Chapter 5
PEDRO
Ihate this time of year. Nearly Christmas and everyone either drinks too much, eats too much, or just goes outside like wearing a shirt and shorts as if it’s summer and forgets it's winter.
Food poisoning, flu, alcohol, or broken heart.
Either way they end up at my clinic which means no lunch, coffee breaks, and at times I skip out on dinner, so I just end up being ten times grumpier than normal.
"Dr. Negrorio, your two o'clock is here," Patricia shouts.
She catches my attention as I pass by her desk.
I just need caffeine and it is this time of year due to stress that I try and avoid the temptation to smoke.
Bad habits. I'm a doctor but I'm human too and just as well the wedding was canceled because my patients need me.
Was I kinda glad that Jessica never made it? Maybe. Most likely. Yes.
I don't look up from the chart I'm reviewing.
Mrs. Jones's bloodwork is concerning. Elevated cortisol.
Low iron. Classic signs of chronic stress, which makes sense given her husband's gambling problem and her daughter's recent divorce.
Small towns are hell on the body. Everyone's trauma becomes everyone else's business.
"Name?" I ask.
"Jessica Delacroix."
My pen stops moving. Just stops, mid-stroke, leaving an ink blot on Mrs. Jones's chart that I'll have to explain later.
Jessica.
Here.
Now.
"Dr. Negrorio?" Patricia repeats. This time she's by my side, waving her hand in front of my face. "Hazel, call Dr. Peterson. I think Dr. Negrorio's having his withdrawal symptoms from not smoking again."
"What?" My voice comes out rougher than intended. I clear my throat. Try again. "I'm fine."
"Eh, he," she says as she pats her afro and walks back to the reception.
Why does she always do that? Does she think the afro will fly away if she doesn't pat it every five minutes?
I want to ask, but then I know when to keep my mouth shut unlike Sergio who is like an uncontrollable force when it comes to tact and just says whatever is on his mind.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the desk, willing them to stop.
Six years. I've been thinking about her for six years. And now she's here.
"Put her in exam room two," I say to Patricia's retreating back. My voice sounds almost normal. Almost. "I'll be there in five minutes."
She waves a hand over her shoulder without turning around. "Got it, boss."
The clinic is small. Three exam rooms, a reception area with faded blue chairs that need replacing, my office, and a break room that's really just a closet with a coffee machine and a mini fridge that Hazel keeps stocking with yogurt nobody eats.
We're sandwiched between the pharmacy and Cristina's Florist on Rio Way, which means every time someone comes in sick, they leave with antibiotics and the overwhelming scent of roses whether they want it or not.
Largo Waters is nothing if not efficient in its small-town charm.
Right now the waiting room has four people in it.
Old Mr. Garrett with his chronic back pain that's really just an excuse to get out of the house and away from his wife's constant nagging about his diet.
Teenage Molly Whitfield with what I'm guessing is strep throat based on the way she's wincing every time she swallows and the panicked look her mother keeps shooting at her phone.
Betty Crawford, seventy-three, here for her regular blood pressure check, knitting something aggressively pink and eavesdropping on everyone else's conversations.
And Jessica.
I can see her through the window that separates the hallway from reception. She's sitting in the corner chair, the one farthest from everyone else, the one with the wobbly leg that I keep meaning to fix.
Her head is down. Blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun that's barely holding on, loose strands falling forward to hide her face.
She's tucking them behind her ear with fingers that won't stop shaking, and that small nervous gesture hits me like a fist to the chest because I remember it. I remember everything about her.
She's wearing clothes that don't fit right.
Jeans too loose at the waist, cinched with a belt on its tightest notch.
A gray sweater that stretches across her chest and hips, clearly borrowed from someone smaller.
Her mother, probably. Dorothy Delacroix has always been a wisp of a woman, nothing like her daughter's soft curves.
The sweater pulls tight across her breasts. I shouldn't be noticing. I'm a doctor. I'm professional.
I'm also a man who's been half in love with her for years, and professionalism is taking a backseat to the way my alpha is roaring to life in my chest.
Jessica looks diminished. That's the word. Like someone took an eraser to her edges and rubbed away all the brightness I remember. Nothing like the laughing woman who used to show up at our packhouse with homemade cookies and terrible puns and a smile that made it hard to breathe.
Her shoulders are hunched. Defensive. Like she's trying to make herself smaller.
I hate it. Hate whatever made her feel like she needed to shrink.
Betty Crawford looks up from her knitting. Her eyes track from Jessica to me and back again. I can practically see the gossip forming in her brain, ready to be distributed to the entire town by dinner.
I turn away before Betty can catch my eye and head for my office.
Five minutes. I have five minutes to get my shit together.
The office is cramped. Desk piled with paperwork I'm behind on. Chair that squeaks every time I move. Filing cabinet that sticks on the third drawer. A sad little fern that Patricia keeps trying to murder with overwatering despite my repeated explanations about root rot.
I close the door and lean against it, eyes shut, breathing through my nose like I'm having a panic attack.
Which I'm not. I don't have panic attacks. I'm a doctor.
But my heart is racing like I just sprinted five miles, and my hands won't stop shaking, and every alpha instinct wants me to bring her into my office where it's private and quiet and I can make sure she's okay.
Jessica Delacroix is in my waiting room, as an omega. A late-presenting omega, according to the intake form Patricia showed me this morning. Twenty-eight years old and just now going through what most omegas experience at sixteen.
I think about that night six years ago. The party at the packhouse.
Callum showing up with Jessica on his arm, already two beers in, already talking too loud about his music career and the record deal that was definitely coming any day now.
The rest of us sitting on the porch after he passed out on the couch by ten, talking and laughing, Jessica in the middle like she belonged there.
She always fit better with us than with him.
Even Callum knew it, though he'd never admit it.
He'd get this look sometimes, watching her laugh at Carlos's jokes or listen to Nacho's quiet observations or help Sergio strategize about his hockey team.
This pinched, possessive look that made my skin crawl.
She was his girlfriend. His. Not ours.
But God, did we want her to be ours.
I think about the way she looked at Carlos that night when she thought no one was watching. The firelight dancing across her face. The heat in her eyes. The way Carlos looked back like a man seeing water after weeks in the desert.
I think about how I wanted to be the one she looked at like that. How I stood in the shadows and watched them gravitate toward each other and felt something ugly twist in my chest. Jealousy. Want. Longing.
I'd gone inside to get more drinks. That was my excuse, anyway. Really I just needed to get away before I did something stupid. Something like pulling her into my arms and kissing her soft mouth until neither of us could remember Callum's name.
When I came back out, she was gone. Carlos was standing alone at the railing, staring at nothing, looking like someone had punched him in the gut.
He told us later what happened. The kiss. Her running. The guilt that ate at him for weeks afterward.
He never knew that I was jealous. That some twisted part of me wished I'd been the one to break first. That I spent the next six years wondering what her lips would have felt like against mine. What sounds she would have made. Whether she would have run from me too.
A knock on the door makes me jump.
"Dr. Negrorio?" Patricia's voice. "Your patient is in exam room two. And Betty Crawford is asking how long until her appointment because she has 'important business' at the senior center."
Betty Crawford's important business is bingo. I know this because she tells me every single time she comes in.
"Five minutes for Betty. I'll see Jessica now."
"You got it."
I hear her footsteps retreat. Take one more breath. Then another.
My reflection stares back at me from the small mirror by the door. Wire-rimmed glasses slightly crooked. Dark hair that needs a trim. White coat that's seen better days. The face of a man who's about to walk into a room with the woman he's been in love with, and pretends he doesn't care.
Get it together, Negrorio. You're a doctor. She's a patient. This is your job.
I grab her chart from my desk. The intake form is sparse. Name. Date of birth. Emergency contact listed as Dorothy Delacroix. Reason for visit: omega transition symptoms.
That's it. No medical history from wherever she's been living. No records transferred. Just a woman who showed up in her mother's borrowed clothes needing help.
I push open the door of exam room two.
She's sitting on the exam table, hands folded in her lap, feet dangling above the floor because she's not tall enough for them to reach.
The paper covering crinkles as she shifts her weight.
The fluorescent light is harsh, washing out her skin, making the dark circles under her eyes look like bruises.