AJ
“That looks good,” Clair said, eyeing AJ’s ice cream cone.
“Clair Bear, I asked you if you wanted one.”
“I know. I was craving popcorn, so I didn’t think I did, but rainbow sherbet’s my favorite.”
AJ smirked, remembering how growing up his brothers always called him a fruity bastard for ordering rainbow sherbet. “It’s mine too,” he said, pleased that he finally had something in common with brainy Clair besides their love of baseball. “We can go get you one if you want.”
She stared at it, her big eyes clearly wanting a taste, and then glanced around guardedly. “I’m not allergic to ice cream, but technically, I’m not supposed to eat stuff that might’ve been contaminated, and ice cream from vendors who scoop straight from the box is one of them. I won’t finish one on my own, but I can have a taste of yours.” She reached out for the cone.
“Whoa, this was one of those places,” he said, lifting it away from her.
Once again he was treated to her eye. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, but you can’t tell my mom.”
“I don’t know about that.” AJ shook his head. “I got in trouble for that already.”
“This isn’t a big one. Just one I’d rather you not tell her so I can be spared the lecture.”
AJ raised his eyebrow but didn’t dare make any promises. “What is it?”
“I’ve had the tingly tongue and lips plenty of times when I haven’t been totally careful about my eating habits. It’s no big deal. I just don’t tell my mom because she’ll get all freaked out. It always passes.”
AJ eyed her as she reached for the cone again, and he let her have it, despite the slight apprehension. He’d always figured Addison was being a little overly cautious about Clair’s food allergies. She’d done a clean sweep of the area they’d be sitting in before giving them the go-ahead to sit down. But not before she’d wiped down the area Clair would be sitting in, in case there was any Snickers’ or Reese’s residue lingering. Anything with nuts was not Clair’s friend. He figured if sherbet was Clair’s favorite then obviously she wasn’t allergic to it, and last time he checked there were no nuts in sherbet ice cream. Clair took one lick of his ice cream then grabbed her neck and pretended to be choking.
“Very funny,” AJ said, mimicking her rolly eye.
Clair giggled and took a few more licks before handing it back.
“You sure you don’t want anymore?”
“No, thank you. I just needed to get my fix. I really was craving popcorn more than ice cream.”
She popped a few kernels in her mouth and smiled big. AJ was surprised to see her two front teeth were already halfway grown back.
Of course, Clair knew all the answers to the trivia questions being shown on the screen. AJ teased her about being a showoff. He loved hearing her laugh. The lights dimmed as the first trailer of an upcoming movie started up on the screen. AJ glanced down at the bottom of the theater to see if Addison was on her way back. She wasn’t, but he wouldn’t dwell on it. He didn’t want to turn into one of those boyfriends. She said it was her work calling and that was that.
Halfway through the next trailer Addison was back. She sat in the empty seat between AJ and Clair where she’d left her sweater and purse. “Everything okay?” AJ whispered.
“Not really,” she whispered back, leaning toward him. “But something always has to go wrong just when we think we have everything wrapped up. They’re working on it. Just needed a few things from me that I had to look up in my email. It’s why I took so long.”
AJ nodded as Addison slipped her hand into his, and they sat back and watched the trailer. AJ had lost track of how many trailers they’d watched when Addison flinched and pulled her phone out of her pocket, shielding the light with her hand.
“Crap,” she muttered again before whispering. “Work again. They know I’m at the show and said they wouldn’t call unless they absolutely had to. I’ll be right back.”
She’d warned him before they decided to go to the show that evening that tonight she wasn’t technically off because of the deadline they were trying to make. “I only got two calls during your game,” she’d said on their way there “Watch. With my luck, I’ll be inundated during the movie.”
Of course, she’d been right. AJ almost felt bad for her. A thought crossed his mind for just a moment. When not if they took this relationship to the next level, he’d be extending the same offer he had to his brothers. He’d like nothing more than to have his two girls along for the ride at all his games. If that meant she wanted to quit her job and homeschool Clair so they could do just that, he’d be all for it.
A low and slow hissing noise distracted him from his thoughts. He turned to Clair. Seeing her so engrossed in what was on the screen that she held her popcorn at her lips made him smile. Then he did a double take because the hissing sound got a little louder, and he realized there was no popcorn in her hand and she wasn’t watching the screen. She was touching her lips. As his eyes adjusted to the darkened area, he could see her lungs rising a little too dramatically. Her hand also moved from her lips to her cheeks and then her neck.
“You okay?” he asked, leaning across Addison’s empty seat.
She turned to him, and he immediately realized that hissing sound was Clair wheezing. It was dark, but he could see her eyes were a bit wide. “Where’s my mom?”
Even her voice sounded strange. Remembering her allergies and that damn ice cream he’d let her have made his heart thud. He grabbed Addison’s purse and sweater with one hand then stood up and held his hand out to her. She quickly stood and followed him out of the row of seats. The moment she was in the aisle he swooped her over his shoulder and rushed down the stairs with her.
Addison nearly collided into them as they burst out the theater doors into the lit empty hallway. Startled, it took her a second to recover, but the moment she heard Clair’s wheezing she gasped. “What’s wrong with her?”
AJ put her down, feeling enormously guilty and beyond anxious when he heard the terror in Addison’s voice and saw how dark Clair’s lips had gotten. Addison was instantly on her knees in front of Clair. “Can you breathe?” she asked, touching Clair’s face and neck.
“Yes,” Clair said in that strange way she’d sounded earlier and her wheezing suddenly went high-pitched. “But it’s getting hard to.”
“Oh my God,” Addison said, turning to AJ and reaching out her hand. “My purse. I need her EpiPen.”
AJ thrust it at her, not knowing what else to say, but before he could even try to think of something, she shoved her phone at him. “Call nine-one-one,” she urged, her eyes already watering, but AJ could see she was trying to stay calm even as she rummaged through her purse. “Tell them she’s having a severe allergic reaction, I think she’s going into anaphylactic shock, and I only have one injection with me.” She turned back to Clair, who was wheezing even heavier. “You’re gonna be okay. Just relax, okay?”
Nine-one-one? Now he felt that same terror he heard in Addison’s voice, the same one he’d felt when he got the call about Isaiah. He explained to the nine-one-one operator what was going on as he paced around Addison, when Addison suddenly cried out, “She’s not breathing!”
With his heart nearly stopping, AJ turned back to her and saw Addison holding Clair’s limp body in her arms. Moments ago the operator had asked him if she was breathing, and he’d explained she was but it was getting hard to. “She stopped breathing!” He barked into the phone, feeling as emotional as Addison sounded now.
She was sobbing between attempts to perform CPR on Clair’s lifeless body. “God, no! Breathe, baby please!”
People were already surrounding them, trying to help Addison, who was becoming increasingly distraught by the second.
“Where are the paramedics?” he demanded as the enormous boulder in his throat suffocated him, making it hard for him to breathe now too. “We need them here now!”
What felt like an eternity later, as the operator kept him on the phone, the medics finally arrived. AJ had watched in horror as all of Addison’s resuscitation efforts were in vain. The crowd had grown even bigger as Addison’s hysterical cries brought more attention to them.
AJ tried to calm her, at least hold her back from getting in the medic’s way. “She needs to hear my voice!” Addison insisted. “Baby, please, please, breathe for mommy!”
Addison clutched onto AJ as they both watched how lifeless Clair’s little body was even after the medics arrived and shot her with an even bigger dose of the meds needed to buy her more time to get to the hospital.
Never had AJ felt so fucking helpless, just standing there watching as Addison completely fell apart, trying to fight him, so he’d let her go. But he knew he had to hold her back.
“Let them do their thing, babe,” he said then shushed her even as the boulder in his throat broke and his own words gave because it really felt like it’d been too long now.
“There’s no pulse,” one of the medics said as they frantically continued performing CPR on Clair’s tiny body.
“No!” Addison’s loud cries only made the tears spill out of AJ’s eyes as he struggled to hold her back. “Dear God, no!”
It was all AJ could do to keep himself from crying out with her as her voice went even more high-pitched. “Please, Clair Bear! Breathe for Mommy! Please!”