Chapter 5
Five
Gray
“You’re her husband?” the nurse asks skeptically.
Rightfully so.
Because I know fuck-all about Faye.
And I don’t think me telling the nurse that she has Wine Nights with the neighborhood ladies and works from home would help endear me to him.
“Uh, yeah?” I say, even though it’s definitely phrased like a question—but me flashing my ID and pretending to be Faye’s husband meant that I was able to ride with her in the ambulance, and it allowed me back into the emergency department so she wouldn’t be alone.
Not that she knows she’s alone.
She’s still unconscious.
“I thought you were married to that blonde chick.”
I freeze, stomach starting to churn. Hockey players aren’t in the news all that often, but over the years, Courtney has enjoyed parading our drama across social media—which means my life is far more out there than I’d want.
Hell, a few times her posts have gone viral enough that I’ve been asked about it during post-game interviews.
Fun.
Not.
I grit my teeth together, shake my head. “Nah,” I say, forcing my tone to stay light. “Don’t believe everything you read online.” Especially when I’ll be giving my attorney the divorce papers (thank fuck, Courtney finally signed them) to file as soon as possible.
Once a judge approves them, Courtney and I will be officially done.
So why is there a niggling in the back of my mind, telling me it will never be that simple?
Probably because it’s Courtney.
“Right,” the nurse says dryly.
Fuck, he’s not going to let this go.
“Okay, I’ll level with you. We’re not married—” He opens his mouth, expression going fierce. “I didn’t—don’t—want her to be alone,” I add in a hurry. “I’ll leave as soon as her family get here. I promise.”
He falls quiet, studying me while I do my best to look innocent.
Something that’s hard to do when the memory of looking out my kitchen window and seeing the flames bursting through the roof of her house is still blazing through my mind. Right along with the abject terror that gripped me as I ran across the grass separating our houses—
As I looked in through her front door, saw her sprawled on the floor.
Not moving.
With flames erupting, their heat so intense it felt like they were singeing my skin.
It wasn’t even a thought to kick her door down, to carry her out.
There was absolutely no way I could leave her.
Can leave her.
After a long moment, the nurse sighs. “We didn’t have this conversation.”
“What conversation?”
Mouth twitching, he turns his focus to Faye—the right move considering she’s still unconscious with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. “Is Ms. Sullivan allergic to any medications?” he asks.
I glance at her, as though her prone body will give me a hint. Well, shit.
“Right,” the nurse says dryly, correctly identifying my silence as not knowing. “Any surgeries in recent months?”
Double shit.
“Injuries or illnesses we should know about?”
Fuck.
“Pregnancy?”
“No,” I hear, the word rasped out.
I freeze, eyes flicking to the no-longer-unconscious woman on the bed. Her eyes are open and fixed on me, cheeks having gone from pale to bright pink.
“Not pregnant,” she rasps out. “No surgeries or illnesses or allergies.” A long, wheezing breath. “Injuries?” She shifts carefully, as though testing her limbs. “I don’t think so—aside from my lungs feeling like they’ve been rubbed raw on the insides with sandpaper.”
I wince.
Because her voice sounds exactly like that.
Raw and painful and uncomfortable.
“Don’t try to talk,” I say watching as her eyes come to mine. Then go wide.
As though she’s only just now processing that I’m here.
“But—” she begins.
I move to her side. “Don’t talk,” I order.
“I—”
I squeeze her hand. “Your lungs hurt, and it hurts me to hear you trying,” I murmur. “So, just rest and let the doctors and nurses take care of you.”
“Gray—”
Stubborn.
I didn’t expect that from my shy, quiet next-door neighbor—especially when we’ve spoken all of a dozen words to each other over the last four years.
“Baby,” I murmur. “I’m going to need you to stop hurting yourself.”
Her eyes go wide again, her cheeks now bright pink.
But she falls quiet.
I take advantage of that and turn to the nurse, asking, “Am I right?”
He’s slightly less distrustful than five minutes ago when I was considering imparting my Wine Night knowledge instead of her allergies. “Your…” A pointed look in my direction, telling me that even less distrustful, he’s still going to be watching me. “Husband is right.”
Faye jerks in the bed, mouth opening again.
But he talks over her, saying, “You need to rest.” His eyes come back to mine. “I’ll grab the doctor. Then you’ll need to step out so she can be examined.”
I nod.
A trickle of relief trailing across his face—likely because I’m not going to make this shit difficult—then he’s stepping from the room, flicking the curtain shut behind him.
“Husband?” she asks quietly.
“It was the only way for me to ride with you in the ambulance.”
A blip of humor in her eyes before they grow serious and she lifts the oxygen mask from her face. “You saved me.”
It’s still mostly a rasp but when I go to tell her to save her voice, her fingers wrap around my wrist, squeeze lightly. Fuck, but her eyes are pretty, a warm brown with flecks of gold and green, and so full of emotion my lungs seize for a moment.
Then her words slam into me.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“You almost made it out,” I whisper back.
She had.
But she also hadn’t.
Something I know she knows when she shakes her head. “I tried. But I wasn’t going to get there.”
“The firefighters were on their way.”
“They wouldn’t have made it in time. Not with how intensely the fire was burning.”
“They would have.” But I’m not so sure. They arrived not long after I carried Faye out, the ambulance on their heels, but her house was already completely engulfed.
I don’t know how the fire started.
I do know it burned furious and hot and fast.
I’d only gotten there in time to save her because I was awake and chastising myself about being an idiot about Courtney.
I fucked her again.
And she had enjoyed herself then smiled sexily as she crawled out of bed, not bothering with clothes as she retrieved her bag from the kitchen and came back, handing me the manila envelope with the divorce paperwork I’d served her time and time again.
Only finally, this time—I checked—the papers were actually signed and notarized.
Freedom.
Then more shame.
Because then she was showing me the diamond engagement ring and I shouldn’t give a damn that the woman who made my life a living nightmare for fucking years was engaged to another man and happily cheating on him.
But I did. Do.
I felt like shit—and it wasn’t just guilt that I fucked an engaged woman whom I didn’t know was engaged.
It was shame because a sick part of me was jealous she’d finally found someone else.
Fucked up?
Totally.
Completely.
I sat in that shame after she left, my shitty action movie playing in the background, my popcorn untouched…wondering how I’d gone so fucking wrong for so many years.
Until the glowing orange pulled me from my thoughts.
For a minute, I was confused, not understanding the sudden brightness in the depth of night.
Then I put the pieces together, was sprinting out of my house, bursting through the front door of hers, the wooden panel in splinters before I truly processed what was happening.
A heartbeat later, she was in my arms and I wasn’t thinking about the cuts on my arms and face from the wood and glass, wasn’t thinking about the way my side burned, my back as flaming debris fell while I was carrying her out.
It was just—
Faye in my arms and fresh air merely feet away.
“Maybe the firefighters would have made it in time,” Faye whispers. “But you were the one who saved me.” Another squeeze before her fingers run lightly over the bandage on my arm. “And you were hurt because of it—”
I still. When has a woman ever given a fuck I was hurt?
“—I’m sorry you were injured.”
I shrug, heart pounding for absolutely no reason. “It’s barely a scratch.”
“I think—” Her tongue darts out to moisten her bottom lip, drawing my gaze to that plump, pink mouth of hers that gives a man—okay gives me—thoughts of different parts that are pink and plump.
“I think,” she says again, “it’s much more than that.
” Another brush of her fingers. “But thank you for being there and saving me, anyway.”
Before I can reply, those words rippling through my insides, the curtain slides open with a screech and the nurse is back, a doctor on his heels.
I gently free the oxygen mask from Faye’s other hand, settle it carefully over her nose and mouth.
Then I start to stand, but pause, some insane urge stopping me so I can smooth back an errant bright red curl.
Her lips part.
My cock twitches—
Shame slices through my middle.
I pull back.
“I’ll give you some privacy.”