“What happened?”he wrote, more enraptured by the mysteries of their story than any he’d written or read.
She shook her head rapidly. “If I say it aloud, it just sounds crazy.”
He was right; she was a challenge. And maybe what she wasn’t telling him had been crazy, but Gray had to trust himself. If they’d been together just the day before, then pre-surgery Gray must have been certain Meredith was worth a little crazy.
He made a show of shrugging his shoulders before spelling it out.“Whatever it was, I don’t care.”
It was true. Maybe it was the morphine. Maybe it was the shock of waking up and finding himself attached to a beautiful stranger. Maybe it was the fact that he felt lucky just to be alive. But Gray was happy to simply be with her and find out who she was.
And sleep. He’d need to sleep again very soon.
His shoulders drooped at the thought of sleeping. It felt like a lead apron had settled over him — just like at the dentist’s.
“You’re tired,” Meredith said softly. “You need to rest.”
Gray nodded and let his head sink back against the pillow.
“I’m going to Br—” Meredith stopped. Her eyes focused somewhere on the floor as she gave a slow, self-admonishing shake of her head. “My best friend’s name is Brooke. You’ve met her once. I’m going to stay with her tonight. I’ll go by your place tomorrow and get the rest of my stuff.”
The rest of her stuff?
“That way, you can be surrounded by people you know when you go home,” she said, nodding decisively.
Her stuff. Home.“Do we live together?”he wrote. The words were barely legible. Gray could not imagine living with someone unless…
Did he love her? Didshelovehim?
His heart started thumping double-time at the thought. Exhilaration toyed with him. Hope tempted him. Gray wanted it to be true. But was it? And how could he find out? He couldn’t exactly ask her:Do I love you?or worse,Do you love me?
Looking at her and the way she suffered, it was clear they meant something to each other, and that was enough for Gray to want to pledge his loyalty to her, but he had no way of knowing the depth of what they felt. Only more time with her would reveal that.
Meredith was shaking her head. “No, no. I’m just staying with you until my apartment is ready. It’s…” Her gaze flicked away from his. “…it’s complicated.”
“Stay.”
The lone word on the marker board made her hesitate, he could tell. He didn’t know when he’d be released, but if she was in his house, that meant more opportunity to figure this out.
She stared at the word for too long. “I can’t. Not now. I should…I should go.” She glanced between him and the floor, looking half-lost. She took a step toward him, reached out her hand, and let it drop.
She was debating about whether or not to touch him, Gray realized. He wanted to reach for her, he wanted to point to the word again, but the morphine-soaked fatigue weighed down his arms.
When will I see you again?The words wanted to be set free, but his eyes were already closing. Gray fought to keep them open. She looked so sad. He couldn’t let her leave looking so sad…
GRAY AWOKE INa different room. Not home, but a room with a window. A private room. He was starving. The light outside the window was an uncertain violet. Was it the day’s end or the first light of dawn?
He looked around. Contorted and cramped, Bax slept in an armchair beside him. Gray blinked awake, now remembering snatches from the night before: the jarring blood pressure checks, waking to a dry mouth and the annoyance of fluorescent lights, the slight vertigo as his bed was wheeled down a corridor. He was out of ICU, and the light outside now slanting toward lavender was dawn, not dusk.
His stomach gave an impatient growl. When had he last eaten? He raised the head of the bed, and the whirring noise woke Baxter.
“Finally,” his brother muttered, stretching in the chair before standing up. He dug his phone out of his pocket, checked the time, and raised a brow. “You’ve been sleeping almost thirteen hours.”
Gray scanned the room for the marker board and found no sign of it.
“You need to try talking,” Bax said, reading his mind.
Gray shook his head and mimed scribbling into the palm of his hand. When he spoke, he sounded like a Wookiee. He wasn’t going to put himself through that humiliation until he was working with a speech therapist who was trained to help him.
Bax shook his head, mock disappointment flattening his mouth. “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean. What are you trying to say?”