meaning love,” she said, winking at Cheyenne.
“These are special,” Cheyenne said.
“They are?” Brooke asked.
Cheyenne turned off the lights and I stood, holding a black light above them while they glowed.
“Oh my God … How do they do that?”
“Daddy did that. They’re your radiation flowers.”
During the six weeks, we had teased her about glowing in the dark since she was going through radiation. I think Cheyenne really wanted her to start glowing.
“I love them,” she said and kissed me.
“You guys!” Cheyenne protested.
“Hey, don’t you kiss boys, too?” Brooke asked.
“You told her?” Cheyenne asked me.
Fuck!
“It’s okay, Chey, it’s normal,” Brooke said.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to see you two kiss …”
We laughed and then all sat at the dining room table. I started to get nervous. Cheyenne was being impatient and Brooke—I wasn’t sure, but she was hungry. Cheyenne gave me a look and nudged her head towards Brooke. I nodded back and Cheyenne went to get the ring out of her room.
I cleared my throat. “Remember when I told you that I loved you?” I asked, turning in my seat to face Brooke as she sat beside me.
“Yeah.” She smiled.
“Do you remember how I told you that my dad once told me that I would know who I was meant to be with when I couldn’t get her out of my head?”
“Yeah …” She set her fork down. Cheyenne walked back in and sat down in her seat.
“I know these last few months have been hard. They’ve been hard on all of us. When Avery told me that you had a tumor—I wanted him to be wrong. Since I first met you, you’ve consumed my every thought. My dad is always right. Don’t tell him that by the way.” Brooke smiled. “He said I would know the woman I was meant to spend the rest of my life with when she would consume my every thought and you do. I want to wake up every morning with you beside me until the day I die—not you, but me.
“I never want to live another day without you in my life. There’s no other woman in this world who makes me feel the way you make me feel. You’ve come into my life and shown me how to be a man and you’ve made me a better father for Peanut. We were just living our lives, but you’ve brightened it. I love you. We love you,” I said, motioning between Cheyenne and myself.
“I used to work long hours, barely having time for my own daughter, but now all I want to do is be home with my girls. Every day, I kick myself for not realizing how much of an idiot I was before you came into my life. Cheyenne and I have talked and she wants you in her life as much as I want you in mine. She wants a brother or sister, too.” I grinned.
“I want to give you the family that you want. I want to give you the world, and I wante
d to give you the biggest ring in the world, but the size of this ring doesn’t equal the size of my love. I love you so much … marry me.” I opened the box that Cheyenne passed me.
Brooke wiped more of her tears from her cheek. “Yes, of course,” she said and wrapped her arms around me. I held her tight, knowing I would never stop loving her.
Brooke & Easton’s story continues in Never Stop.
But first read, keep reading for a sneak peek of Avery & Nicole’s story in The One!
Dear Readers,
I hope you’ve enjoyed Tattooed Dots. Because I hold a special place for this series in my heart and it’s inspired on actual events of my life, I’m uncertain of when the next books in the series will be released, but please subscribe to either my blog, newsletter or both to stay up-to-date so you won’t miss the release info.
You can find the links on my website. You can also follow me on Facebook.
Thank you again, and I hope these two have captured a place in your heart! You can really help me out a lot by leaving a review where you bought the book as well as Goodreads and Bookbub. Your love and support means everything to me and I cherish you all!
First, I would like to thank my husband for all his patience these last few months. Writing a book and ignoring family to get it done is not ideal, but we made it through. Thank you for understanding. Also, you showed me how much you love me by taking care of me during my tumor ordeal and radiation. I love you, you know?
To my mom, thank you for holding my hand when I went for my biopsy and my surgery. Nothing compares to the love of a mother, and I am so grateful to have you. I love you.
Audrey Harte, thanks for always letting me bounce ideas off of you even when we disagree. I’m glad we are on this journey together. Each day we get closer to writing on that beach in Hawaii, but I’ll settle for our trips to The Cheesecake Factory for now. Also, thank you for checking up on me when I was in the hospital and always being there for me. You really have no idea how much I cherish our friendship. Thank you for always having my back. You know I have yours, too.
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