"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 myselfspeak 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 Imiss 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.