Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
CHRISTINE
As the sun hits high noon overhead, gleaming off Auckland’s harbor, the hotel’s rooftop bar is empty on account of being closed.
All I had to do was call the front desk and ask about the hours, and they offered to send someone up to let me in.
I bought a bottle of wine—the first one I saw when I glanced at the menu—and now it’s half gone.
Today was a light day for me anyway, so I managed to convince Lana to move some things around so I didn’t have to come in.
It’s leverage I could have used for something much longer lasting than a bout of day drinking, but it was either this or quit.
So, here I am.
My phone rings facedown on the table, and I silence it, thinking Lana’s calling. When it rings again, I go to send Lana a text—then see Gia’s face on the screen.
I pick up. “Hey.”
“You on set?” she asks.
“No, I have the day off.”
“You alone?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a pause. “Tee, are you drinking again?”
“No,” I answer too fast.
Gia gives a ragged sigh. “I took so many steps to not become a relationship counselor, and yet…”
“What relationship?”
“Don’t give me that. Actually, you know what? Fuck you. You could have told me you bit him.”
The words hit me like ice, shocking me back into a semblance of sobriety. “He said it wasn’t the right spot,” I breathe. “Said it didn’t… there wasn’t… What the fuck are you telling me, Gia?”
Gia sighs. “I’m telling you that you need to tell me everything. Every. Thing.”
“Shit. Let me get back to my room.”
I pick up the bottle of wine and take a swig directly from it as I leave the rooftop restaurant, nodding at the employee who’d let me in.
I take the stairs down a floor—I swear I can still smell his lingering scent in the elevator—and head into my room, plopping down by the window.
“Alright,” I sigh. “Fuck, where to even begin…”
I catch Gia up in a meandering and probably incoherent narrative that she nevertheless parses. I guess that’s par for the course for a psychiatrist.
“…So, yeah. Now I’m day drinking in my hotel room because I don’t know what I’m going to do when I see him again. I think he’s fine, though. His heat seems to have run its course.”
Gia’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, “Alright, I think I know what’s going on here. His test results are showing low-level bonding hormones, just above the limit of detection. It’s low enough that it could be written off as a testing error, but we rarely see this kind of false positive.”
“Shit. Well, that explains everything, right?”
“… Almost.”
“Gia…”
“The other thing is that Mylo’s immune titers for the suppressants are high. His body is developing a resistance.”
“Why now? I thought it was safe to take suppressants long term.”
“It usually is. But you remember Morgan’s issue—she needed a tolerance break. Hers was a bit of an extreme case, but after she sent me her data, I started putting out calls for a study—”
“Can you get to the point?!” The throw pillow in my lap is now in shreds. Not sure when that happened.
“I know, I know, I’m getting there. I’ve been working with a handful of patients who’ve had issues developing resistance to the suppressants.
One patient was similar to Mylo; she’d been taking suppressants long enough she’d never gone into heat.
She expressed interest in trying a controlled tolerance break.
So, we tapered her down. It seemed like she was going into heat pretty immediately, but her hormones were all over the place.
They were cycling much faster than should have been possible.
We ended up calling them pre-heats. These were effectively short, irregular heat cycles, increasing in intensity until she finally went fully into heat. ”
“So you’re saying Mylo’s results looked like that?”
“Yeah.”
I rub my forehead, trying to process this. “So he hasn’t really even gone into heat yet?”
“Right.”
I continue ripping the sacrificial throw pillow into smaller and smaller threads. “Your patient… when she finally did go into heat, how bad was it?”
“Bad. One of the worst I’ve seen, even compared to when I worked at the heat center.”
That’s saying something. I’ve heard Gia’s juiciest stories, and they are not for the faint of heart.
I take another swig of wine. “Shit… how long do we have?”
“I don’t know. But if we extrapolate from a functional theory, working from the premise that the function of a heat is to summon an alpha—”
“Please, Gia. I can’t right now. Just tell me what I need to do.” I throw my head back against the chair as if the ceiling has answers.
“It’s better to stay close to him.”
Pain crackles through my chest. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I’m not like Morgan, I can’t just… be close to him and not…”
Gia’s tone is measured. “Do what you need to do. Just don’t bite.”
“You mean…”
“Don’t fight the pre-heats. The faster you deal with each wave, the less disruptive it’ll be overall. The longer those instincts go unsatisfied, the worse it’ll get.”
I rock forward, propping my elbows on my knees, as Gia’s words make the world spin. Or maybe it’s the wine doing that. “You’re seriously telling me to keep fucking him?!”
“Don’t take that tone with me. You told me you didn’t want to quit or get him fired, so that’s what you’re left with.”
I throw my hands up—as if it’s so simple. “Great. Sure. Okay. Thanks.”
“There’s… one more thing.”
“Alright, go for it. It’s not like it can get worse.”
Gia makes a low, wry sound. “Tee, don’t freak out, but… I think you and Mylo have a scent match.”
If Gia’s earlier words were a splash of ice water, this is being plunged under a glacier.
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “That’s not possible. Scent matches aren’t real. That’s an urban legend. It’s like soulmates. It’s BS.”
“That’s… also what I thought. But I’ve run every possible test on Morgan and Jamie and… it’s one thing that connects all the dots.”
“Maybe for them. But this is totally different. Mylo hates me. I don’t want an omega. So that can’t… It’s not possible.”
“At this point, it’s an educated guess, but—”
“You don’t have to make shit up just because you don’t have an answer,” I snap.
Gia is silent, and I can practically hear her raised brow.
“Sorry.” I massage my forehead with a hand. “Sorry. That was uncalled for.” I don’t mind rolling first when I know I’m wrong. It’s what’s let me keep the company of so many female alphas for this long, especially when I lack the experience to truly go toe-to-toe with them.
“Entertain the theory or don’t,” Gia says. “But be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “How illegal was it for you to tell me all this?”
“Medium. So, this conversation never happened.”
“How much are you going to tell Mylo?”
“Depends on how much he asks. I’ll explain the pre-heats if he lets me.”
I chew my inner lip. “Will you tell him about your scent match theory?”
A long pause. “No. That evidence is too preliminary; it wouldn’t be ethical.”
“But you told me.”
“I told you as a friend. Not as a patient. Just like I’m telling you as a friend that I’m happy for Morgan and Jamie, and I think they’re a perfect fit for each other, but beyond that, the idea of scent matches being real… It fucking scares me.”
Gia’s honest tone makes it all sink in.
Fuck.
I sigh. “No kidding. What… what happens when filming is over? It’s not much longer…” Five more days, after today.
There’s a pen clicking. A half sigh. “If you really don’t think you’re compatible… go your separate ways, I guess. I can refer Mylo to a heat center for when the inevitable occurs.”
The thought of him like before, desperate and miserable, twists in my chest. But there’s no way to fully prevent that without creating a future both of us will hate.
“So… that’s all there is to it, then? Do whatever it takes to get through the end of shooting. Without biting him.”
“Yeah. Easy.”
I finally give a soft laugh. “Piece of cake. Thanks, Gia. For all this.”
“Don’t mention it. You can call if you need anything else. Or… just want to talk.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate that.”
“Bye, then.”
“Bye.”
Gia hangs up, leaving me with my bottle of wine.
I tip it back and down the rest.