“Hi!” Annie wore her blond wig tonight and the magnetic lashes I’d given her, and she looked like she was feeling better than she had the last time I’d seen her. She wore a thick wool sweater dress that gave the illusion she’d put on a little weight, and while I knew it wasn’t true, it was nice to see some color in her cheeks.
“Hello!” I hugged Annie while Lars shook Sawyer’s hand and we settled at the table.
“I’m starving,” Lars said, picking up the menu.
“You realize you say that at least once every time we’re together?” I said, chuckling.
“I am a very large man,” he said. “I require many calories.”
“I am a very small woman but the doctor says I require many calories too,” Annie said, her eyes twinkling with mirth.
“When does the next round start?” I asked her, referring to her chemo treatments.
“Not for two weeks. Two glorious weeks of no nausea.”
“Then it starts again?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but this is the last round. Then radiation, which is draining but doesn’t make me sick. But let’s not talk about me tonight. What are you guys doing for Christmas?”
Lars and I glanced at each other. I knew his family wasn’t coming for the holidays so I’d assumed we’d spend it together. “Are you coming to my mom’s with me?” I asked him. “On Christmas Day?”
He nodded. “Yes, if you would like this.”
“It’ll just be us, one of my cousins and her family, and sometimes Vanessa comes.”
“Both sets of our parents are coming,” Sawyer said, sliding his arm along the back of Annie’s chair.
“They all want to cook, feed, and mother me,” Annie said, smiling. “But it’s nice that they all get along so we don’t have to choose which family to celebrate with.”
“You have family in the States?” Sawyer asked Lars.
Lars shook his head. “No. My mother and sister are in Sweden. I see them only in summer.”
“How fun. Are you going to Sweden with him this summer?” Annie asked me.
“We haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted. “We’ve only been dating a couple of months.”
“Is it true you met at a charity bachelor auction?” Sawyer asked, looking from me to Lars and back again.
“Yup.” I grinned. “But the money was for a good cause and it turned out to be a good thing for the two of us, too.”
“Very good,” he said, leaning over to kiss the side of my face. I smiled at him and we exchanged a long glance. There was something different in his eyes tonight and I wondered what it was he wanted to talk to me about, because there was a sadness surrounding him that I didn’t understand.
“I don’t know who’s cuter,” Annie said to her husband, cocking her head. “Us or them?”
“Definitely us,” he said, gently running his knuckles across her cheek.
“You’re such a romantic,” she said.
We talked and joked through dinner, and I was glad to see Lars and Sawyer found things to talk about. Not just hockey either, but they seemed to have a similar workout routine and decided to meet up once a week at the gym at six in the morning.
While the guys were talking, I noticed Annie hadn’t really eaten anything. She’d taken a few bites of the soup she’d ordered, but her pasta was mostly untouched, and she seemed to be sagging a little.
“You okay?” I asked softly. “You look tired.”
“I just got a little dizzy,” she whispered.
“Babe?” Sawyer turned, immediately in tune to his wife. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
“You want to go home?”
“Let me sit here a minute,” she said, reaching out to put her hand on his arm. “Maybe it’ll pass.”
“Are you dehydrated again?” Sawyer asked her, covering her hand with his.
“I don’t know.”
Lars and I exchanged a glance. It was hard to know what to do or say in these kinds of situations. Annie had been looking forward to tonight and had texted me half a dozen times today, so I hated that we might end the evening early. She got to go out so rarely, but she’d said she felt good today.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Annie said, looking at me. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course.” I immediately got up, but the moment Annie tried to stand, she sank back down in her chair.
“Babe.” Sawyer quickly reached for her. “What is it? Do we want to go to the ER?”
Annie’s eyes filled with tears. “No. I hate the hospital.” She buried her face in her husband’s shoulder as they whispered to each other.
I nodded at Lars and he surreptitiously took care of the bill since none of us were hungry anymore.
“I think we’re going to the ER,” Sawyer said after a few minutes of whispering with his wife. “She doesn’t want to, but she’s too fragile to risk going home if she’s dehydrated or having a reaction to one of her meds.”