Page 33 of Without Me (Men of Inked 5)
15
Patience Isn’t My Middle Name
Six motherfuckin’ weeks.
Forty-two goddamn days.
One thousand eight freakin’ hours.
Sixty thousand, four hundred and eighty excruciating minutes.
That’s how long we waited until the doctor’s office called to say that they’d received the results. Even though Max begged to be told the results, they wouldn’t divulge the information over the phone. They stated that it was standard office procedure for her to come to the office to “discuss” the results with the doctor.
We’d already been stressed to the maximum level possible. Every day, I’d felt like I could touch the tension and cut it with a knife. The time that felt the longest was when we sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. I wanted to burst through the doors and demand to see the results.
To have come this far and know that the information was close enough to touch drove me crazier than I’d ever felt before. I couldn’t stop shaking my legs and fidgeting in my seat. I didn’t even have the patience to look at my phone. The only thing I could think about was the goddamn test.
I was the one who had made her do it. I’d been selfish in demanding her to get it done. The last six weeks had been absolute torture. We hadn’t talked about it much, but it was always there.
I held her hand, which was stuck to mine from the nervous sweat that had formed. I could feel her trembling next to me as our arms and shoulders touched.
“It’ll be okay, Max,” I tried to reassure her with a small smile.
“Yep,” she responded in a clipped tone as she stared straight ahead and didn’t return my glance.
To the casual observer in the room, it would have seemed that we were here for me. I was the one more visibly nervous, but I knew she was a mess inside.
“We’ve been waiting here an hour. What’s taking so damn long?” I complained as I looked at my watch.
“Look at all the people, Anthony. It’s a busy office. It always takes this long here.”
“Bullshit,” I mumbled as I gnashed my teeth together.
“What’s a couple more minutes when I’ve waited this long?”
“You can’t mean that, Max. I know you’re nervous.”
“I am, Anthony. I know I have it. I can feel it. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I won’t believe it until she says the words.”
“Prepare yourself, then, Anthony. Are you ready for it?”
“We’ll get a second opinion.”
“No!” she yelled, causing people in the waiting room to look at us.
“Max,” I said, leaning closer to her. “I’ll go to the ends of the earth to give you a different fate.”
“Can you give me a different body?” she asked as she looked at me.
“I’m in love with the one you have now, Max.”
“Then it’s what you need to accept.”
“Ms. Washington,” a nurse called out from across the room, standing near the doorway.
“Here,” Max said as she stood.
I took a deep breath, holding it in as I climbed to my feet. I felt like I was doing the long march to the electric chair. I dreaded what I might hear in a few short minutes. Some invisible fist was inside my stomach and punching it. I could barely breathe as I moved on shaky legs.
I repeated to myself, “She will be okay,” over and over again. Max squeezed my hand, never breaking contact as we were shown to the doctor’s office.
“Please take a seat. The doctor will be in in a moment,” the nurse said before she gave Max a small smile and left us alone.
“I can’t sit,” I said as she started to move toward the seat.
“We can’t just stand here,” Max replied as she closed her eyes and exhaled.
“Let me hold you, Max. I need to hold you.” I pulled her hand, bringing her to my chest.
I tried to memorize possibly the last normal moment we’d have. The moment where I felt we were just Max and Anthony. It would all change. We could be Max, Anthony, and ataxia. Not a relationship I wanted to enter into, but I might not have a choice.
“I’m scared,” Max confessed into my shirt.
“I know, baby. Me too,” I admitted. “Either way, I’m with you through it all, Max.”
“Anthony,” she whispered as she moved to look at me. As she toyed with my shirt, she said, “I don’t blame you if you leave me. It’s okay if you leave me. I’ll totally understand.”
“Are you giving me permission to leave you?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but inside, I was seething.
“Yes. No one wants to be with a sick person. Why should you be tied to me forever? I’m giving you an out,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I love you, but I’ll understand.” As she gave me a weak smile, a single tear ran down her cheek.
“Max. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the doctor says, I’m here to stay.”
“Anthony—”
“Max.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and stared at her. “You don’t understand the depth of my feelings for you. There will never be another woman I’ll ever love.”
“Oh, that’s horseshit.”
I shook my head. “It’s not. I’ve never found another person who makes me feel alive like you do. Touching you, kissing your lips is like that shock you get from touching something when the air’s too dry.”
“Never say never, Anthony.”
“I would never let you go through this without me,” I stated, holding her stare.
“Let’s talk about this after the results.” She wiped the tears that had fallen down her face on my shirt.
Without even thinking, I dropped to one knee. It hadn’t been planned. Fuck, I would’ve been more nervous than I already was if I had come up with the idea ahead of time. I knew what I wanted, and she was in front of me. There was no way I’d let her get away. I wouldn’t let her excuse me or give me an out.
Her eyes widened as she noticed that I was balanced on one knee. Grabbing her hand, I stroked the top with my thumb. The only shitty part of not having planned this was that I didn’t have a ring.
“Max,” I said before clearing my throat. My voice was shaky, but I was more nervous about the results than asking her to marry me. “I love you more than anyone in the world. No matter the results, I want to go on the journey with you. It’s taken me my entire life to meet someone who makes me a better person, and I want you to be mine forever. Will you marry me?”
She covered her mouth, the tears falling faster than they had before. “No,
” she whispered.
“No?” I asked, the punch in my stomach feeling more like the slice of a knife as it cut up into my chest.
“Yes,” she said. “Anthony. I just didn’t dream of this being where I’d be proposed to someday.”
“Thank Christ,” I mumbled. “I don’t care where we are, as long as you say yes.”
“Anthony, I think I should wait to give you an answer until after we talk to the doctor. Let the information seep in before you ask me again. You may not feel the same once the enormity of the situation settles in your gut.”
“It’s settled. I’ve never told anyone before that I loved them. No one. Only you. It’ll only ever be you.”
“Hello,” the doctor said as she walked in and then noticed that I was down on one knee. “Oh, I’m so sorry I interrupted.”
“You didn’t.” She pulled her hand from my grip.
As the doctor rounded the desk to sit, Max sat down. I pushed myself off the ground, feeling a bit wounded and even more nervous. I held on to the chair as I sat, making sure I didn’t miss the seat.
Fuck. Everything about the day could fuck off.
“Sorry you had to wait so long,” the doctor said as she opened a folder on her desk and began to study the contents.
I sucked in a breath, unable to release it. There wasn’t a time in my life that I could recall where I’d felt more scared. Not when Angel had been kidnapped or when Thomas had been undercover. I felt completely helpless in this situation. When it came to brute force or kicking ass, I knew how to do it.
This was up to fate and genetics.
“It’s okay,” Max said with a fake smile as she looked at me.
I held her hand, gripping it tight. No matter what the doctor said, I wouldn’t let her down. I needed to be her brace. I needed to be the man she could lean on. I needed to be her rock—the one thing to keep her steady and sane through this time in her life. Fuck, through this time in our lives.
“Well, let’s get to it,” the doctor said, flipping a page and skimming over it.
I swallowed hard, sucking in another breath and holding it in my lungs.
“Based on the results of your test,” She flipped the page, moving over the words with her finger, “it states negative for ataxia, but as you know, there are some forms that can’t be found through testing.”
“So Max won’t get it,” I blurted out, giving her hand a squeeze.
