TWO REID

T WO

R EID

Her screams had been answered when a janitor came running toward her with his phone pressed to his ear. He'd asked Reid questions about Grayson, which she'd answered. It was scary how much she knew about him. Her best friend, Melanie Scott, often told Reid she was far too intrusive into the life of a man who didn't want to be with her. Reid knew Melanie meant well, but it still always felt like a slap in the face.

Now, her knowledge of Grayson's life would come in handy.

After the ambulance arrived, the medics quickly took over. Grayson's eyes stared off into space, and his head lolled from side to side. Reid tried to stay in his line of vision, hoping to show him that she was still there. They loaded him onto a stretcher, and Reid followed them out of the recreation center.

"Can I go with him?" she asked as she walked briskly next to Grayson, holding his hand.

"Aren't you his wife?"

The question gave her pause. Reid wanted to be. Ever since they'd met. She'd fallen head over heels for him. The one night they'd spent together after their holiday party had only made her feelings for Grayson worse. She'd thought they'd start the new year off as a couple; instead they were still friends. Grayson kept Reid at arm's length when it came to romance and treated her like the best friend he couldn't live without.

Reid couldn't or wouldn't live without him, either, and had resigned herself to thinking and feeling that he was worth it in some roundabout way. Besides, relationships were messy. Especially with your best friend. At least that's what she told herself.

If lying meant she could stay with him, then so be it. She nodded quickly.

The ambulance ride was undoubtedly the longest, loudest, bumpiest, and scariest ride of her life. Reid held on to Grayson's hand and spoke to him, letting him know everything would be okay, even though she was certain her expression didn't match her words. She didn't want to think about how she'd thought he'd been faking what the medic called a "myocardial infarction" when he spoke into his radio. She knew that meant "heart attack," but Grayson was young and fit. He worked out all the time; only people with poor health had heart attacks. Not men like him. Not someone in his midthirties with his entire life ahead of him.

"We're almost there," she told him, even though she had no idea where they were going. There were multiple hospitals in the DC region, and she hadn't a clue which one they were closest to. "Everything's going to be okay."

Grayson blinked. He lay with his shirt cut up the middle. It was one of his favorite ones, and he was going to be pissed when he found out it was now a tattered rag. Those sticky electrode patches were stuck to his chest and arms, with wires leading to a machine, and he wore an oxygen mask.

Reid smiled and gripped his hand tighter as she looked into his eyes. Eyes that lacked life and vibrancy. What is wrong with him?

"Everything's going to be okay," she said again, more for herself than him. Her words were just that, words. She had no doubt that fear filled Grayson. She had to be the strong one, the one he looked to for comfort. Once she was alone, she'd have her breakdown. Until then, she'd smile and run her free hand through his hair.

"When we get to the hospital, I'm going to call your mom. I'm sure by the time she gets there, you'll be ready to go home." Even as she spoke the words, she didn't believe them. "I bet she'll take you out for ice cream, because at the end of the day, you're still her baby boy."

Reid loved Sydney and thought of her as a mother. Having lost her own mother before she'd turned three, she didn't know what it was like to have one. Her father, Luther, had never remarried and very rarely dated. She recalled one time her dad had dated a woman for about a year, but then one day she was gone. Reid didn't even remember her name.

"We're here, ma'am," the medic said.

"Did you hear that? The doctors are going to take care of you, and then we'll be on our way."

The back doors of the ambulance opened, and within a flash, Grayson was out of the back and the medics were running him through the door. Reid could barely keep up. She tried to follow him through the double doors, but a nurse with a pinched face and blue scrubs stopped her.

"That's my friend," Reid said, looking over the nurse's shoulder toward the double doors, which read E MERGENCY R OOM . "I need to be with him."

The woman placed her hand on Reid's back and guided her toward the waiting area. Reid stumbled, unable to take her eyes off the doors. "I understand your concern, but it's best to let the doctors work on him. Wait here, and someone will be out to speak with you when they know something."

"But—" Reid sat and continued to stare at the space where, around the corner, the doors to the ER would have been.

"Is there someone we can call for you?"

Reid shook her head. "Um ... no, but I'll call his mom."

The nurse nodded and left Reid sitting there. She glanced around at the others, each there for some reason or another. Some were probably sick and waiting to be seen, while others waited for news of their loved ones.

She stood and stepped into the hall, away from people, and dialed Sydney's number. Her call went to voicemail. She hung up and dialed again.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Sydney, it's Reid."

"Heavens, dear. What's wrong?"

"It's, uh—" Reid looked over her shoulder when she heard someone wailing.

"Reid, what's wrong? What happened to Grayson?"

Was this mother's intuition, or did Sydney know because of Reid's incoherence? She swallowed hard. "Grayson possibly had a heart attack. That's what the medic said in the ambulance. We're at ..." Reid had no idea where they were. She looked around for a sign, anything that would tell her. She walked frantically down the hall until she could see one. "MedStar," she told Sydney. "They took him back and won't let me see him."

"We're on our way," Sydney said and hung up.

It took Reid a solid minute to shake the fog from her mind and return to the waiting area. Only she couldn't sit. So she paced. Only there wasn't a place to pace without causing a disturbance to the others waiting, or to the staff.

She sat and her leg shook, annoying the person sitting three seats away from her. "Sorry," she muttered when the man huffed out a sigh.

Reid tapped the screen on her phone and contemplated texting Pearce. He'd want to know, and she believed Grayson would want his best friend there if ... no, there wasn't anything wrong. She repeated her earlier thoughts: Grayson was a young, strong, and healthy man. People like him didn't have heart attacks. She texted Pearce to let him know what had happened, where they were, and that she would keep him updated when she knew more.

When her leg started bouncing again, she stood and tried pacing again. She didn't have a choice, and neither did the people in the waiting room. She had to do something because sitting there made her mind wander to places it shouldn't.

Every time the doors opened, Reid waited to hear "Grayson Caballero's family," but those words didn't come. The staff looked for others, with mixed news. Families either went back with the doctor or they broke down.

"Reid."

She scanned the room for whoever had called her name and felt an insurmountable wave of comfort, like a blanket of relief, when she saw Sydney coming toward her. Reid fell into Sydney's outstretched arms and cried. She should be comforting Grayson's mother, not the other way around.

Sydney Haney was the type of woman who took life by the horns and led it down the path she created. When she found out she was pregnant at seventeen, she'd chosen to become a mom. The first time Reid met her, she was awestruck by her beauty and jealous of her long, luscious, dark curly hair and captivating brown eyes. Sydney had been given up for adoption and raised outside Annapolis and had never bothered to look for her birth parents. Grayson favored her, with the same dark hair and olive skin tone, except he towered over his mother. His father was out of the picture and had been long before Grayson was born. As far as Reid knew, Grayson had never met his father.

Strong hands guided the women back to the chairs. The smell of Polo cologne filtered through her senses, relaxing her. There were only two smells that could do that—Polo and Old Spice—which was what her father wore.

Reid wiped her eyes and tried to smile at Gilbert, Grayson's stepfather. He gripped her hand tightly and offered a kind but sad grin. "Did you call your dad?"

Gilbert Haney was as handsome as they came. He exuded charm and charisma and could turn a dreary situation into a lighthearted moment. He'd met Sydney when Grayson was ten and took the role of stepfather to a whole new level. Grayson loved Gilbert and never introduced him as his stepdad. With his salt-and-pepper hair and brown eyes that matched Grayson's, Gilbert was almost as tall as his son.

She shook her head. Why hadn't she thought to call him?

"I'll take care of it. Stay with Sydney." He leaned down and whispered through Sydney's hair before he left them to talk.

"Tell me what happened."

"I don't even know," she started. "On Sundays, Grayson has his basketball league. We're at the rec center and everything is fine. After the game, we got into an argument. He didn't like these guys chatting with me, and I became defensive. I told him there are things in life that I want and I'm no longer going to sit by and wait, that I'm going to start dating." Reid swallowed hard. "He placed his hand over his chest, and I thought he was joking, acting like I was breaking his heart or something, and I told him to knock it off. Only it wasn't a joke, and he couldn't speak. I yelled for help. There was a janitor there, and he called for an ambulance. On the way here, the medic guy said he showed signs of having a heart attack, which doesn't make any sense because he's only thirty-five, and people his age who are fit and healthy don't have heart attacks."

"Breathe," Sydney said as she wiped Reid's tears away, despite her own wetting her cheeks. "Breathe, honey."

Reid hiccuped and shuddered. "I'm so sorry, I should be consoling you, and here you are, telling me to breathe."

"It's a mom thing," Sydney told her. She sat back in the chair and put her arm around Reid. "Gilbert went to see what he can find out, and he's going to call your dad. He should be here."

"Yes and no. I mean, he's pretty upset with Grayson because he thinks he's leading me on."

Sydney nodded. "I understand, but you'll want him here."

It took a moment for those words to sink in. She raised her head and looked at Sydney. "Why?"

Sydney only shook her head and brought Reid back to her shoulder.

When Gilbert returned, he told them that Grayson was in surgery and that it could be a while. He sat next to his wife and held her hand, while she held Reid.

The television aired the news, but the sound had been muted. People had come and gone. There were more tears and some elation. The sounds of the doors whooshing, the sirens wailing, and the constant beeping began to grate on Reid's nerves.

She'd stood and had begun to pace again when her father came in, straight from work. He rushed over to her and wrapped his big, beefy arms around her. She nuzzled into his work jacket. The smell of Old Spice, oil, and nature soothed her.

Luther Sullivan was a hardworking man and had done everything he could to provide Reid with the best life he could. He was six feet, with a head of dark-auburn hair, matching Reid's. He was what she called a rugged man and preferred to be outdoors unless it was football season and his beloved Ravens were on, and then you'd find him in front of the tube. He didn't care for many other sports, unless it was something Reid wanted to watch. When her mother died, he'd taken the role of sole provider to heart and vowed to never let her down.

"I'm so glad you're here."

"I'm here for you." Reid didn't miss the undertone. She also didn't blame him.

Luther led Reid back to where Sydney and Gilbert sat. He shook Gilbert's hand and offered a kind smile to Sydney.

"What do we know?" he asked as he sat down.

"We're waiting." Sydney wiped at her tears. Neither she nor Reid had been able to stop crying.

"Well, no news is good news. Have you eaten?" Luther asked.

Reid and Sydney said they weren't hungry.

"Coffee it is." Luther stood, with Gilbert following.

Reid stood and began pacing again. Sydney begged her to sit down, but she couldn't. There was a level of unease festering beneath the surface, and Reid knew if they didn't hear something soon, she was going to lose her shit.

"It's taking too long," she said to Sydney. "Whatever this is ... something's wrong." Reid walked toward the nurses' station, paused, and then walked back. She did this until her father and Gilbert returned with paper cups filled with stale coffee. She didn't care because she needed something to keep her wits about her.

"This tastes horrible," she said as she brought the cup to her lips again.

"The worse it tastes, the more kick you'll get." Her father laughed and drank. "Come on, come sit. Pacing isn't going to help any of us right now."

She let her father lead her back to the pleather and fabric chairs. As she stared around the room, she thought it wasn't only the waiting game that made people restless; it was the fact that the seats in the waiting room were the most uncomfortable things possible. Others slouched, their bodies contorted in unnatural positions, and one sat on the floor and used the seat as a pillow.

"You'd think the hospital could provide a better place for people who have to sit here and wait to find out if their loved one is okay," Reid said in disgust. "Imagine how much money the CEO or whatever makes. Whoever they are is probably living in the lap of luxury in Georgetown or Potomac."

"You know they are," Gilbert agreed.

Reid stood and had started toward the coffee station to refill her cup when a doctor strode toward the waiting area. She froze, thinking this was it—this was the news they'd waited hours for. The man stood on the cusp of the room and looked at the file in his hand. Reid's eyes studied Sydney.

"I'm looking for Grayson Caballero's family."

"That's me," Sydney said as she stood up. "That's us." Gilbert followed and Reid stepped forward. She wasn't his family, at least not in the sense of the meaning according to the hospital.

"I'm Dr. Wynn, the cardiologist on staff. You must be Sydney?"

She nodded.

"If you'll follow me."

Everyone took a step forward, but the doctor shook his head. "Family only."

Reid opened her mouth to protest but quickly shut it.

"She's family," Sydney said. "Everyone here is."

The doctor nodded and motioned for them to follow him. They went down the hall to the bank of elevators, stepped in, and rode to the intensive care unit. When they stepped off, the mood was vastly different from what they'd experienced downstairs. It was quiet, subdued. Reid had the need to whisper and tiptoe along the white linoleum floor. The doctor showed them to the waiting room, which held a bit more appeal than the one in the emergency room. The wood floor had a tiled pattern, and the couches looked big enough for someone to lie down on. Still, it was the quiet that unnerved Reid. She wanted noise and action. She wanted to see that nurses and doctors were working. On this floor, it was anyone's guess.

They went into a small room that had an equally small round table with three chairs around it. Sydney and Gilbert sat, as expected. Reid leaned against the wall, while her father stayed in the doorway.

"Let me start by saying Grayson's alive and in intensive care. When he came in earlier this afternoon, we evaluated him and determined he had unstable angina. We began treatment and conducted an echocardiogram. It was then we saw a tiny hole in the wall that separates the two upper chambers of his heart. Immediately, we took him in for surgery. It was at that time I made the diagnosis that Grayson suffers from a sinus venosus defect, which is a rare type of atrial septal defect. This was likely present at birth and can often go undiagnosed unless the patient presents with some symptoms. This abnormality is considered a congenital heart defect, which, left untreated, brings us to right now. Unfortunately, when I went to repair the hole, I discovered his heart is very weak. I've done what I can at the moment. Grayson is on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation—ECMO is the term we use. It's a bridge until Grayson can receive a heart transplant."

The collective gasp echoed in the room. Followed by a gut-wrenching sob from Sydney. Tears that Reid thought had dried up were back in a rush. Her father was by her side as the first sob took over. They embraced until Reid went to Sydney and hugged her tightly. The two stayed like that until Gilbert asked, "Can we see him?"

"You can. We have a two-person limit in his room. You'll need to wear a protective gown while you're there. He's heavily sedated and may slip in and out of consciousness, but it's unlikely he'll be coherent. This is for his safety and well-being. The charge nurse will come in and give you more information on how the ICU works here and where other family members can wait."

"What's next?" Gilbert asked as he held on to Sydney, who wept quietly.

"From this point, it's a waiting game. My staff is working now to move him up the list. That's the best we can do at the moment. I am consulting with my peers on possible treatments, but short of a miracle, Grayson needs a new heart." Dr. Wynn closed his folder. "I wish I had better news for you." He stood, put his hand on Sydney's shoulder for a brief moment, and left without another word.

No one knew what to say. Should Reid comfort Sydney? Tell her how sorry she was? Was there protocol for something like this? Knowing she might never speak to Grayson again felt like she had a wheelbarrow full of bricks on her chest. Reid was afraid to breathe out of fear the weight would become even more unbearable.

When the nurse came, Sydney and Gilbert followed her out of the room. Reid and her father sat in empty seats and said nothing until Reid said she needed to call Pearce. Texting him wouldn't suffice. When he answered, she recounted what Dr. Wynn had told them as best she could. By the time she'd hung up, another wave of tears streamed down her face. She made another call to her best friend, Melanie.

"I'm on my way."

"You don't have to come," Reid told her.

"I want to be there for you."

Reid smiled. "I appreciate you. I'm okay for right now. Pretty numb, actually."

After some more back-and-forth, Melanie said she'd wait for Reid to let her know when it would be a good time to visit.

The next call went to Grayson's boss, who seemed a bit put off by the whole thing and had the audacity to ask if he'd be in on Monday. Reid hung up on him and figured she'd deal with him when she returned to the office.

"Reid."

She turned at the sound of Gilbert's voice. He wore a yellow gown and looked ready for surgery.

"Would you like to go in and see Grayson?"

She stood and rushed forward. Gilbert stepped out of the doorway and pointed down the hall. Reid remembered her kindergarten teacher reminding her to not run in halls. She ignored the voice in the back of her head and sprinted toward the double wooden doors. She pressed the button and anxiously waited for someone to answer.

"I'm here to see Grayson Caballero. I'm Reid Sullivan."

"One moment."

A minute or so later, the doors clicked open and a nurse greeted her. "Follow me." She took Reid into a room, instructed her to wash her hands, and then helped her put a gown on over her clothes. She then took Reid down another hall and to Grayson's room.

All the rooms faced the nurses' station, and each room had its blinds pulled. Reid was thankful she couldn't see anyone because she wasn't sure she'd be able to handle it.

She took a deep breath and rounded the corner. Her hand covered her mouth in a failed attempt to stifle the gasp she let out. Grayson ... her Grayson lay on the bed, lifeless. The machine at his side, taking and filtering his blood back into his body, did all the work for him.

"Reid." Sydney said her name softly. "I have to know—was Grayson taking his meds?"

"What meds?"

"Grayson was born with congenital heart disease."

Reid absorbed the words and shook her head slightly. "I had no idea," she said in a whisper.