“Can you believe this turnout?” Patrick shouted over the loud music, clapping Marc on the shoulder.
Marc scanned the capacity crowd in Denver’s City Park Pavilion, where Kate’s band was performing on the small stage. “I had my doubts about actually pulling this off.”
The last two weeks had been a whirlwind. The day after the five of them had brainstormed the organ donation drive idea, they had begun putting their plan into motion. Fortunately, with it being the dead of winter and many events being canceled due to the repeated snowstorms, the pavilion wasn’t in high demand, and the first available date was much sooner than they’d anticipated. It only took Kate a few days to line up five bands in addition to hers. Getting representatives from a major organ donation center and technicians on site for blood testing had been easy too. They needed all they could get. Marc had sent press releases to the local news and radio stations, and the five of them papered the area with flyers and cold-called every person on their combined contacts list. After that, they could only hope people would show up. And more importantly, that one of them would be the hero who’d save Trevor’s life.
“Nah, that’s what determination does,” Patrick said, grinning.
Marc chuckled. “Would you like a gold star?” he joked, raising his voice to be heard over a driving drumbeat and wailing guitar.
Patrick shook his head, laughing, and he gave Marc a playful elbow in the side. “You can take my offer and join me coaching softball instead.”
“I’m still thinking!” Marc couldn’t help but smile again, at least a little. Patrick had invited him to assist with coaching his girls’ softball team in the spring, even though Marc didn’t have a clue how to play the game. Patrick had promised he’d learn in no time. “But I probably will take you up on it.”
After the organ drive today, after they hopefully found a match for Trevor.
“Good!” Patrick turned his attention back to the stage.
Marc took a deep, steady breath. Loss and failure hummed steadily through his veins, but a renewed sense of purpose, relief in discovering new friendships, had kept him from slipping into depression. He glanced at Patrick. He really had been missing out on much more than just romantic relationships.
In the past couple of weeks, he’d also become better friends with Gillian and Brian. Both Brian and his wife, Grace, were trying to convince him to give Ironman a go. Marc couldn’t wrap his brain around a race that took anywhere from eight to seventeen hours to finish, but maybe he’d try out a short-distance sprint triathlon this summer. Gillian, on the other hand, was subtly trying to get him to audition for an upcoming play, but that was scarier than an Ironman triathlon.
All these people had rallied around him when he needed support most—without question or hesitation, without agenda or condition. They’d invited him into their lives and wanted nothing more in return than his friendship. This was what life was about, and he finally got it. The only thing missing now was Trevor.
Brian materialized out of the crowd, strategically carrying three steaming cups of hot chocolate. He stopped in front of them, holding the cups out. Patrick carefully extracted one, passing it to Marc before retrieving the other for himself.
“Thank you,” Marc said, lifting his cup in a short salute and taking a sip.
Brian nodded and then joined Marc and Patrick in watching the show.
“Rocks hard, doesn’t she?” Brian said, bopping his head along to the music.
“She does,” Marc agreed. He hadn’t known what to expect, but Kate and her band had blown him away from the first song in their set. Watching her on stage now, he couldn’t believe she was the same person. At work she was a conservative, buttoned-up professional, but there on the stage—clad in a black leather jacket, tank top, short black skirt, and triple-tread biker boots with silver buckles up the side, dark hair loose and wild—she was a flurry of energy commanding the audience with ease. He made a mental note to make sure he never missed a show from this point on. He wondered if Trevor would like her music, too—a thought that led to his internal movie theater playing a preview of the two of them. Trevor standing with his back to Marc’s chest, Marc’s arms wrapped around Trevor’s waist, his chin resting on Trevor’s shoulder as the two of them swayed to the beat.
“Marc! Marc!” The sound of his name being shouted drew him from his thoughts, and he turned to see Grace pushing her way through the crowd toward him.
“Come quick!” she said when she reached him, her voice vibrating with excitement. She grabbed his arm and tugged him after her. He shot a confused look at Brian and Patrick, who both shrugged and then followed.
Grace led him outside, across the parking lot, and into one of the two mobile blood labs they’d secured for testing and typing. The four of them piled inside, where a woman sat across from the technician, her back to the door.
“Meet Trevor’s blood match!” Grace announced.
Marc’s eyes widened. “A m-match?” For a second he couldn’t think, the words in his head bouncing around like popcorn in a wind tunnel, his mouth hanging open. The woman turned and looked up at him with warm dark eyes. Familiar eyes.
He remembered Maria Jochens well. He’d represented her in a wrongful dismal case a couple of years back. “Mrs. Jochens?” he said, still in shock.
“Please, you call me Maria,” she said and stood to face him.
The wind in his mind downgraded enough for coherency, but speech was still a beat or two behind.
They’d won.
“I— Maria . . .”
She smiled. “When I heard about this drive, saw what it was about and who was running it, I had to come. You helped me get my life back, Mr. Roberts. If it weren’t for you, I’d have lost everything. This is my turn to do something for you.”
Marc lunged forward and pulled her into a hug. She seemed startled for a second but quickly overcame it and hugged him back just as fiercely.
“Marc,” he mumbled into her hair, his throat tight with emotion. “Call me Marc.”
She nodded against him.
“Thank you, Maria,” he choked out as joy and elation exploded inside. Tears clouded his vision, threatening to spill down his cheeks, but he didn’t care. “I will never be able to thank you enough.”
“Just knowing I might be able to help your friend live is more than anyone could hope to ask,” she said.
They would still need to make sure Maria was also a tissue match, but the first big hurdle had been finding a blood match. And they’d done it.
Marc released her and half fell into a chair near the blood-draw station before his knees gave out and he landed on his ass. He stared up at his friends, all crowded into the mobile lab beside him, and let the tears flow freely. His friends. People who didn’t judge his worth based on success, position, or status, but who cared because they simply liked him.
“I couldn’t have done this without you.” Marc looked at the people surrounding him—Patrick, Brian, Grace, and Gillian, and Kate, who’d joined them without his notice. And of course, Maria. “Any of you.”
“We did it together,” Kate said, her voice quiet and smile watery. “That’s what friends do.”
He nodded, wiping his wet cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt. For the first time in weeks the world around him seemed brighter, as if sunlight blinded him from the inside. They were halfway there.
Now he just needed to find Trevor.