Chapter 8 Miles
Miles
The presentation goes perfectly. I want that on the record.
Richard shakes my hand afterward and says "exceptional work" in front of the entire conference hall, and I know — I just know — the partnership is mine.
The Morrison case materials are flawless on the screen behind me — every exhibit, every timeline, every piece of evidence exactly where it should be — because Ray spent the morning in the AV booth making sure of it.
I saw him through the glass during my opening remarks, headset on, focused, running the slides with a precision that would've put our IT department to shame. He didn't miss a single cue.
He catches my eye when I step off the stage and gives me a thumbs up from across the room, and I feel stupidly, dangerously pleased. Not about the presentation. About the look on his face. Like he's proud of me. Like watching me succeed is something he personally needed to happen.
I turn away before my expression can betray me.
The rest of the afternoon is panels and networking.
I'm sharp. I'm focused. I shake hands and make connections and have the kind of conversations that build careers.
A judge from the appellate circuit tells me she was impressed with my analysis.
A partner from a competing firm asks if I've ever considered lateral moves, which is flattering in a way I file away for later.
Richard introduces me to people whose names I've only seen on case law, and I hold my own with every single one of them.
And if my skin feels a little too warm under my suit jacket, that's just the conference room being stuffy.
If I keep catching Ray's scent from across the room even though he's nowhere near me, that's just heightened awareness from the stress.
If my palms are clammy when I shake the judge's hand, that's nerves. Normal nerves. The kind everyone gets.
By four o'clock, I know I'm lying to myself.
It's subtle at first. A flush that won't go away, even when I step outside onto the terrace for air.
A sensitivity in my skin that makes my collar feel like sandpaper.
I'm in a conversation with two associates from a DC firm about constitutional challenges in regulatory law, and I realize I've lost the thread of what one of them is saying because Ray walked past behind them and the draft of air carried his scent and my brain just went blank.
For a full second. Maybe two. I recover, say a vague remark about precedent that's enough to pass, and excuse myself to get water.
At the water station, I press the cold glass against the inside of my wrist and count my breaths. This isn't happening. It's too early. I took my pill last night. I have one left for tomorrow, and then we fly home, and this will be over.
My biology doesn't care about my schedule.
The evening event is a cocktail reception in the resort's main lounge — leather furniture, mountain views, an open bar.
It's less formal than the gala, which should make it easier.
It doesn't. The room is warm and crowded and full of alphas, and their scents are everywhere, pressing against me from all sides, and none of them are right.
I'm rejecting every single one, searching for pepper and ozone, and when I find Ray at the bar laughing with a group of associates from another firm, my gut clenches hard enough that I grab the back of a chair.
I get a club soda. I join a conversation circle near the windows. I perform.
But I'm sweating. Not visibly — I don't think — but I register it at the small of my back and along my hairline.
My suit jacket is too hot and I want to take it off but I'm afraid of what my shirt might show.
Every few minutes a wave of warmth rolls through me, starting in my core and spreading outward, and each one is stronger than the last.
Ray appears at my elbow. "Hey," he says, low enough that only I can hear. "You okay? You look kind of pale."
"I'm fine."
"You're sweating."
"It's warm in here."
He gives me a look. The look that says he doesn't believe me but isn't going to push. "You want to grab some air? There's a terrace off the—"
"I said I'm fine, Garcia."
He holds up his hands and backs off, and I hate the flash of hurt in his expression and I hate even more that I caused it, but I can't have him close to me right now. His scent at this distance is already making my head swim. If he touches me, even accidentally, I don't know what I'll do.
I move to the opposite side of the room and join a conversation about sentencing reform.
I know this topic. I have strong opinions about this topic.
I listen to a partner from Chicago make an argument I disagree with and I open my mouth to respond and what comes out is perfectly articulate and also somehow happening at a distance, like I'm listening to myself speak from the other end of a long hallway.
I'm here, making words, shaking hands, holding a glass.
The rest of me is somewhere else entirely, tracking the warmth that keeps pulsing through me in waves.
I excuse myself to the bathroom. I lock the door and run cold water over my wrists and stare at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are pink. Not flushed — pink, like I've been running. I press a wet paper towel to the back of my neck and breathe.
I can handle this. I've been managing my biology since I was sixteen. I've suppressed heats through finals week, through bar exams, through seventy-hour work weeks. One cocktail reception at a mountain resort is not going to be the thing that breaks me.
I go back out. I talk to Richard about the firm's expansion plans and manage to sound coherent.
I congratulate a colleague on a recent case win and remember enough details to be specific.
A partner from New York asks me about my partnership timeline and I give a confident answer while sweat trickles down my spine under my shirt.
I'm at the bar getting another club soda when I feel Ray behind me. Not see — feel. His scent hits me before anything else and every muscle clenches, and I have to grab the lip of the bar to keep my knees steady.
"You're sure you're okay?" he asks, quiet. He's not touching me. He's standing close but not touching, and somehow that's worse because I'm leaning toward him without my permission, swaying into his space like gravity has shifted and he's at the center.
"I'm sure. Go mingle." My voice comes out steady. I'm proud of that.
He goes. I watch him walk away and my omega brain howls at me, actually howls, this silent primal sound of come back, stay, don't leave, and I take a drink of club soda and almost choke on it.
I make it another half hour. Then I reach for my drink and miss the glass.
My hand just goes right past it, clumsy, uncoordinated, and the glass tips and spills club soda across the cocktail table.
It's not a big deal — people spill drinks all the time — but the way it happens, the way my hand didn't go where my brain told it to, terrifies me.
I grab a napkin and blot the spill and apologize and nobody looks twice, but my heart is pounding and my fingers are shaking and the warmth in my gut has shifted into need.
Not discomfort. Need, sharp and undeniable.
I glance across the room at Ray and he's already looking at me. He saw the spill. He's watching me with this quiet, serious expression, and I look away fast because if I hold his gaze right now I'm going to walk across the room and do something that will end my career.
I need to leave. Right now.
"I'm going to call it a night," I tell the group. "Early morning tomorrow."
Nobody questions it. They shake my hand, tell me the presentation was brilliant. I smile and nod and walk to the elevator with measured steps, concentrating on each one, left foot right foot left foot right foot. The button. The wait. The doors opening. The doors closing.
I lean against the elevator wall and close my eyes. The elevator smells like someone else's cologne and it's wrong, all of it is wrong, and my skin is crawling and I want to tear my clothes off and I can feel the first stirring of slick between my legs and no, no, no, not here, not now.
The doors open. I walk to the room. I get the key card in on the second try because my fingers are shaking badly enough that I miss the slot the first time. I close the door behind me and stand in the dark suite and breathe.
The bed is there. The fireplace is cold. The mountains are black shapes through the balcony doors. My toiletry bag is in the bathroom and my last suppressant is inside it and I walk to the bathroom and open the case and look at the single pill sitting there.
If I take it now, I might be able to push this back.
Delay it long enough to get through the night, get through tomorrow, get on a plane.
But then tomorrow I have nothing, and if the heat breaks through anyway — which it will, I can feel it building — I'll be in worse shape on a plane than I am in a hotel room.
If I don't take it, I have maybe a few hours before I lose control completely.
I take the pill. I swallow it dry and grip the rim of the sink and stare at my reflection. My cheeks are flushed. My pupils are dilated. There's a sheen of sweat on my forehead. I look like someone losing a fight.
I splash cold water on my face. I take off my suit jacket, my tie, my shoes. I unbutton my collar and roll up my sleeves and sit on the side of the bed and try to think clearly.
I should call someone. A doctor, a med service.
The resort must have medical staff. But calling medical means disclosing my designation, disclosing my heat status, creating a record that could get back to the firm.
Richard would find out. Everyone would find out.
The omega who couldn't keep his biology under control at the most important event of his career.
I can't do that. I'd rather die.
The door clicks open. Ray walks in, jacket off, bow tie undone, and stops when he sees me sitting on the bed in the dark.
"Miles?" He sets his key card on the counter. "What happened? You just disappeared."
"I'm fine. I have a headache. I came up early."
He turns on the lamp by the desk, and the warm light fills the room, and he looks at me. Really looks. I watch his expression change as he takes in the flush, the sweat, the shaking, the fact that I'm sitting on the bed half-undressed looking like I've been hit by a truck.
"You don't have a headache," he says slowly.
"Garcia—"
"Miles, you're burning up." He crosses the room and puts the back of his palm against my forehead before I can stop him, and the touch of his skin sends a shock through me so intense I gasp. His eyes go wide. "Fuck. You're — are you—"
"Don't say it."
"Miles, are you going into heat?"
The word lands in the room like a bomb. I close my eyes. The warmth is a wave now, rolling through me, and where Ray is touching my forehead my skin feels electric, alive, desperate for more.
"I don't know," I whisper. "Maybe. I'm — my suppressants ran out."
"When?"
"Just now. I took the last one. It might hold."
"And if it doesn't?"
I open my eyes and look at him. He's standing over me with his palm on my forehead and his expression is scared and focused, and my omega brain — the part I've spent my entire adult life strangling into silence — is screaming at me to lean into his touch and bare my throat and let him take care of me.
"If it doesn't," I say, "then we have a problem."
His palm doesn't move. My skin burns where he's touching me. The room is very quiet, and the heat inside me rises another degree, and we stare at each other and wait.