Sunday Mornings
It's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
"I'm nervous." James glanced over at Quinn with a raised eyebrow at her words. She was sitting with her feet hanging off of the hospital bed, mismatched neon socks and all, facing him as he sat in a chair next to her bed with his back to the door. Upon seeing his raised eyebrow Quinn explained what she meant, "I'm just... a little scared I guess."
"Why?" He had been trying to understand all of her feelings toward this surgery but, being that he was a male, there was only so much that he could understand. Frankly, he had never had a huge desire to be a parent the way that Quinn had, so for the life of him he really didn't understand why it was such a big decision because to him the decision was pretty simple; a baby of their own or Quinn being around for the rest of their lives together.
She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know."
James straightened up and he looked over at her with more attention this time as he told her, "That's a lie."
She sighed and looked down at her hands as she fidgeted with them. Eventually, she told him softly, her voice a little shaky, "I'm scared that this is gonna change things."
"What things? Quinn, how many times do I have to-"
She was quick to interrupt him, "It's not about the whole baby thing. I mean... it is but not the way it was before."
"What?" He was thoroughly confused now and it showed on his face and that made Quinn giggle.
James rolled his eyes and motioned for her to continue so she told him, "This is the one thing that I'm supposed to be able to do."
"Quinn-"
Again she interrupted him, "It is James. The one thing that I'm supposed to be able to do in my entire life is to have babies so... I guess I'm just scared that if I can't do that..."
She didn't finish because she wasn't sure how to word what she wanted to say and because she had never discussed this with him before but James knew exactly what she was going to say.
"It's not gonna make you any less of a woman Quinn." When she shrugged her shoulders sadly he got up from his chair and approached her, and he pushed her knees apart so that he could stand between her legs. He reached down and tilted her head up to look at him with two fingers under her chin and he smirked as he joked, "I could tell you what makes you a woman but it's probably not appropriate and you'd probably get mad at me."
She let out a laugh and reached out to pinch his side, causing him to jump slightly. He wrapped his arms around her and ran a hand over the french braid running down the back of her head and all the way down her back as he placed a soft kiss to the side of her head. Quinn snaked her arms through the spaces between his own arms and his sides and she placed her palms on the middle of his back as she rested her forehead against his chest.
"I'm sorry." She told him.
He reminded her, "I told you-"
"I know." She interrupted him for the third time that hour. This time James left the conversation alone, he didn't want to go back down that road.
When Quinn had first brought up the idea of canceling the surgery James had been livid with her, he couldn't remember a time in their entire relationship that he had ever been that angry with her. Honestly, he couldn't remember a time in his entire life when he had ever been that angry with anyone. He hadn't spoken to her for almost a whole week, and then they had a three-hour long blow out over it and James had done what he thought was the best thing for them; he had told Quinn all of the reasons that he didn't want kids for and then he had told her to have the surgery because it wasn't like they were really going to have a family anyway.
She didn't cancel the surgery but she also didn't talk to him for the days leading up to it either. In fact, this was the most they had talked since and it was clear to him that Quinn had no interest in revisiting that conversation and James didn't have a problem with that.
So instead of talking they just stayed the way that they were; holding each other in silence.
At least until Quinn's voice rang out, muffled against the material of his t-shirt, "I'm starving."
Her surgery had been pushed back by four hours and Quinn hadn't had anything to eat since ten the night before when she had snuck one last snack in before she had to start fasting.
James let out a laugh and he told her, "Suck it up buttercup."
She pulled back, not out of his grasp but just enough to look at him, and she narrowed her eyes for a moment before she smiled and tried to persuade him, "Come on, let's just get out here and go get some burgers. God, I want a burger."
"We can get burgers after your surgery." James told her as he brushed a few baby hairs at her hairline back from her forehead.
She rolled her eyes but then smiled, "Burgers are the first meal after my surgery, and the second better be pizza, and the third better be steak."
"Got it all planned out huh?" James asked her in amusement.
Nodding her head she explained to him, "Burgers with extra french fries for the first meal, stuffed crust pepperoni pizza for the second, and rare steak with mashed potatoes for the third."
"You would choose food over me if you had to, wouldn't you?" James asked her with a smile on his face.
He let out a loud laugh when she nodded and told him matter-of-factly, "I would."
He kissed the side of her head and leaned into her, holding her tightly so that she didn't topple over as his force caused them both to lean to the left. Quinn tightened her grip around his middle as he did so, and she tilted her head just enough to press a soft kiss to her neck. When they pulled apart James joked, "It's okay, I would choose golf over you any day."
"You already do." Quinn deadpanned, and James pulled back from her with narrowed eyes.
"Name one time!" He exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest as he told her, "Go ahead, I'll wait."
"You ditched me three weeks ago to go to Toronto to play golf with Steven." Quinn reminded him.
"Fuck." James muttered, he paused, snaked a hand through his hair and then he told Quinn, "That doesn't count."
"Oh no? Why not?" She asked him in amusement, watching as he tried to find some kind of reason for that to be struck from the record.
"It was for my birthday!" He exclaimed suddenly, adding in, "Just... early since we both had to leave for camp before my actual birthday."
"Whatever you say." Quinn said with a smile, wrapping her arms around his waist again and leaning into him.
They were interrupted by a doctor and a nurse knocking on the door and walking in, so James pulled away from Quinn and settled for standing beside her as the nurse checked to make sure she was ready to go. Her doctor smiled at James, and James smiled back politely before he looked at Quinn and asked, "Ready to go?"
"Don't really have any other choice, so yeah." Quinn joked, a smile on her face.
Her doctor this time turned to James and told him, "It usually takes two to three hours, I'll have a nurse come and update you once an hour and then once she's out of recovery we'll come and get you."
James took that as his cue to leave so he turned to Quinn and grabbed her hand to give it a squeeze. He leaned over to kiss the side of her head and when he went to pull away Quinn grabbed his shirt and told him, "You're not getting away that easy Mr. Might be the last time I get to kiss you."
She pulled him down to her level and kissed him square on the mouth before she pulled away and he told her, "You're so dramatic. Chill out and I'll see you in a few hours."
Quinn rolled her eyes but a smile was present on her face as she gave his hand a squeeze and held onto it until their outstretched arms couldn't handle the distance James was putting between them. When they dropped their hands she told him, "I love you."
"Yeah, me too." He said with a grin and they both knew had there been any free pillows around one would have went flying at his head. As he made his way to the door he glanced back at her once more, and she looked over at him and stuck her tongue out at him which caused him to laugh and say, "I love you Quinny."
He was shown to the area he could wait for her by a nurse who then promised, "I'll come find you in about an hour to give you an update."
"Thanks." He said as he sat down.
"You might as well get comfortable, and feel free to go eat or something, it'll be a long couple of hours. If you're not around when I come to update you just ask reception over there, I'll leave the update with them." She told him and before he could say thank you again she turned on her heels and headed back to where they came from.
James tried to take her advice and get comfortable but there was only so much he could do in small, stuffy, hard hospital waiting room chairs. He leaned back with his head against the wall and tried to busy himself on his phone. His mother had sent him a text asking for an update, so he responded to tell her that they just took Quinn into the OR and that he would let her know how it went. He busied himself on Twitter but it wasn't like that was a particularly hopping place for him these days, he scrolled through Instagram for a few minutes before he resorted to window shopping online.
Window shopping turned into actual shopping and before he knew it he had several order confirmation emails to confirm the several boxes that would be arriving at home sometime before Quinn was released from the hospital later that week.
He searched online for the best things to do for someone after a surgery like this and suddenly it was like he got hit with the inspiration bug.
He had done some damage at Bath and Body works for candles and lotion, and even a pillow spray. He had ordered a few restaurant gift cards online so that he didn't have to embarrass himself by cooking for her, and he loaded up their Amazon account with new books she could read on her Kindle. He had ordered her a brand new, fluffy robe, that was supposed to have been the end of it but then he remembered that Quinn was one for matching underwear and he thought maybe sometime in the weeks following the surgery she would need a little bit of a pick me up so he ordered three sets.
It was a little overboard, he knew it but he was bored and frankly a little nervous and so instead of sitting around praying for things to go okay and stare at the clock on the wall he chose to put his focus and energy into something else. He chose to put his energy into finding ways to make the next six weeks of recovery easy on her, especially because they started the season, away games and everything, only three weeks into her recovery.
James felt guilty about leaving her alone so soon, and he had voiced that to Quinn along with the solution of maybe having his mom come out to stay with her but she wanted to hear nothing of it. She had always been stubborn about needing help, and James figured a lot of her apprehension to his idea had more to do with what she had told him today about feeling like less of a woman after her surgery.
He had thought, for a moment, about asking Riley to stay at the house while they were on road trips and he knew she would have no issue with it but she was so close to her due date that James would have felt even more guilty over that. So instead he had asked Jess if she could afford to take some vacation time and so, without telling Quinn about it, James felt a little less guilty knowing that her sister would be staying with them for a week and a half during the stretch they had a lot of road games. The idea of Quinn only really being alone for a week and a half total during her six week recovery time was a little easier for him to deal with.
He was surprised when he looked up from his cell phone to find Riley and Shea approaching him. His brow raised as he asked, "What are you guys doing here?"
"I had a doctor's appointment and so we figured we would come hang out with you for a little while." Riley explained to him as she took the seat next to him and Shea took one across from them.
James told them softly, "You didn't have to."
She smiled, "We know we didn't, but we were already here and we wanted to be here anyway."
Shea asked him, "How long has she been in there?"
Glancing at his watch James informed him, "About an hour. So... one to two more."
"How was she today?" Riley asked him curiously, her voice soft and tentative. She didn't want to overstep but she did want to know how her friend was doing.
James shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know. She seemed okay. Scared I guess but I expected that."
Riley gave his hand a pat as she told him, "She's gonna be fine. She's tough."
James chuckled and nodded his head, "Toughest person I know by a long shot."
Riley nodded her head in agreement and then she asked him, "How are you doing?"
He shrugged his shoulders, "Getting through it. I know it's supposed to be routine and all and that complications are rare but I'm still freaking out. I think I'm more nervous than she was."
"You'll be fine, and so will she." Riley told him with a smile.
Shea leaned back in his chair as he looked around the waiting area and when James' phone vibrated about four times in a row Shea's brow raised, "You feeling popular today?"
James chuckled and glanced at his phone before he explained, "Emails. I'm trying to... find ways to help Quinn out when she get's home. You know... food and books and stuff to do. She's gonna be miserable for six weeks."
Riley nodded her head and then she pulled her bag out from between her feet and pulled out DVD cases and told James, "Speaking of, take these home for her she can return them whenever she's done with them."
James glanced down and he couldn't help but laugh as he asked, "Buffy? Really Riley? Don't tell me you like this show too?"
Riley shrugged and Shea asked him, "What do you think they do when we're on the road?"
Riley answered for him, "Order in and cuddle on the couch while watching Buffy. It's time well spent."
"Do you think maybe Friday morning you could come and hang out with Quinn for like an hour or two?" James asked Riley, and when she nodded he explained, "Everything is supposed to arrive then, and she comes home, hopefully, that afternoon and I'd like to run home and make sure that everything is put away and clean and that the house isn't gonna stress her out."
With a smile, Riley nodded and told him, "Shea's going grocery shopping tomorrow I'll put a few of her favorite snacks down on the list so that you don't have to go get them."
James was just about to say thank you, because he hadn't even thought about that, when Shea spoke to Riley with a smirk on his face, "You only offered because you eat the same snacks as she does."
Riley shrugged, "I'm not above having ulterior motives here. I've just decided that within reason I'm gonna let myself have whatever foods I want for the next eight weeks."
Shea pointed out her own words, "Within reason."
"Yeah, so if I want chocolate, or maybe some pretzels or a cupcake I will allow myself that treat once in a while. Deal with it or don't that's totally up to you but it's not changing." Riley fired back with.
James glanced between them; Riley with her arms crossed over her chest and resting on her stomach and Shea watching her with an amused smile on his face and he stated, "Quinn was right; you two are entertaining."
Riley grinned and joked, "He's real lucky I even agreed to marry him."
"Well... technically we agreed to get married before the season started and well... season's started and we still aren't married." Shea retorted with, making Riley roll her eyes.
"I am so not getting married with a beach ball attached to me." Shea this time rolled his eyes at her dramatics when she added, "Besides, I have no energy anymore so I'd get half way down the aisle and just have a nap instead of finishing."
James let out a chuckle and he couldn't help but pick on his captain by coming to Riley's defense, "Besides you already got her pregnant. You're stuck with her for at least another 18 years at this point so what's the big deal about getting married now?"
Riley let a laugh and Shea turned to James and asked, "You want another girlfriend? I have one I can donate."
James smirked and asked, "Oh yeah? Which one are we talking about here?"
Hours later, after Shea and Riley had gone home and left him alone James found himself drifting off to sleep with his arms crossed, his ankles tucked in behind the chair legs and his head resting against the wall. At least until a hand shook his shoulder and he opened his eyes to find the nurse who had already been out twice before to give him updates as promised.
She smiled and told him, "Everything went well, we just brought her out of recovery and into her room again so you can go see her."
He let out a breath of air in relief before he followed the nurse back through the halls and to Quinn's room. She was still asleep when he got there so James made himself comfortable in the slightly nicer chair by her bed than the one he had spent the last three and a half hours in. He pulled his phone from his pocket and sent out a mass text to anyone who needed to know that Quinn was out of surgery and things had gone well.
He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting there when he heard Quinn's voice, no more than a whisper, "How is it that I just went through major surgery and somehow you look more exhausted than I feel?"
"You've been sleeping for the last four hours." James joked, a smile on his face as he glanced down at his watch. She held out her hand for him and when he grabbed onto it and gave hers a squeeze he looked over at her and said, "I lied to you the other day."
"Why?" He had been trying to understand all of her feelings toward this surgery but, being that he was a male, there was only so much that he could understand. Frankly, he had never had a huge desire to be a parent the way that Quinn had, so for the life of him he really didn't understand why it was such a big decision because to him the decision was pretty simple; a baby of their own or Quinn being around for the rest of their lives together.
She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know."
James straightened up and he looked over at her with more attention this time as he told her, "That's a lie."
She sighed and looked down at her hands as she fidgeted with them. Eventually, she told him softly, her voice a little shaky, "I'm scared that this is gonna change things."
"What things? Quinn, how many times do I have to-"
She was quick to interrupt him, "It's not about the whole baby thing. I mean... it is but not the way it was before."
"What?" He was thoroughly confused now and it showed on his face and that made Quinn giggle.
James rolled his eyes and motioned for her to continue so she told him, "This is the one thing that I'm supposed to be able to do."
"Quinn-"
Again she interrupted him, "It is James. The one thing that I'm supposed to be able to do in my entire life is to have babies so... I guess I'm just scared that if I can't do that..."
She didn't finish because she wasn't sure how to word what she wanted to say and because she had never discussed this with him before but James knew exactly what she was going to say.
"It's not gonna make you any less of a woman Quinn." When she shrugged her shoulders sadly he got up from his chair and approached her, and he pushed her knees apart so that he could stand between her legs. He reached down and tilted her head up to look at him with two fingers under her chin and he smirked as he joked, "I could tell you what makes you a woman but it's probably not appropriate and you'd probably get mad at me."
She let out a laugh and reached out to pinch his side, causing him to jump slightly. He wrapped his arms around her and ran a hand over the french braid running down the back of her head and all the way down her back as he placed a soft kiss to the side of her head. Quinn snaked her arms through the spaces between his own arms and his sides and she placed her palms on the middle of his back as she rested her forehead against his chest.
"I'm sorry." She told him.
He reminded her, "I told you-"
"I know." She interrupted him for the third time that hour. This time James left the conversation alone, he didn't want to go back down that road.
When Quinn had first brought up the idea of canceling the surgery James had been livid with her, he couldn't remember a time in their entire relationship that he had ever been that angry with her. Honestly, he couldn't remember a time in his entire life when he had ever been that angry with anyone. He hadn't spoken to her for almost a whole week, and then they had a three-hour long blow out over it and James had done what he thought was the best thing for them; he had told Quinn all of the reasons that he didn't want kids for and then he had told her to have the surgery because it wasn't like they were really going to have a family anyway.
She didn't cancel the surgery but she also didn't talk to him for the days leading up to it either. In fact, this was the most they had talked since and it was clear to him that Quinn had no interest in revisiting that conversation and James didn't have a problem with that.
So instead of talking they just stayed the way that they were; holding each other in silence.
At least until Quinn's voice rang out, muffled against the material of his t-shirt, "I'm starving."
Her surgery had been pushed back by four hours and Quinn hadn't had anything to eat since ten the night before when she had snuck one last snack in before she had to start fasting.
James let out a laugh and he told her, "Suck it up buttercup."
She pulled back, not out of his grasp but just enough to look at him, and she narrowed her eyes for a moment before she smiled and tried to persuade him, "Come on, let's just get out here and go get some burgers. God, I want a burger."
"We can get burgers after your surgery." James told her as he brushed a few baby hairs at her hairline back from her forehead.
She rolled her eyes but then smiled, "Burgers are the first meal after my surgery, and the second better be pizza, and the third better be steak."
"Got it all planned out huh?" James asked her in amusement.
Nodding her head she explained to him, "Burgers with extra french fries for the first meal, stuffed crust pepperoni pizza for the second, and rare steak with mashed potatoes for the third."
"You would choose food over me if you had to, wouldn't you?" James asked her with a smile on his face.
He let out a loud laugh when she nodded and told him matter-of-factly, "I would."
He kissed the side of her head and leaned into her, holding her tightly so that she didn't topple over as his force caused them both to lean to the left. Quinn tightened her grip around his middle as he did so, and she tilted her head just enough to press a soft kiss to her neck. When they pulled apart James joked, "It's okay, I would choose golf over you any day."
"You already do." Quinn deadpanned, and James pulled back from her with narrowed eyes.
"Name one time!" He exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest as he told her, "Go ahead, I'll wait."
"You ditched me three weeks ago to go to Toronto to play golf with Steven." Quinn reminded him.
"Fuck." James muttered, he paused, snaked a hand through his hair and then he told Quinn, "That doesn't count."
"Oh no? Why not?" She asked him in amusement, watching as he tried to find some kind of reason for that to be struck from the record.
"It was for my birthday!" He exclaimed suddenly, adding in, "Just... early since we both had to leave for camp before my actual birthday."
"Whatever you say." Quinn said with a smile, wrapping her arms around his waist again and leaning into him.
They were interrupted by a doctor and a nurse knocking on the door and walking in, so James pulled away from Quinn and settled for standing beside her as the nurse checked to make sure she was ready to go. Her doctor smiled at James, and James smiled back politely before he looked at Quinn and asked, "Ready to go?"
"Don't really have any other choice, so yeah." Quinn joked, a smile on her face.
Her doctor this time turned to James and told him, "It usually takes two to three hours, I'll have a nurse come and update you once an hour and then once she's out of recovery we'll come and get you."
James took that as his cue to leave so he turned to Quinn and grabbed her hand to give it a squeeze. He leaned over to kiss the side of her head and when he went to pull away Quinn grabbed his shirt and told him, "You're not getting away that easy Mr. Might be the last time I get to kiss you."
She pulled him down to her level and kissed him square on the mouth before she pulled away and he told her, "You're so dramatic. Chill out and I'll see you in a few hours."
Quinn rolled her eyes but a smile was present on her face as she gave his hand a squeeze and held onto it until their outstretched arms couldn't handle the distance James was putting between them. When they dropped their hands she told him, "I love you."
"Yeah, me too." He said with a grin and they both knew had there been any free pillows around one would have went flying at his head. As he made his way to the door he glanced back at her once more, and she looked over at him and stuck her tongue out at him which caused him to laugh and say, "I love you Quinny."
He was shown to the area he could wait for her by a nurse who then promised, "I'll come find you in about an hour to give you an update."
"Thanks." He said as he sat down.
"You might as well get comfortable, and feel free to go eat or something, it'll be a long couple of hours. If you're not around when I come to update you just ask reception over there, I'll leave the update with them." She told him and before he could say thank you again she turned on her heels and headed back to where they came from.
James tried to take her advice and get comfortable but there was only so much he could do in small, stuffy, hard hospital waiting room chairs. He leaned back with his head against the wall and tried to busy himself on his phone. His mother had sent him a text asking for an update, so he responded to tell her that they just took Quinn into the OR and that he would let her know how it went. He busied himself on Twitter but it wasn't like that was a particularly hopping place for him these days, he scrolled through Instagram for a few minutes before he resorted to window shopping online.
Window shopping turned into actual shopping and before he knew it he had several order confirmation emails to confirm the several boxes that would be arriving at home sometime before Quinn was released from the hospital later that week.
He searched online for the best things to do for someone after a surgery like this and suddenly it was like he got hit with the inspiration bug.
He had done some damage at Bath and Body works for candles and lotion, and even a pillow spray. He had ordered a few restaurant gift cards online so that he didn't have to embarrass himself by cooking for her, and he loaded up their Amazon account with new books she could read on her Kindle. He had ordered her a brand new, fluffy robe, that was supposed to have been the end of it but then he remembered that Quinn was one for matching underwear and he thought maybe sometime in the weeks following the surgery she would need a little bit of a pick me up so he ordered three sets.
It was a little overboard, he knew it but he was bored and frankly a little nervous and so instead of sitting around praying for things to go okay and stare at the clock on the wall he chose to put his focus and energy into something else. He chose to put his energy into finding ways to make the next six weeks of recovery easy on her, especially because they started the season, away games and everything, only three weeks into her recovery.
James felt guilty about leaving her alone so soon, and he had voiced that to Quinn along with the solution of maybe having his mom come out to stay with her but she wanted to hear nothing of it. She had always been stubborn about needing help, and James figured a lot of her apprehension to his idea had more to do with what she had told him today about feeling like less of a woman after her surgery.
He had thought, for a moment, about asking Riley to stay at the house while they were on road trips and he knew she would have no issue with it but she was so close to her due date that James would have felt even more guilty over that. So instead he had asked Jess if she could afford to take some vacation time and so, without telling Quinn about it, James felt a little less guilty knowing that her sister would be staying with them for a week and a half during the stretch they had a lot of road games. The idea of Quinn only really being alone for a week and a half total during her six week recovery time was a little easier for him to deal with.
He was surprised when he looked up from his cell phone to find Riley and Shea approaching him. His brow raised as he asked, "What are you guys doing here?"
"I had a doctor's appointment and so we figured we would come hang out with you for a little while." Riley explained to him as she took the seat next to him and Shea took one across from them.
James told them softly, "You didn't have to."
She smiled, "We know we didn't, but we were already here and we wanted to be here anyway."
Shea asked him, "How long has she been in there?"
Glancing at his watch James informed him, "About an hour. So... one to two more."
"How was she today?" Riley asked him curiously, her voice soft and tentative. She didn't want to overstep but she did want to know how her friend was doing.
James shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know. She seemed okay. Scared I guess but I expected that."
Riley gave his hand a pat as she told him, "She's gonna be fine. She's tough."
James chuckled and nodded his head, "Toughest person I know by a long shot."
Riley nodded her head in agreement and then she asked him, "How are you doing?"
He shrugged his shoulders, "Getting through it. I know it's supposed to be routine and all and that complications are rare but I'm still freaking out. I think I'm more nervous than she was."
"You'll be fine, and so will she." Riley told him with a smile.
Shea leaned back in his chair as he looked around the waiting area and when James' phone vibrated about four times in a row Shea's brow raised, "You feeling popular today?"
James chuckled and glanced at his phone before he explained, "Emails. I'm trying to... find ways to help Quinn out when she get's home. You know... food and books and stuff to do. She's gonna be miserable for six weeks."
Riley nodded her head and then she pulled her bag out from between her feet and pulled out DVD cases and told James, "Speaking of, take these home for her she can return them whenever she's done with them."
James glanced down and he couldn't help but laugh as he asked, "Buffy? Really Riley? Don't tell me you like this show too?"
Riley shrugged and Shea asked him, "What do you think they do when we're on the road?"
Riley answered for him, "Order in and cuddle on the couch while watching Buffy. It's time well spent."
"Do you think maybe Friday morning you could come and hang out with Quinn for like an hour or two?" James asked Riley, and when she nodded he explained, "Everything is supposed to arrive then, and she comes home, hopefully, that afternoon and I'd like to run home and make sure that everything is put away and clean and that the house isn't gonna stress her out."
With a smile, Riley nodded and told him, "Shea's going grocery shopping tomorrow I'll put a few of her favorite snacks down on the list so that you don't have to go get them."
James was just about to say thank you, because he hadn't even thought about that, when Shea spoke to Riley with a smirk on his face, "You only offered because you eat the same snacks as she does."
Riley shrugged, "I'm not above having ulterior motives here. I've just decided that within reason I'm gonna let myself have whatever foods I want for the next eight weeks."
Shea pointed out her own words, "Within reason."
"Yeah, so if I want chocolate, or maybe some pretzels or a cupcake I will allow myself that treat once in a while. Deal with it or don't that's totally up to you but it's not changing." Riley fired back with.
James glanced between them; Riley with her arms crossed over her chest and resting on her stomach and Shea watching her with an amused smile on his face and he stated, "Quinn was right; you two are entertaining."
Riley grinned and joked, "He's real lucky I even agreed to marry him."
"Well... technically we agreed to get married before the season started and well... season's started and we still aren't married." Shea retorted with, making Riley roll her eyes.
"I am so not getting married with a beach ball attached to me." Shea this time rolled his eyes at her dramatics when she added, "Besides, I have no energy anymore so I'd get half way down the aisle and just have a nap instead of finishing."
James let out a chuckle and he couldn't help but pick on his captain by coming to Riley's defense, "Besides you already got her pregnant. You're stuck with her for at least another 18 years at this point so what's the big deal about getting married now?"
Riley let a laugh and Shea turned to James and asked, "You want another girlfriend? I have one I can donate."
James smirked and asked, "Oh yeah? Which one are we talking about here?"
Hours later, after Shea and Riley had gone home and left him alone James found himself drifting off to sleep with his arms crossed, his ankles tucked in behind the chair legs and his head resting against the wall. At least until a hand shook his shoulder and he opened his eyes to find the nurse who had already been out twice before to give him updates as promised.
She smiled and told him, "Everything went well, we just brought her out of recovery and into her room again so you can go see her."
He let out a breath of air in relief before he followed the nurse back through the halls and to Quinn's room. She was still asleep when he got there so James made himself comfortable in the slightly nicer chair by her bed than the one he had spent the last three and a half hours in. He pulled his phone from his pocket and sent out a mass text to anyone who needed to know that Quinn was out of surgery and things had gone well.
He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting there when he heard Quinn's voice, no more than a whisper, "How is it that I just went through major surgery and somehow you look more exhausted than I feel?"
"You've been sleeping for the last four hours." James joked, a smile on his face as he glanced down at his watch. She held out her hand for him and when he grabbed onto it and gave hers a squeeze he looked over at her and said, "I lied to you the other day."
♠ ♠ ♠
Title; Lover, You Should've Come Over by Jeff BuckleyOooOoooOOOooh what did he lie about? Any guesses?
I know that I left this sort of on a cliffhanger but the next chapter will address the whole conversation the ending cut off, only in real time not in a flashback. I have some big plans for the next chapter, grab some tissues and maybe some chocolate and prepare yourself/
This completes TUT (Triple Update Tuesday). Also updated today; ME, and also ME