“Tyler!” I hear his mom scold.
“I am,” I confirm to him, closing the distance to the side of his hospital bed. He shifts slightly, sitting up a little taller. I set the bag of things I brought with me down on the foot of his bed before offering him a fist to bump. “Nice to meet you, man,” I add.
He looks, shocked and dumbfounded, between me and his parents. I take in the expression on both his mom and dad’s faces and see the absolute look of joy in his mom’s watery smile.
“Happy birthday, Tyler,” she gets out as tears spill down her cheeks.
“Is today your birthday?” I ask. I don’t recall that information being relayed to me, but I guess I might have missed it.
“Yep, what a place to turn sixteen,” he says, motioning around to the hospital room we are in.
“That’s the way it goes sometimes. How much longer until you’re done with your treatment?” I ask. I think if I get him talking, it might help him relax more.
“I’ve got three more rounds of chemo. I’ll hopefully get to go home before those are all done. I developed a secondary infection that landed me in here after my last infusion,” he explains.
“That sucks.” I commiserate with him and he just nods his head in agreement. “You play ball?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Yeah, outfielder, like you,” he says.
“Sweet, you hope to go pro?”
“Don’t think so, I’m nowhere near good enough.”
“None of that, now, you’ve got to have confidence in your play,” I tell him. “It might be hard work, but if you can kick this cancer’s as—butt,” I say, catching the curse before it is all out and changing up my language, “then you can put in the hard work and follow your dream,” I encourage him.
“Yeah, maybe. I’ve got to make it out of this hospital, first, then high school,” he states matter-of-factly. I’m sure fighting for your life in this capacity puts everything into perspective really fast. You learn what is and isn’t all that important. Just as you learn who your true friends are in times like these.
I take the rest of my hour visit to talk shop with Tyler and his family, as well as take a handful of pictures with them. He was ecstatic with all the things that Carly sent with me to give him. Ended up being a great birthday present for the kid. He had a smile plastered to his face when it was time for me to head back to the team hotel so I could get in a few hours of rest before the game tonight.
Eight
Carmen
“Holy crap,” I murmur, reading over the email for a second time that landed in my in-box a few minutes ago. “He actually can be a stand-up guy.”
“Who can be a stand-up guy?” Carly asks, taking a seat in the chair across from my desk.
“The pain in my side,” I tell her, knowing that she’ll understand exactly who I’m referring to.
“Oh, yeah?” she says, her eyebrows going up. “The hospital trip yesterday?” she asks.
“You knew about that?” I question.
“Yeah, the request came through, I thought you knew we set everything up for it,” she says, looking a little nervous.
“Really?” I ask, looking back to my computer screen.
“Yeah, one of the nurses from the hospital called a few days ago, laid out everything and said that the parents were trying to come up with a way to surprise him to lift his spirits. I talked to Lucas before they flew out and he said it wasn’t a problem. I even sent a bag of things for him to sign and give the kid,” she tells me.
“According to the mom’s email, it was his sixteenth birthday,” I tell her, glancing back at the email. “She sent a dozen or so images, as well, and said they were already up on Tyler’s social media pages and he’d tagged the team’s accounts.”
“We should retweet them,” Carly says, reading my mind.
“You are good,” I tell her, pulling out my phone so I can sign in and do just that.
I easily find the post, seeing that it is already gaining quite a lot of comments and shares. Everyone loving the fact that a player would not only go out of his way to go surprise a kid in the hospital, but to also do it while on a road trip. I share the post, tagging Lucas in it, as well, so that he will hopefully also share it.
“I’ll send him a text suggesting that he share the posts, as well,” Carly states, pulling her own phone out.
“Sure,” I say, hopefully hiding the sudden irritation in my voice that came from out of nowhere. Why I’m irritated that one of my employees would be texting one of our players work-related information is a weird thing to be irritated about. But my mind wanders to what else they could be texting about. I shut that thought down before it can take up too much space in my mind.
I finish up sharing the posts to our social media platforms, then set my phone back down on my desk, turning my full attention back to Carly. “What can I do for you?” I ask.
“I actually didn’t need anything, I was just coming in to see if you wanted to grab lunch today,” she says. I look down at my phone again, seeing that it is, in fact, lunchtime already. This morning was a busy one, apparently.
“I don’t, so what did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking of just heading around the corner to the deli for a wrap or salad,” she says.
“Sounds good to me,” I tell her. I reach into my desk drawer and pull out my wallet. I slip my phone into my back pocket before I follow Carly out of the office.
As soon as we step outside, the heat of the day hits me. The sun feels so good on my skin. I slip my sunglasses off the top of my head and over my eyes to shield them from the brightness. We both must have needed the sun, as we casually walk the block and a half to the little deli where we both end up ordering the daily special, which is a chicken caesar wrap.
“Looks like all their outside seating is full, do you want to head back to the office and sit outside?” I suggest.
“It is scary just how much we think alike.” She chuckles. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”
We walk back to the office. Our team offices are connected to the large stadium, so we have lots of outside access. We find a table that offers sunshine, but not so much we’re blinded by it.
“So,” Carly says between bites of her wrap. “Have you given any more thought into a dating app?”
“Ugh.” I groan and finish the mouth full of food I have. “Those are the worst,” I tell her. “All guys want to do on them is send you dick pics, meet up for a quick fuck, or to catfish you,” I explain, pausing long enough to take a quick drink of my lemonade.
“What’s wrong?” She quirks an eyebrow. “You don’t like looking at random peen? I thought you liked the D?” She smirks.
“Oh, I like me some D, but random pictures of it, no, thank you. That shit isn’t pretty.”
“You know who probably has a pretty dick?” she says, but more as a statement than a question. “Lucas,” she adds before I can answer her, and I almost spit out my lemonade.
“Where did that come from?” I ask her, wiping at my face with a napkin.