Five – Morgan
Five
Morgan
H old it together, hold it together, I told myself as the Tolliver Yards elevator steadily climbed higher. Almost there.
I rushed through our front door, alarming Kelsey as she unpacked groceries on the island.
“What’s wrong?”
“Jacobi emergency,” I said—bending the truth more than outright lying, or so I told myself. “Eat without me.”
I hurried toward my suite at the opposite end of the loft. Double doors opened onto a foyer with paneled walls and a round velvet ottoman in the center. My private office and library were to the left, with my bedroom straight ahead. The entrance to my nest was behind a hidden panel to the right, but I avoided the space as much as possible.
My TBI caused me to suffer irrational outbursts of anger. I’d rather hurt things than people, so I directed my anger at my nest, destroying it a little more with each detonation.
A tragic fate for a former cave of wonders, decorated in tonal shades of emerald, with upholstered velvet walls and luxurious finishes—all the usual Jacobi flair.
Kelsey only let him weigh in on the omega spaces. She’d decorated the rest of the loft, catering to my preference for comfortable, clutter-free, headache-proof spaces. Plenty of soft furnishings. No loud colors or busy patterns. Ambient lighting.
My singular mark on the space was installing a covert cat tunnel in the wall between my suite and the living room so Tenny and Kip could move about the loft as they pleased.
I spent most evenings in the library. Built-in bookcases covered one wall, with an exposed brick fireplace standing opposite. The midnight blue walls expanded the room’s horizons beyond its cozy footprint.
A shallow ledge ran along the room’s perimeter, framing a sunken nest with a peacock-hued treasure trove of pillows and blankets spread out along the upholstered surface, arranged in a pattern that made no sense to anyone but me. A cat tree and faux houseplants filled the far side of the ledge. Teal blackout curtains covered the arched window.
But it was far from a comforting refuge right now.
The pillows didn’t feel right, and my preferred reading wedge hit my upper back in the wrong spot. A body pillow and my favorite gray weighted blanket were the winning combination, made even better by Tenny curling up against my hip.
Only once I was something akin to comfortable did I drop the bomb. I texted the press release to Jacobi and counted backward from ten.
A video call came through before I reached five.
My best friend was already in a tailspin. “What the fuck?”
Jacobi was in his studiowearing an artfully distressed, paint-splattered linen button-down. He corrected his camera angle, all the better to show off his impish good looks and chocolate brown curls. Color-soaked canvases were visible over his shoulder. His artist’s residency at a national park on the California coast was doing wonders for his creative output.
Too bad I had to ruin his night.
Jacobi paced around his studio. The longer he read the press release, the closer his eyebrows inched toward his hairline. “You don’t have to work with him, do you? No, wait, stupid question. Of course, you do. You’re a team doctor for gymnastics. Fuck and double fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
Jacobi’s initial shock cooled into concern. “Has he… Have you seen him yet?”
“No,” I said, just as Tenny dug his claws into my hip. Wincing, I untangled them from my pants. I must have missed the trim reminder on my calendar again. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
We were both quiet for a moment. Jacobi snapped out of it before I did, continuing with flippant disregard. “So what? Tons of guys fit the dark and handsome mold. Taller men. Men who don’t stink.”
I groaned. “Not this again.”
“Sorry, I know you don’t have a good frame of reference for pheromones—but come on. Didn’t you say he smelled like boxwood hedges? Most boxwoods smell like cat piss. Ergo, Wyatt Redmond smells like cat piss. No offense to our perfect Ten and young master Kip, of course.” His expression turned puckish. “I bet your pheromone doctor smells delicious.”
Jacobi watched my expression, eager for a reaction that didn’t come. Even if I could speculate about a co-worker’s scent, pheromones did nothing for me. Could do nothing for me. And he knew it—but had never given up hope that my sense of smell would return one day, like my revived tastebuds and ability to read dense medical textbooks.
“Unless you’re finally going to—”
“No. Don’t overthink this.” I ran my fingers through my hair before digging them into the back of my skull. The sting of my fingernails was preferable to the pressure gathering behind my eyes.
“Why not?” The tone of Jacobi’s voice trailed up in challenge. “You’ve been obsessed with his scent for a decade.”
“Yeah, but more for encouragement than anything else. It makes it easier to deal with…all that.” Piles of discarded scent cards. Alternating looks of pity and disdain. Painful intimacy. Lonely, unfulfilling heats. “Even if he wanted to reconnect, what could we possibly talk about? Our shared interests don’t exactly align anymore. I mean, he was at the Olympics while I was relearning how to tie my shoelaces.”
The only thing I hated more than talking about my accident was talking about it with someone who used to know me. Before.
“Don’t, don’t do that.” The uneasy tremor in his gaze shot guilt through me. “I hate when you do that.”
“Sorry, Jacobi, it’s just… I never got to explain—to make him understand. And it’s too late.” I heaved a deep sigh, dislodging my glasses as I dug my palms into my eye sockets. “My fellowship is already hard enough.”
“You should at least consider—”
“ Jacobi .” My temper was a slippery, traitorous thing.
He observed me in silence, taking sharp, shallow breaths. If he chose to push me now, even for my own good, he ran the risk of a real explosion. Or he could do the kind thing and let me maintain the illusion of control. Thankfully, my best friend was merciful.
“Is your interview with Ballantyne next week?”
I nodded and rubbed my eyes again before returning my glasses to their proper place. “Yeah, on Tuesday.”
We meandered through safe topics for another half hour—my job hunt, his latest painting, the cats, all the food Kelsey made this week that he didn’t get to eat.
After we hung up, I gathered Tenny against my chest, taking comfort in the rumble of his purrs as I tried to regain control of my unsettled emotions with a grounding exercise.
There was an inky smudge under Tenny’s nose, resembling a half-shaved handlebar mustache. What four other things could I see? The faux monstera cast interesting shadows on the curtains. A strand of sisal on the cat tree was falling off. There was a half-healed cat scratch on my forearm. The fantasy book series my younger brother gave me for my birthday last year was gathering dust on the bottom bookshelf.
The fur along Tenny’s back felt coarse, with a fluffy undercoat like a rabbit. My lips were dry. I liked the touch of the chenille pillow against my right elbow more than the velvet one near my left ankle. My toes were cold.
The cat door hinge creaked, and Kip slunk past, heading toward my bedroom. Clock ticks echoed from my office next door. A siren sounded in the distance.
Smell… The next step was to name two things I could smell. I inhaled, trying my best to get a whiff of anything, even the merest hint of Tenny’s tuna breath or my blighted pheromones—nothing, as usual.
But the last sensory requirement was too easy. The taste of bitterness never left my mouth.
***
My alarm went off at five-thirty, the time hard-wired into my brain after years of gymnastics practice. I was ready to start the day, but the cats needed to be convinced. Kip burrowed against my neck, while Tenny was a toasty bundle of affection nestled between my knees.
“You can go right back to sleep, I promise,” I said as I extricated myself and inched toward the edge of the mattress. Thankfully, I listened to Jacobi and went with a queen-size. It was too much for me alone, but with two bed-hogging cats, anything smaller would have been a nightmare.
Large matte green tiles covered the bathroom floor and walls. A canvas print of one of Jacobi’s dreamier abstract oil paintings hung over a giant soaker tub. It took two tries before I grasped my hairbrush. Depth perception hiccups in the morning were nothing new. I should have put my glasses on as soon as I woke up.
I pulled as much of my hair as possible into a ponytail, swapped my pajamas for workout gear, and eased into the familiar comfort of my morning groove. Routine was perhaps the one element of gymnastics I hadn’t been forced to give up. The repetition soothed me. I didn’t need to make decisions. My goal was to get from point A to point B.
First, I worked out in our home gym for an hour, moving from stretches to cardio exercises to the elliptical. Then I showered and dressed.
My game day attire was a Narwhals sweatshirt and fleece vest. The outfit was decent enough for fall, but my small selection of Northport gear was no match for winter weather. I needed a coat and hat, maybe a few sweaters.
Cal had some. Nice ones. Well, as nice as any sweater featuring a pirate narwhal mascot could hope to be.
I added a reminder on my phone to check the university store website later.
Breakfast was oatmeal with a side of pills, made palatable by heaping on fresh raspberries and almond slivers. Kelsey wasn’t awake yet, but Kip was more than happy to keep me company in her stead, sprawled out on the island, giving each of his four white paws a thorough cleaning while I ate.
After verifying that my work bag contained everything I might need for the day, I put on my sunglasses, said goodbye to the cats, and locked the door behind me. Jacobi’s loft—no, unit 602—was still quiet.
That was good. I could handle quiet neighbors. But a pack? My head ached at the thought. Packs meant larger numbers of people and more noise.
I surveyed the parking garage as I made my way to my car and scanned the front of the building as I pulled out. No moving van in sight.
Jacobi would have to keep waiting for his Owen update.