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 showedme 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.
