Adriana #5
She had never been this way before. She focused on work, and work took every ounce of her focus, and even though every day was different, the emergency department was always the same.
She knew what to expect — controlled chaos and sometimes outright mayhem, patients she would stabilize and never see again, patients she would lose, an unceasing wave of bodies through the door, punctuated by long hours and little sleep.
Here, though . . . the clinic provided nothing for her brain to chew.
Low-acuity patients who never coded in the middle of the waiting area, no one shouting for an assist, names she was expected to remember, one more question she was expected to ask.
Too much time to overthink, and with the increased heat in her veins as the moon approached, Adriana felt like she was in a freefall.
It gave her too much time to think about Trapp.
Think about him and stress over him, for surely something was going to go wrong.
Either he would decide she was too much or too little, the reason everchanging in her imagination, or else she would discover something about him that she would not be able to overlook.
Going away together, even for just a day, held the promise of amplifying that possibility, until the moon had her convinced it was inevitable.
When she left the clinic the day after Trapp had casually suggested the cabin plan, she wandered around the Food Gryphon as if it was the first time she had ever been grocery shopping in her life.
What would they need? What would he want?
Maybe this is moving too fast. You should stay home in your yard where you’ll be safe.
After all, it had only been a month since that night at his house, when they’d agreed to give their relationship a second chance.
What if you get to the cabin and he does something disgusting?
What if he cuts his toenails while you’re sitting on the sofa?
What if he leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor?
Are you willing to be in a relationship with a werewolf who doesn’t put his dirty underwear in the hamper?
She didn’t know him anymore. His own mother had confirmed that.
She didn’t know if Trapp did any of the above, and that was the point.
There was no greater source of anxiety than the unknown.
She wandered around the store, thinking of one horrific scenario after the next, somehow finding herself at the checkout with several bottles of wine, a charcuterie board, and a decadent-looking brownie tray from the bakery.
What if he can’t have chocolate?! It took her several panicking moments in front of the trollish cashier to remember that she, herself, was a caninae were and unaffected by chocolate in her upright bones.
Her anxiety crouched within her like a toad, silent and waiting in the darkness for an opportunity to begin croaking. By the time she got home, it was all she could hear.
He’d pulled into the townhouse’s short driveway only minutes after she had, not even giving her the chance to melt down privately. You knew he was coming over tonight. He literally texted you from the grocery store. Why are you acting like this is a sneak attack?!
“Do you go up there often?” she asked, forcing herself to focus on the conversation they were in the midst of, him asking again if she wanted to leave the next day to go off to the woods.
Trapp shrugged, carrying the grocery bags upstairs to the kitchen.
“Not as often as I’d like to. It’s hard with work.
I don’t always want to make the drive the morning of the turn and then have to drive all the way back the next night.
My ex and I would go up for a weekend here or there, but not often.
My brother has used it more than I have in the past two years. ”
Adriana turned from the counter, where she’d pulled out the wine. “Your ex?”
Trapp’s head raised from the bag he was emptying, his eyes wide. “I . . . my ex-girlfriend? Like I said, it’s been a while. My brother was the last one to use it, and that was like eight months ago.”
Of course he had an ex-girlfriend. Look at him. He probably has dozens of ex-girlfriends. “Oh. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. How-how long were you together?”
He was bent over, half in the refrigerator, putting things away. “A few years.”
She should have been helping him. At the very least, she could be pre-heating the oven for dinner. “How long ago did you break up?”
Trapp’s head raised again, his dark eyes still wide. “Um . . . not . . . not that long ago. She’s moved away already. I’ll probably never see her again.”
“What’s not long ago?”
“This conversation just got really painful, didn’t it?” he laughed uncomfortably. “Almost four months ago?”
“Four months?” Adriana squinted. This was her third full moon since she had moved for the job at the clinic. Her third full moon, and she had been in Cambric Creek for at least a few weeks before that first moon. “That’s . . . right around the time I moved here?”
“Sure, maybe? It was at the end of the school year. There was this festival on Main Street . . . we broke up that same night. So like, end of May?”
Adriana gasped. The heat that had just begun simmering in her veins didn’t just make her ache for him physically.
It amplified all of her emotions, including the ones she took daily medication to control.
“That was the night I moved to town! Are you . . . are you monkey-branching with me?! Oh, my gods, you are! Do you still talk to her? Wait, were you cheating on her? Are you even single now? How do I know you ever actually divorced VanderCunt?! I’ll bet you cut your toenails on the sofa too, don’t you?
A bar of soap probably hasn’t seen your backside in a year! ”
“What?!” Trapp was gaping at her, refrigerator door wide open, forgotten. “I don’t even know what monkey branching means. Did you . . . you think I have a dirty ass??”
“Well, I don’t know, Trapp! How could I know?!”
She was breathing hard, heat crawling up her cheeks, up her nose, across her forehead until she felt as though steam might start pouring out of her scalp. She felt itchy in her skin and uncomfortable in her bones. The refrigerator door began to beep, making her jump.
“Okay, let’s just sit down.” She didn’t want him to touch her, but her knees were shaking, she realized, allowing him to lead her to the sofa. “Baby, you are burning up. You need to drink something. Whatever suppressant you are taking, it is not strong enough.”
“It’s because of you! I’ve never had heats like this before, never once! I . . . I take medication for anxiety, but by this point in the month—”
“It’s already burned out of your system. It probably started burning off a week ago. Do you have that bottle of Suppresene I got you?”
She nodded, shakily. “It’s in the bathroom upstairs. But maybe I don’t need that? Maybe you just need to give me your—”
Trapp leaned in until he was able to capture her mouth, silencing her with a kiss, holding by the chin inspecting her eyes critically.
“That’s not a good idea. You are shaking with fever, Adriana.
Your eyes are already blown out. You weren’t even this bad on the rig!
That’s kind of the definition of questionable consent, and I don’t do that. ”
The smell of him was invading her lungs, pine and black pepper, making her eyes roll back.
It was two full days to the moon. He was right — she needed a much stronger dosage.
Either that, or you need him to commit fully to fucking you through this every month, since he’s the one causing it.
She shivered. “Are you sure? Because I think that would be a really good idea. Did you take your girlfriend to the cabin for the change?”
Trapp didn’t answer until he had returned with a bottle of cold water. “My ex. My ex-girlfriend. Every once in a while. As I said, it wasn’t very often.”
“But she was a wolf? Did she let you knot her?”
“She was a human, and no, she didn’t.”
“What?!”
Trapp only shrugged, disappearing as he jogged up the steps to the bedroom. When he returned, he was shaking the little pill bottle. “Right now. Two of them. Before you ask me my body count next.”
“Do you know it?”
“No! I don’t! And I don’t care! I don’t care about yours, either!
” He stopped, dropping his head back, eyes closed.
“I think we need to table this conversation until later. I will tell you anything you want to know, Adriana, but not while you’re burning up with heat.
I can’t believe you think I don’t wash my ass. ”
The pills didn’t work as quickly as the shot, but they worked well enough. The grogginess was immediate. Trapp placed a cool rag on her forehead, kissing her gently. “Just close your eyes. This week you need to go up to the offices and have one of Shay’s doctors write you a stronger script.”
When her eyes opened, it was dark. She was sure she’d only closed them for a few minutes.
You were further gone than you realized.
Trapp sat cross-legged in the armchair across from her in a firehouse hoodie, his feet bare, black reading glasses perched on his nose, his laptop’s glow the only light in the room.
“And you wear slutty little glasses. How much more don’t I know?”
His chuckle was warm as he set the laptop aside, taking one last sip from his coffee cup before moving to where she lay. “How do you feel?”
He would have been an excellent doctor. The back of his hand checked her forehead, her neck, his index finger pressing lightly behind her ear before laying two fingers across her jumping pulse, calm, soft smile never leaving his face.
The effortless bedside manner she had struggled with her whole career.
“Heart rate’s still a little high, but your fever’s come down.”
When her hands cupped his face to pull him in, he didn’t pull back, meeting her lips.
“Wait, that doesn’t taste like coffee.”