“I’ll be in the goddamn car! If you know what’s best for you, you won’t keep me waiting!”
With that, another door slammed and he was gone.
My towel still wrapped around me, I grabbed my cell phone and sat on the side of the bed. Just one push of a button and two rings later, my father’s voice came through on the other end.
“Lanie, sweetie. What’s wrong?” Mack’s tired voice sent a pang of guilt through me, and I wanted to cry.
“Nothing’s wrong. Can’t I just call my parents to check in?” I asked, trying to sound irritated, in an attempt to keep the sadness out of my voice.
“Er, yeah, of course you can. How’s the Big Apple treating you?”
“Fine. My classes are intense, and one of my professors is a gigantic bastard,” I answered, only slightly lying. Okay, so I was doing some serious lying, but technically, there really was someone in authority over me who was educating me. Just not the sort of education my parents thought I would be getting.
“Yeah, well, keep your nose to the grindstone and stay away from all those frat parties and you’ll do fine, kiddo.”
“Mack, you sound tired. Are you getting any rest at all?”
“I get enough.” He sighed, used to hearing me nag him about his own health. “She needs me, ya know?”
“Yeah, I do. How is she?” I asked in a more somber tone.
“Mom’s hanging in there. She’s awake if you want to talk to her. It might actually make her feel better. In fact, she’s got some good news for you.”
“Yeah, I’d love to hear her voice.” He didn’t need to know just how true it was.
I could hear him saying something in the background and then the shuffling of bedcovers as he handed her the phone.
“Lanie? Is that you, baby?” My mother’s voice sounded weak.
“It’s me, Mom. How are you?” I choked out.
“Meh, I’m not so bad,” she laughed lightly. “Hey, I’ve got good news. An anonymous donor deposited a huge sum of money into our bank account. Can you believe it? Mack says it’s a scam, but I think it’s an answer to our prayers.”
“Oh, wow! That’s great, Mom,” I said, genuinely happy that I’d brought her a little bit of sunshine when all her days had been filled with gloom.
She started a coughing fit, and Mack had to take the phone away from her, but not before she managed to cough out, “I love you, baby.”
“Is she okay?” I asked my dad, concerned.
“She’s fine. Those fits hit her sometimes when she tries to talk too much.”
“So, good news about the money, huh? Do me a favor and don’t try to overanalyze it or anything,” I said. “She needs that money. I don’t care where it came from. When is she scheduled for surgery?”
“That’s the thing, Lanie.” I heard a door close in the background and assumed he had left the room, not wanting her to hear the rest of our conversation. “Having the money is great, but it doesn’t do a damn bit of good if she doesn’t have a donor. There are so many people ahead of her … I don’t know if it will be in time.”
My God! That thought had never even occurred to me.
“Don’t worry, Dad. Miracles have a way of happening when we least expect them.”
“You might be right.” I could still hear the doubt in his voice.
“I know I am,” I affirmed. I’d managed to get the money; somehow I’d manage to get her moved up the transplant list, too. There had to be a way. I refused to believe that the universe would let me put myself through all this only to let her die in the end.
“I’ve got to get to class. Give her a kiss for me, and promise you’ll get some rest.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do know it’s the parent’s job to worry, right?”
“I’ll always worry about you guys. It’s killing me that I can’t be there right now.”
“Don’t go all sappy on your old man, Lanie. Get off the phone and go live. Love you, kid.” With that the line went dead. I was shocked because Mack rarely ever expressed his feelings. It wasn’t like I ever questioned that he loved me. I knew he did. It was just a shock to hear it.
Suddenly I felt a renewed strength in what I was doing. Talking to my parents reminded me of the reason I had been so hell-bent on doing it in the first place. And the truth of the matter was, I would’ve done this even if Jabba the Hut had been the one to purchase me. As infuriating as Noah was, it could’ve been worse.
Now I just had to figure out what to do about that transplant list.
Noah
It wasn’t right.
The girl was killing me, one raging hard-on at a time. Blue motherfucking balls!
She was too willing, too enticing, too hard to resist. But I’d done it. God help me, I’d done it. Even when she’d stuck out that voluptuous bottom lip of hers, I had resisted. Welcome to sainthood, Noah Crawford.
The night before had been great. Really great. But I’d felt like shit afterward. I’d stolen the girl’s virginity, for Christ’s sake! Everything that should’ve been in place for something that monumental just wasn’t. There was no romantic setting, no vow to love her until the end of time. Only pure animalistic fucking. I’d fucked her. Plain and simple.
And while it had been great for me, I had a hard time believing it had been the be-all-and-end-all for her. Yet she wanted more. Delaine Talbot was a glutton for punishment.
But it was what I wanted, right? Someone there to fulfill all my sexual desires and fantasies, a woman who would cater to my needs, while I wouldn’t have to give a shit about hers. No emotional ties, no arguments over where we were going to have dinner, no awkward first kiss or meeting the parents, no chance in hell of catching her in my bed with any so-called best friend, no strings attached. Period.