Chapter 37

Okay, no one hate me for how this chapter ends. I will be updating again soon this weekend and I wrote this chapter so quickly after the idea came to me while I was out with my friends tonight. So I came back and wrote it super fast while I still had the idea in my head but I need to split it into two chapters because I need sleep. So enjoy and look for the conclusion to the cliff-hanger soon. I know you have all been speculating about Eliza and it will be resolved soon. As always, thanks for reading this story- it makes me smile :D

Eliza's POV:

By the following week, I was still feeling odd and couldn't figure out what was going on with my body. By Friday night I decided to call Mia and see if she would be able to offer some advice.

"I don't know Mia, I've been feeling really weird lately."

"Do you think that you're sick?" She asked curiously? We had been going over my symptoms for an hour and none of them made sense. Then again, WebMD was one of the most useless things ever.

"I don't know. I'm worried though. What if I go to the doctor and they tell me I have cancer or something. It wouldn't be a stretch considering both of my parent's families have a history of cancer."

"I don't know," she said sighing. "I think either way you should go to the doctor if this stuff keeps up. Maybe your birth control is messing with your system."

That actually would make sense. About a month ago I had switched birth control brands under the recommendation of my doctor. Maybe this kind just wasn't agreeing with my body.

"So when does Max come back?" Mia asked now that we were done discussing my body issues.

"He'll be back tomorrow afternoon. Thank god. They haven't played that well this week and barely slid into another round of the playoffs." Thinking about this made me wonder about the guys, especially Sidney. He was the one who took these losses and hard times the hardest.

Her and I chatted some more and she entertained me with more stories about Paul and the recent ups and downs of their relationship. I didn't want to freak her out but it kind of sounded like he was going to propose soon or make some other kind of big romantic gesture. She of course wouldn't find this romantic though. We were best friends for a reason afterall- both of us were terrified of big, committment gestures. I had only recently become relatively reformed thanks to Max and his persistence. Mia on the other hand needed patience from Paul. I at least hoped that she wouldn't break his heart if he did make a move afterall. Poor guy.

Before getting off of the phone, Mia advised me to go see a doctor finally and suck it up. I knew that she was right but didn't feel like dealing with it right away. Part of me actually was starting to get scared. I had had three family members die of cancer while I was in my teens and so if there was even the remote possibility that it was something that severe, then I was petrified.

I pushed it to the back of my mind for now and texted Max to see how his night was going. Bad weather out west had prevented the guys from leaving Chicago to come home tonight. Instead they were staying overnight and handling press there until they could leave in the morning. This week had been nuts with the guys being shuttled back and forth between Pittsburgh and Chicago until the Pens finally beat out the Hawks, eliminating them from the series. All of the guys were starting to get worn down and I was grateful that they at least had part of the weekend to recharge even just a little bit. I was especially happy that Max would be home even if it was for just a short while. I had known that playoffs were going to be intense but I hadn't realized just how tense it made the entire Pens organization. Everyone was on edge, even in the offices which ultimately made time spent at work ten times more stressful.

I spent the rest of the evening at home puttering around looking for things to do around the house. Mrs. Rollins always left everything so perfect that I never had anything to do when I was bored.

Around 11pm that night my phone buzzed with Max's response text. Sorry- team dinner. I'll be home tomorrow around 1. Love you.

Now that he had texted back I was finally able to relax, that nagging, waiting feeling subsiding. I fell asleep in the middle of the bed not enjoying the experience as much as I used to before Max. While it was always nice to have space in bed and room to roll around in, it was weird when I didn't have an arm thrown around me or when I couldn't feel his breath on my neck when I woke up in the morning before him. Maybe tomorrow when he came home I'd give him a little surprise and show him how much I missed him this week. A little distraction would be good for both of us right now.

Max's POV:

The house was eerily quiet when I walked in and I didn't know if she was even awake or not. It was only mid-afternoon but she had been napping a lot lately and getting tired more quickly than she usually did. I dropped my bag in the laundry room and snuck upstairs to find her trying to be quiet in case she was sleeping. All thoughts of worrying about her vanished once I saw what she was wearing. Or wasn't wearing.

"Hi" she said smiling softly looking more gorgeous than I had ever seen her. She always looked beautiful but seeing her there kneeling on the bed, dressed in some sort of lacy thing and smiling at me took my breath away. Suddenly I was worried that this was all because of something important like an anniversary that women are always remembering but guys typically forget. She looked sexy in basically anything but in my experience, women didn't just wear things like that for no good reason. There was always a reason.

She rose off the bed and got up to pull me by the hand and sit down on the edge of the bed.

"Welcome home" she said giving me a secret smile that I had never seen before. I was definitely forgetting something.

"Did I miss something?" I asked biting back a groan as she straddled my lap on the bed. She was all skin and smelled like she had dunked herself in the lotion that she knew drove me crazy. This was either the luckiest night of my life or going to be the worst if I forgot something important.

"Hopefully you just missed me" she said nibbling on my earlobe playfully. She began to push my suit jacket back off of my shoulders and I paused her by grabbing her wrists gently. It was best to figure out what this was about before I said something really stupid.

"Okay, what is your issue?" she asked blowing hair out of her face. I could tell that I was definitely starting to ruin her frisky mood and wasn't quite ready for that yet. She was pouting and distracting me with the way that her lips were currently shaped.

"I'm trying to seduce you but it's obviously not working, so what's up?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest, still perched on top of me. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

"Well is this a special occasion or something?" She looked at me for a second before shaking her head and moving to climb out of my lap. And now the mood is completely ruined.

"No, you didn't forget anything" she said rolling her eyes at me. "I just missed you a lot this week and wanted to surprise you." She was now pulling out her normal tanktop and shorts to sleep in. Clearly, we were just going to be sleeping tonight unless I fixed the situation, quickly.

"I missed you too" I said wrapping my arms around her frame and trailing a line of kisses up the back of her neck. The smell of her lotion was seeping into my senses making me feel slightly drunk and she swayed backwards leaning into me. She turned to meet my lips and we slowly made our way backwards onto the bed, falling into a heap with her giggling slightly.

"When did you get this?" I asked fingering the lacy lingerie she had on.

"I bought it this morning" she said pushing my shirt off of my shoulders and wiggling beneath me slightly. If she didn't stop torturing me with her movements soon, I wasn't going to be able to control myself for much longer.

"So this isn't because of some sort of monthly anniversary or anything?" I wanted to make absolutely sure that I wasn't going to be punished later for something stupid that I forgot.

"No, I thought you might need a distraction after this week" she smiled and kissed me again helping me quickly pull off the rest of my clothes while I pulled off hers. It didn't take long before our bodies found each other again and were moving in a familiar, blissful rhythm.


Eliza's POV:

I woke up the next morning feeling exhausted but content now that I felt Max surrounding me in bed. After laying there and feeling his breath warm and cool the skin of my neck as he breathed in and out, I decided to continue my list of recent good deeds concerning Max and make us breakfast in bed. Though he definitely hadn't showed it last night, I knew that he was exhausted after the crazy week of playoff games. Vero had told me not to take the "no sex during playoffs rule" too seriously and technically they weren't playing for a few short days so it wouldn't really matter anyway. Besides, Max was a man with a very active libido and would probably be frustrated or whatever it was that guys needed to play well in a day or two.

The idea of a sexually frustrated Max was enough to entertain me and get me out from under Max's arm and up out of bed. I stood up with the intention of heading downstairs to make us something to eat and felt the first wave of nausea wash over me like a tsunami. It was so powerful that after my head spun around twice, I was finally able to make a run for the bathroom before releasing the contents of my stomach into the toilet. It had happened so fast that I hadn't been able to shut the door or keep it quiet. Almost instantly I felt Max kneeling behind me and rubbing my back as he spoke to me.

"Baby, what happened?" He helped me pull back more of my hair and I wanted to curl up in a ball on the cool floor and leave my own body until the nausea passed.

"I don't know. I just stood up and it was instant." He nodded and got up to get me a cold, wet washcloth for my face. With everything out of my stomach now, I was starting to feel better.
"I'm going to get you water" he said leaving and returning within minutes with a glass of ice water. "You need to go to the doctor, today. You haven't been your normal self for 2 weeks now. Have you been throwing up too?"

I shook my head feeling much better with the cold water running down my throat. "This was the first time that I've thrown up" I told him truthfully. I didn't know what the hell was going on but I was definitely ready to go to the doctor now.

Max helped me get dressed and insisted on driving me to the hospital once we both figured out that it was Sunday and my doctor's office definitely wouldn't be open now.

Now that I was sitting in a tiny room in the emergency room with Max holding my hand beside me, I was terrified. I no longer felt nauseous but all I could think about was the 'what ifs?' of the situation. What if I did have cancer? What if it was some other sort of terrible disease? After waiting for what seemed like forever and giving a doctor my brief medical history and other basic facts, a nurse came and took blood telling me that they were going to run routine, procedural tests to see if they could figure out what was wrong that way.

"Don't worry Ms. Smith. The results will be back in soon. We just need you to sit back and relax for now." The nurse said all of this while quickly checking things off on a chart at the end of the bed I was sitting up on. She left Max and I alone again to stare at each other, neither of us knowing what to say.

"Don't worry" he said simply shrugging and kissing the palm of the hand he had been holding. "You'll be fine."

The fact that he was able to say that with such confidence relaxed me enormously. He was talking now to keep me busy while we waited for the results of the bloodwork and while I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, the sound of his deep voice gave me a sense of calm, slowly pulling me down from the level of hysteria I had internally been reaching.

If Max said that it was going to be okay, then it was going to be okay.