"Knox, good morning. Have a seat."
Her actual office was small, intimate. A couch against one wall, two chairs facing her desk. I took the chair furthest from her, sprawling in it like I owned the place. On the wall behind her were all her degrees and I realized she’d graduated from somewhere out east, far away from Seattle.
"This is ridiculous," I said.
"Is it?" She rummaged around in her desk and before I knew it, a yellow notepad had appeared. "You attacked your teammates. That seems like something worth discussing."
"I don't need to be handled, Doc."
"I'm not handling you. I'm trying to help you keep your job." She clicked her pen. "Why did you attack Peterson?"
My jaw clenched. "Doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
"Why?" I leaned forward. "Why do you care if I hit him?"
"Because you've been in dozens of fights this season, but this is the first time you've gone after your own team." Her eyes met mine. "What changed?"
You,I thought.You changed every fucking thing.
I knew nothing good would come of admitting all that out loud, so I kept it to myself.
"Nothing has changed," I offered her those words with a quick shrug of my shoulders.
"Knox." The way she said my name made my chest tight and my dick twitched in the blue jeans I was wearing. "We can sit here for three sessions in silence, or you can talk to me. Your choice. But you're not getting reinstated without my signature."
"You'd bench me out of spite?"
She paused in making another note on her notepad. "I'd bench you out of concern for everyone's safety, including yours."
The worst part was, I believed her. Harper didn't do spite. She did logic, professionalism, everything I couldn't seem to manage around her.
"He said something," I admitted through gritted teeth.
"About?"
"Doesn't matter."
"It mattered enough to try and break his jaw."
I stood abruptly, unable to sit still, feeling caged. The office suddenly seemed entirely to small and it felt as if the walls were closing in. It also didn’t help that her scent too present despite the suppressants. "This was a mistake."
"Sit down."
"No."
"Knox, sit down."
There was something in her voice, an Omega command that shouldn't work on an Alpha but did anyway. I found myself sitting before I realized what I was doing.
"What did Peterson say?" she asked again, softer this time.
"He said some shit about you." The words ripped from my throat. "He said... things. About what he wanted to do to you. It was some shit I didn’t like."
The room went quiet except for the scratch of her pen on paper.
"And that made you angry enough to attack him?"
