Page 126 of You First
What?
Bax’s girlfriend had been with him when he’d collapsed? Had the two of them been in town visiting? What the hell?
Gray grabbed the marker board.“Where were you?”He underlined the last word and thrust the board at his brother.
Bax’s head shot back as he read the question, and he gave Gray a confused look. “Me? I was in New Orleans. Where else would I be?”
Gray shifted his eyes between the two of them. They were both watching him with wary expressions. They were eying him, he realized, from opposite sides of the bed. On either side of him. They weren’t standing next to each other. They weren’t touching. They weren’t even looking at each other.
It made no sense.
In his chest his heart kicked into a sprint, and he swiped the surface of the marker board, his right hand now stained red. He wrote as fast as he could before holding up to the board to her.
“Who are you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HE WATCHED THEquestion hit both of them like a blow. Bax’s jaw dropped, and Meredith staggered back.
“Gray…” Bax said, looking at him like he’d just sprouted a horn. “…you don’t know who she is?”
Mute, he shot his brother a look, and then he scribbled furiously.“No! Never met her.”
He held up the board to face his brother, but when Meredith’s eyes fell on the words, her hand shot to her mouth, and her gasp made him wince.
Meredith took two steps back, her eyes locked on him, and then she turned and ran out of the ICU.
Gray flipped his palms up at his brother, waiting for an explanation. When Bax just gaped at him, he scrubbed the board again.“Is she your girlfriend?”
Bax’s eyes bugged. “No, Gray, she’syours.”
Mine?
If Bax had told him he’d been in a coma for ten years, he couldn’t have been more astonished. His girlfriend? Since when? She was beautiful, and he was attracted — ridiculously attracted — but he could find nothing familiar about her. Nothing that triggered even a hint of a memory.
“Dude, you just fucked up,” Bax said, pulling a face.
And then Gray thought of the look of devastation in her eyes and the way he’d wanted to break Baxter’s fingers when he came in touching her. The way she’d felt in his arms. Her smell.
Oh shit.
Gray jabbed a finger at the door and then pointed sharply beside him. “Guh huh…”
Bax frowned. “What?”
He couldn’t write fast enough.“Get her!”
Bax nodded. “Right. Be right back.” Then he was gone.
Gray fidgeted with the blankets. He ran a hand over his face. His skin felt oily, and he needed a shave. He wanted a mirror in the worst way. But then again, maybe it was better if he didn’t have one. There was no way he’d ever looked worse in his life, given the circumstances.
He waited. And waited.
Fuck.
The beautiful girl was his, and he’d hurt her. How could he not remember her? Gray shut his eyes and pictured her face. Ivory skin. Hair a rich, cascading brown. Eyes darker still. If, in fact, he had seen her before, he would have been a goner from the first moment.
But when had he managed to find her? He’d been working non-stop, racing against the clock to finish his book before the tumor finished him. How had this happened?
