Chrysalis, p.7
Chrysalis, page 7
I stopped short of the kitchen at the sound of Gray’s voice. He sounded annoyed as he rhythmically chopped something on a cutting board. “It’s just until he figures some things out,” he snapped.
I risked a peek around the corner to see what kind of vegetable he was giving the business to. I found him working a knife through a carrot. The vigor he was using to slice and dice clearly meant that the carrot had tried to kill someone he loved. He finished that carrot and positioned another. He lopped off the knobby end part with no adieu.
Ah, a carrot assassin family, then, and Gray finally caught them. No quarter given to those orange bastards.
I heard someone else and stiffened before I realized he had his phone on speaker. “You’re too damned nice, Gray.” Devin. I’d only met the man once, but I remembered his voice. “You still care about him.”
“I wasn’t aware I wasn’t allowed to care about people.” Gray pushed the diced carrots in a neat little pile with his knife and started in on the celery. “That’s kind of part of my job description.”
“So you’d take in any patient that escaped from the hospital like a loon?” It wasn’t really a question.
“I’m just offering him a place to stay,” Gray said with exasperation. “And I’m not asking permission, Dev. I just thought you should know.” He resumed his chopping, with less anger than before. “Promise me you won’t say anything.”
“See?” Devin murmured. “Just like I told you. This guy is bad news. And I don’t like the hold he seems to have on you, Gray.”
“Promise me.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “But you’ve got to promise me something, too. I want you to promise me that this guy isn’t a threat to our relationship.”
“Dev—”
“I agreed to your terms. Now it’s time for you to do the same.”
“You have nothing to worry about.” Gray’s mouth tightened. “I would never get back with Christian Cross. Not in a million fucking years.”
Good to know.
I shuffled back down the hallway to my room, mostly so I could regroup, but also so I could come back down the hall and make a lot more noise to announce my presence. I shouldn’t feel stung. Gray had a life now, and Devin wasn’t a bad guy—I was the interloper. I wasn’t supposed to be here trying to recapture the past. I was supposed to be trying to figure out what exactly I’d been doing in the four years since I’d left Gray and how that equated to someone trying to kill me. Thinking about Andy, I grimaced. If I could also figure out why I’d decided to make the iceman cometh, that would be great, too.
To that end, I made a list in my head.
Eat some of whatever Gray is making that smells so delicious. Probably soup.
Get some rest. Maybe a midnight snack of soup.
Find where you’ve been living and get your car out of impound.
Eat some more soup.
Figure out if Andy is who he says he is and if he’s telling the truth.
Ask Gray for the recipe for that soup.
I squinted as I reviewed my list in my head. Over half of the items probably shouldn’t have been soup-related, but it was a start.
7
I woke to the sound of the doorbell.
It took me a few moments to realize where I was, and I did a quick mental check. Still sore and tired from the previous day’s ill-advised escape? Yup. Still didn’t remember shit? Yup. Good. Mind and body on the same page, I rolled out of bed.
I spotted another stack of clothing on the bench at the end of the bed and knew Gray had been busy doing his humanitarian thing again. I chose a few items at random from the stack and pulled on a pair of simple drawstring sweats and a t-shirt. I rubbed my hand down the front of the shirt. The clothes were soft and high-quality, which my battered, still-healing body appreciated.
I went downstairs and headed into the kitchen. Gray was already at the stove, pushing around some eggs with a spatula, dressed in some scrubs, his hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of his neck. It was already a tad messy, the way I liked it best. He’d also put some kind of product in his beard that made it look soft and neat. That reminded me again that I needed to shave.
He turned and gave me a onceover. Clearly, he thought the same thing. “I left you a shaving kit in the bathroom. You know, in case you want to do something with whatever is happening on your face.”
I scowled even though I’d already made that decision. “I can grow a proper beard.” At his skeptical look, I paused. “No?”
“No.”
“Never?”
His mouth twitched as he shook his head. “Never.”
I sniffed. “I’m shaving it because I want to. Not because you’re shaming me with your superior beard-growing skills.”
“All I heard was that my beard is awesome. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. A big, amnesiac baby.” The scrambled eggs looked fluffy and buttery, and my stomach growled. “Your mom used to make those. Sunday brunch.”
He chuckled. “Why is it that anything food-related you remember?”
“My stomach is a real go-getter and has no intention of waiting for Brain.” I watched him sprinkle chives over the entire skillet, the pretty green flecks floating down gently over the eggs. “Your mother must be so proud that you still remember. Guess all those times she forced you in the kitchen weren’t for naught after all.”
He was silent for a few moments as he turned off the heat and the flame disappeared from beneath the skillet. “My mother passed away.”
My gaze shot up to his, stricken, but he wasn’t looking at me. Not Tipper. “When?”
“Three years ago. She was hit by some joyriding kids when she was crossing the street.”
I opened my mouth and closed it because I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not anything meaningful anyway. Yet another thing I’d left him to face on his own. What the fuck had I been thinking? I didn’t know Old Me, but I wanted to fuck him up good. Old Me, meet New Me outside at three o’clock. I’m gonna kick your ass…which is also my ass. It’s probably going to be hella confusing, but let’s do it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. It was inadequate, but it was all I had at the moment. He shrugged, and I scrambled for more words. “She was such a nice—”
“It’s fine,” he said sharply.
It was so much less than fine. I was starting to think things would never be fine again.
He split the eggs between two plates and added a couple of slices of toast. He pushed one of the plates my way, and I eagerly took a seat at the kitchen island. He watched me take a few bites and smiled at my hum of approval. I proceeded to do my best impression of a food vacuum.
His next words were unwelcome but expected. “Detective Myers was here.”
I lowered my fork and waited until I didn’t have a mouth full of food. “I can’t help but notice she’s not here now,” I finally said.
“I told her I hadn’t seen you since earlier yesterday, in the hospital. I told her she should check with Andy…that maybe you’d just gone home.”
“You lied to the cops?”
“You have a better idea?” he snapped, clearly rattled by his actions. “I’d much rather you trust them to help you, but I won’t force you if you’re not ready.”
I swallowed. “I’m surprised she believed you. You’re not exactly the best liar in the world.”
He looked affronted. “Excuse me?”
“That’s a compliment.”
“Then why doesn’t it feel like one?”
I hid a smile. “Gray, the moment I saw your face in the hospital, I knew something was wrong with our relationship and that there was something you weren’t telling me. And that’s from someone fresh out of a goddamned coma.”
“Well, Detective Myers doesn’t know me as well as you do.” He paused. “Did.”
I flinched a little at the past tense, but he was right. “They probably believed you because you’re Dr. Grayson Laurie, and Dr. Grayson Laurie doesn’t lie to the authorities. Well, he didn’t, at least.” I tapped my fork on my plate as I digested his news. “Did I live with Andy?”
“He said you were over at his place most of the time. And Detective Myers couldn’t find anything in your name.”
He didn’t join me at the island. Instead, he leaned against the counter and ate, holding his plate. I didn’t think it was a purposeful slight. He was always on the go, so it wasn’t unusual for him to eat standing up.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He didn’t immediately say yes. Instead, he looked at me for a few seconds, brow furrowed. It was a change in him that I hated. He’d always been so easy with me before. Now he was mostly quiet and watchful.
“Shoot,” he finally said.
“Did you hear anything about my family?” Hearing how needy and pitiful that sounded, I tried to rephrase the question. “I mean, did anyone show up at the hospital looking for me?”
“You didn’t have any family. At least not any you told me about.”
“Everyone comes from somewhere, Gray.”
“Well, apparently, you popped up in a cabbage patch like those ugly dolls my sisters used to collect.” At the look on my face, he stopped trying to tease me out of my mood. “Sorry, I’m just trying to help. You had a grandfather, but he died when we were in college. You also got calls sometimes from your Aunt Deb, but you never told me much about her, and I never met her.”
“Were we close?” I asked hopefully.
“You didn’t talk on the phone all that long, and to be perfectly honest, you never looked all that jazzed to hear from her.”
So that was a no on tracking down shitty Aunt Deb. Being alone in the world was a sight better than digging up relatives I’d never wanted to talk to in the first place. I drummed my fingers on the quartz countertop. “Did I have any friends?”
“Not really.”
“What did I like to do? Where did I like to hang out?”
“I don’t know.” Gray shrugged his shoulders a little uncomfortably. Maybe my line of questioning was making him realize how much he hadn’t known about me, too. “We didn’t really have a lot of hangout time, Chris. I worked a lot, and so did you. We had jobs. We got up early, did those jobs, and came home to each other.”
“What about my job?” I asked eagerly. “What did I do? Where did I work?”
“Generally, I like to listen to a podcast with my breakfast. Not all this chatter,” he said, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth. “And shouldn’t you be shining some sort of interrogation light directly into my pupils?”
“If necessary,” I threatened with absolutely no credibility.
He sighed, but he made me wait until he finished chewing his toast and swallowed. I hoped it was nice and dry. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing the past four years. But when I knew you, you worked in insurance.”
“Insurance?” I asked skeptically. What a freaking letdown. “Like insurance-insurance?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Gray said dryly.
“Just…what kind of insurance? Life, home, auto?”
“Does it matter?”
To be perfectly honest, no. I guess it didn’t. I stared at him, admittedly a little nonplussed. There wasn’t anything wrong with selling insurance, of course. It was just that…I kind of hoped my attempted murder would be related to something I was involved in. Now that I knew that I had a perfectly safe job where I probably spent most of my time at a nice desk, helping people navigate the world of responsibility, that seemed a lot less likely. Maybe it was just one of those random things. A stranger homicide. Maybe I’d cut off some lunatic on the highway and they hunted me down.
I had no family, no friends, and I was the real-life Jake from State Farm. I thought about the MAXIM tattoo that was taking up the majority of real estate behind my ear and down the side of my neck. I sighed. Since Former Me had thought that was a brilliant idea, I was also kind of an idiot.
“Was I a douchenozzle?” I asked wistfully.
Gray spluttered his coffee and took a few seconds dabbing at his scrub top before he spoke. “Good lord, Cross, I never know what the hell you’re going to say. No, you weren’t a douchenozzle, so get that look off your face,” he said gently. “But you were a secretive bastard.”
“Do you think I really sold insurance?”
He looked at me, considering for a few moments, before he shook his head slowly. “No. At least, not while you were living with me. You had a lot of unexplained income, and you came and went all hours. You also took a lot of trips at the last minute.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
Well, that was certainly coming back to bite me in the ass. The one person who could unlock my past, I hadn’t been open and honest with. It was kind of what I deserved.
He looked like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He nodded at my plate. “You done with that? I’ve got to head out.”
“Oh.” I handed him my plate and watched as he ferried it to the sink. He put our dishes in the side with soapy water. “I guess I should leave then, too.”
“No,” he said quickly. He avoided my gaze. “I have to go, but you should feel free to hang out.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to clean you out?” I was only half-kidding. He really didn’t know who I was anymore, and I wasn’t sure he ever had. He didn’t know who he’d let into his home. His life.
He smiled at me crookedly. “I figure you would’ve already done it by now. Come on, let me show you where a few things are, and then I have to get going.”
He gave me a lightning-quick tour of the downstairs part of the house, so fast I knew I wouldn’t remember shit. I followed him obediently as he pointed out the things I might need, like the half-bath and the den with the TV. He gave me a quick demo on how to use a couple of space-age-looking remotes for the intimidating flatscreen. Nope, won’t bother with that. Then he gave me a quick rundown of how to log in to his fancy-ass desktop computer. Won’t bother with you, either.
I felt like a dog being shown what parts of the house he should guard. I only perked up when he showed me where I could find some snacks and where he kept the beer. Then he remembered I was still on painkillers and told me not to have any.
“I didn’t get a prescription from the hospital,” I protested. It was as close to a whine as I could get.
“That’s what happens when you escape through a window,” he said absently, heading for the front door. “And I’ll bring home something that you can take. For now, there is aspirin in the downstairs bathroom.”
“The windows were sealed,” I informed him haughtily. “I went through the door like a normal person.”
“And just how would you know what normal people do?” he countered as he took his coat off a peg. He shrugged into it as he rambled on. “I wouldn’t recommend going out because they’re looking for you, but if you do, the door locks on its own when you close it. And the code for the alarm is 2154.”
“Check and check.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be back, so you should probably just eat dinner without me.” He stuck his feet in his boots and grabbed his ugly-ass Crocs. I knew when he got to the hospital, he’d change into them because he said they felt like heaven on his feet. “What else? I would let you drive my other car, but we don’t know if you still have a valid license. And you’re still kind of weak. You should probably get some rest.”
“Check,” I said again.
“And don’t forget to eat something. I put the soup in individual containers from last night. There are rolls in the bottom oven. I store the bread in there because I never use it.”
It struck me then that he was nervous, and not because he was leaving me alone in his fancy house with all his fancy things. He was actually worried about leaving me alone. I had to smile. Must be the doctor in him. He was kind of cute, worrying about me like a mother hen.
“Gray.” I cut him off as he was running down a list of where he would be at certain times during the day. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” He blushed, and I dug my fingernails in my palm to keep from kissing him. It wouldn’t be welcome, and he’d probably deck me for even trying. He eyed my clothing. “Those are a little small on you, aren’t they?”
I looked down. The shirt and sweatpants were a little snug, but the soft fabric had a lot of give, so it was still comfortable. Gray and I were about the same height, but I was a little broader in the shoulders and chest. I also had him in muscle mass, even after a month's stay in the hospital.
My arms always used to fit around him perfectly.
I suddenly realized he was looking at me questioningly, and I was lost in the memory of a fucking hug. I cleared my throat and shrugged. “They’re fine.”
“I’ll stop by the store on the way home and pick up something for you to wear that’s a little more comfortable.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He huffed. “Fine. Keep looking like the Hulk in my sweats if you want to.” He grinned when I stuck out my tongue. “And on that mature note, I’m running late. Gotta go.”
I stood there in the living room as he headed out the side door for the garage, feeling a little lost and out of place. And then I remembered something, just as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Gray,” I blurted.
I thought I was too late until the door swung open a crack, and he stuck his head back in. “Yeah?”
“Did I leave anything behind when I moved out of here?” I asked.
He shook his head, and his cheeks pinkened. He looked a little embarrassed. “Anything you left behind, I got rid of.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry,” he added because he was Gray, and he couldn’t help himself.
“You don’t owe me any apologies.” My voice was decidedly glum. “You’ve already gone above and beyond for, let’s face it, somebody that you used to know.”
“If it helps, your office was next to the den. The gray room at the end of the hall. I turned it into a reading sanctuary.”
“That’s a library, and you fucking know it, Gray.”
I risked a peek around the corner to see what kind of vegetable he was giving the business to. I found him working a knife through a carrot. The vigor he was using to slice and dice clearly meant that the carrot had tried to kill someone he loved. He finished that carrot and positioned another. He lopped off the knobby end part with no adieu.
Ah, a carrot assassin family, then, and Gray finally caught them. No quarter given to those orange bastards.
I heard someone else and stiffened before I realized he had his phone on speaker. “You’re too damned nice, Gray.” Devin. I’d only met the man once, but I remembered his voice. “You still care about him.”
“I wasn’t aware I wasn’t allowed to care about people.” Gray pushed the diced carrots in a neat little pile with his knife and started in on the celery. “That’s kind of part of my job description.”
“So you’d take in any patient that escaped from the hospital like a loon?” It wasn’t really a question.
“I’m just offering him a place to stay,” Gray said with exasperation. “And I’m not asking permission, Dev. I just thought you should know.” He resumed his chopping, with less anger than before. “Promise me you won’t say anything.”
“See?” Devin murmured. “Just like I told you. This guy is bad news. And I don’t like the hold he seems to have on you, Gray.”
“Promise me.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “But you’ve got to promise me something, too. I want you to promise me that this guy isn’t a threat to our relationship.”
“Dev—”
“I agreed to your terms. Now it’s time for you to do the same.”
“You have nothing to worry about.” Gray’s mouth tightened. “I would never get back with Christian Cross. Not in a million fucking years.”
Good to know.
I shuffled back down the hallway to my room, mostly so I could regroup, but also so I could come back down the hall and make a lot more noise to announce my presence. I shouldn’t feel stung. Gray had a life now, and Devin wasn’t a bad guy—I was the interloper. I wasn’t supposed to be here trying to recapture the past. I was supposed to be trying to figure out what exactly I’d been doing in the four years since I’d left Gray and how that equated to someone trying to kill me. Thinking about Andy, I grimaced. If I could also figure out why I’d decided to make the iceman cometh, that would be great, too.
To that end, I made a list in my head.
Eat some of whatever Gray is making that smells so delicious. Probably soup.
Get some rest. Maybe a midnight snack of soup.
Find where you’ve been living and get your car out of impound.
Eat some more soup.
Figure out if Andy is who he says he is and if he’s telling the truth.
Ask Gray for the recipe for that soup.
I squinted as I reviewed my list in my head. Over half of the items probably shouldn’t have been soup-related, but it was a start.
7
I woke to the sound of the doorbell.
It took me a few moments to realize where I was, and I did a quick mental check. Still sore and tired from the previous day’s ill-advised escape? Yup. Still didn’t remember shit? Yup. Good. Mind and body on the same page, I rolled out of bed.
I spotted another stack of clothing on the bench at the end of the bed and knew Gray had been busy doing his humanitarian thing again. I chose a few items at random from the stack and pulled on a pair of simple drawstring sweats and a t-shirt. I rubbed my hand down the front of the shirt. The clothes were soft and high-quality, which my battered, still-healing body appreciated.
I went downstairs and headed into the kitchen. Gray was already at the stove, pushing around some eggs with a spatula, dressed in some scrubs, his hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of his neck. It was already a tad messy, the way I liked it best. He’d also put some kind of product in his beard that made it look soft and neat. That reminded me again that I needed to shave.
He turned and gave me a onceover. Clearly, he thought the same thing. “I left you a shaving kit in the bathroom. You know, in case you want to do something with whatever is happening on your face.”
I scowled even though I’d already made that decision. “I can grow a proper beard.” At his skeptical look, I paused. “No?”
“No.”
“Never?”
His mouth twitched as he shook his head. “Never.”
I sniffed. “I’m shaving it because I want to. Not because you’re shaming me with your superior beard-growing skills.”
“All I heard was that my beard is awesome. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. A big, amnesiac baby.” The scrambled eggs looked fluffy and buttery, and my stomach growled. “Your mom used to make those. Sunday brunch.”
He chuckled. “Why is it that anything food-related you remember?”
“My stomach is a real go-getter and has no intention of waiting for Brain.” I watched him sprinkle chives over the entire skillet, the pretty green flecks floating down gently over the eggs. “Your mother must be so proud that you still remember. Guess all those times she forced you in the kitchen weren’t for naught after all.”
He was silent for a few moments as he turned off the heat and the flame disappeared from beneath the skillet. “My mother passed away.”
My gaze shot up to his, stricken, but he wasn’t looking at me. Not Tipper. “When?”
“Three years ago. She was hit by some joyriding kids when she was crossing the street.”
I opened my mouth and closed it because I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not anything meaningful anyway. Yet another thing I’d left him to face on his own. What the fuck had I been thinking? I didn’t know Old Me, but I wanted to fuck him up good. Old Me, meet New Me outside at three o’clock. I’m gonna kick your ass…which is also my ass. It’s probably going to be hella confusing, but let’s do it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. It was inadequate, but it was all I had at the moment. He shrugged, and I scrambled for more words. “She was such a nice—”
“It’s fine,” he said sharply.
It was so much less than fine. I was starting to think things would never be fine again.
He split the eggs between two plates and added a couple of slices of toast. He pushed one of the plates my way, and I eagerly took a seat at the kitchen island. He watched me take a few bites and smiled at my hum of approval. I proceeded to do my best impression of a food vacuum.
His next words were unwelcome but expected. “Detective Myers was here.”
I lowered my fork and waited until I didn’t have a mouth full of food. “I can’t help but notice she’s not here now,” I finally said.
“I told her I hadn’t seen you since earlier yesterday, in the hospital. I told her she should check with Andy…that maybe you’d just gone home.”
“You lied to the cops?”
“You have a better idea?” he snapped, clearly rattled by his actions. “I’d much rather you trust them to help you, but I won’t force you if you’re not ready.”
I swallowed. “I’m surprised she believed you. You’re not exactly the best liar in the world.”
He looked affronted. “Excuse me?”
“That’s a compliment.”
“Then why doesn’t it feel like one?”
I hid a smile. “Gray, the moment I saw your face in the hospital, I knew something was wrong with our relationship and that there was something you weren’t telling me. And that’s from someone fresh out of a goddamned coma.”
“Well, Detective Myers doesn’t know me as well as you do.” He paused. “Did.”
I flinched a little at the past tense, but he was right. “They probably believed you because you’re Dr. Grayson Laurie, and Dr. Grayson Laurie doesn’t lie to the authorities. Well, he didn’t, at least.” I tapped my fork on my plate as I digested his news. “Did I live with Andy?”
“He said you were over at his place most of the time. And Detective Myers couldn’t find anything in your name.”
He didn’t join me at the island. Instead, he leaned against the counter and ate, holding his plate. I didn’t think it was a purposeful slight. He was always on the go, so it wasn’t unusual for him to eat standing up.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He didn’t immediately say yes. Instead, he looked at me for a few seconds, brow furrowed. It was a change in him that I hated. He’d always been so easy with me before. Now he was mostly quiet and watchful.
“Shoot,” he finally said.
“Did you hear anything about my family?” Hearing how needy and pitiful that sounded, I tried to rephrase the question. “I mean, did anyone show up at the hospital looking for me?”
“You didn’t have any family. At least not any you told me about.”
“Everyone comes from somewhere, Gray.”
“Well, apparently, you popped up in a cabbage patch like those ugly dolls my sisters used to collect.” At the look on my face, he stopped trying to tease me out of my mood. “Sorry, I’m just trying to help. You had a grandfather, but he died when we were in college. You also got calls sometimes from your Aunt Deb, but you never told me much about her, and I never met her.”
“Were we close?” I asked hopefully.
“You didn’t talk on the phone all that long, and to be perfectly honest, you never looked all that jazzed to hear from her.”
So that was a no on tracking down shitty Aunt Deb. Being alone in the world was a sight better than digging up relatives I’d never wanted to talk to in the first place. I drummed my fingers on the quartz countertop. “Did I have any friends?”
“Not really.”
“What did I like to do? Where did I like to hang out?”
“I don’t know.” Gray shrugged his shoulders a little uncomfortably. Maybe my line of questioning was making him realize how much he hadn’t known about me, too. “We didn’t really have a lot of hangout time, Chris. I worked a lot, and so did you. We had jobs. We got up early, did those jobs, and came home to each other.”
“What about my job?” I asked eagerly. “What did I do? Where did I work?”
“Generally, I like to listen to a podcast with my breakfast. Not all this chatter,” he said, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth. “And shouldn’t you be shining some sort of interrogation light directly into my pupils?”
“If necessary,” I threatened with absolutely no credibility.
He sighed, but he made me wait until he finished chewing his toast and swallowed. I hoped it was nice and dry. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing the past four years. But when I knew you, you worked in insurance.”
“Insurance?” I asked skeptically. What a freaking letdown. “Like insurance-insurance?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Gray said dryly.
“Just…what kind of insurance? Life, home, auto?”
“Does it matter?”
To be perfectly honest, no. I guess it didn’t. I stared at him, admittedly a little nonplussed. There wasn’t anything wrong with selling insurance, of course. It was just that…I kind of hoped my attempted murder would be related to something I was involved in. Now that I knew that I had a perfectly safe job where I probably spent most of my time at a nice desk, helping people navigate the world of responsibility, that seemed a lot less likely. Maybe it was just one of those random things. A stranger homicide. Maybe I’d cut off some lunatic on the highway and they hunted me down.
I had no family, no friends, and I was the real-life Jake from State Farm. I thought about the MAXIM tattoo that was taking up the majority of real estate behind my ear and down the side of my neck. I sighed. Since Former Me had thought that was a brilliant idea, I was also kind of an idiot.
“Was I a douchenozzle?” I asked wistfully.
Gray spluttered his coffee and took a few seconds dabbing at his scrub top before he spoke. “Good lord, Cross, I never know what the hell you’re going to say. No, you weren’t a douchenozzle, so get that look off your face,” he said gently. “But you were a secretive bastard.”
“Do you think I really sold insurance?”
He looked at me, considering for a few moments, before he shook his head slowly. “No. At least, not while you were living with me. You had a lot of unexplained income, and you came and went all hours. You also took a lot of trips at the last minute.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
Well, that was certainly coming back to bite me in the ass. The one person who could unlock my past, I hadn’t been open and honest with. It was kind of what I deserved.
He looked like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He nodded at my plate. “You done with that? I’ve got to head out.”
“Oh.” I handed him my plate and watched as he ferried it to the sink. He put our dishes in the side with soapy water. “I guess I should leave then, too.”
“No,” he said quickly. He avoided my gaze. “I have to go, but you should feel free to hang out.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to clean you out?” I was only half-kidding. He really didn’t know who I was anymore, and I wasn’t sure he ever had. He didn’t know who he’d let into his home. His life.
He smiled at me crookedly. “I figure you would’ve already done it by now. Come on, let me show you where a few things are, and then I have to get going.”
He gave me a lightning-quick tour of the downstairs part of the house, so fast I knew I wouldn’t remember shit. I followed him obediently as he pointed out the things I might need, like the half-bath and the den with the TV. He gave me a quick demo on how to use a couple of space-age-looking remotes for the intimidating flatscreen. Nope, won’t bother with that. Then he gave me a quick rundown of how to log in to his fancy-ass desktop computer. Won’t bother with you, either.
I felt like a dog being shown what parts of the house he should guard. I only perked up when he showed me where I could find some snacks and where he kept the beer. Then he remembered I was still on painkillers and told me not to have any.
“I didn’t get a prescription from the hospital,” I protested. It was as close to a whine as I could get.
“That’s what happens when you escape through a window,” he said absently, heading for the front door. “And I’ll bring home something that you can take. For now, there is aspirin in the downstairs bathroom.”
“The windows were sealed,” I informed him haughtily. “I went through the door like a normal person.”
“And just how would you know what normal people do?” he countered as he took his coat off a peg. He shrugged into it as he rambled on. “I wouldn’t recommend going out because they’re looking for you, but if you do, the door locks on its own when you close it. And the code for the alarm is 2154.”
“Check and check.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be back, so you should probably just eat dinner without me.” He stuck his feet in his boots and grabbed his ugly-ass Crocs. I knew when he got to the hospital, he’d change into them because he said they felt like heaven on his feet. “What else? I would let you drive my other car, but we don’t know if you still have a valid license. And you’re still kind of weak. You should probably get some rest.”
“Check,” I said again.
“And don’t forget to eat something. I put the soup in individual containers from last night. There are rolls in the bottom oven. I store the bread in there because I never use it.”
It struck me then that he was nervous, and not because he was leaving me alone in his fancy house with all his fancy things. He was actually worried about leaving me alone. I had to smile. Must be the doctor in him. He was kind of cute, worrying about me like a mother hen.
“Gray.” I cut him off as he was running down a list of where he would be at certain times during the day. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” He blushed, and I dug my fingernails in my palm to keep from kissing him. It wouldn’t be welcome, and he’d probably deck me for even trying. He eyed my clothing. “Those are a little small on you, aren’t they?”
I looked down. The shirt and sweatpants were a little snug, but the soft fabric had a lot of give, so it was still comfortable. Gray and I were about the same height, but I was a little broader in the shoulders and chest. I also had him in muscle mass, even after a month's stay in the hospital.
My arms always used to fit around him perfectly.
I suddenly realized he was looking at me questioningly, and I was lost in the memory of a fucking hug. I cleared my throat and shrugged. “They’re fine.”
“I’ll stop by the store on the way home and pick up something for you to wear that’s a little more comfortable.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He huffed. “Fine. Keep looking like the Hulk in my sweats if you want to.” He grinned when I stuck out my tongue. “And on that mature note, I’m running late. Gotta go.”
I stood there in the living room as he headed out the side door for the garage, feeling a little lost and out of place. And then I remembered something, just as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Gray,” I blurted.
I thought I was too late until the door swung open a crack, and he stuck his head back in. “Yeah?”
“Did I leave anything behind when I moved out of here?” I asked.
He shook his head, and his cheeks pinkened. He looked a little embarrassed. “Anything you left behind, I got rid of.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry,” he added because he was Gray, and he couldn’t help himself.
“You don’t owe me any apologies.” My voice was decidedly glum. “You’ve already gone above and beyond for, let’s face it, somebody that you used to know.”
“If it helps, your office was next to the den. The gray room at the end of the hall. I turned it into a reading sanctuary.”
“That’s a library, and you fucking know it, Gray.”
