Page 20 of Altius
I eyed him from the cozy confines of my blanket cocoon on the loveseat, where I’d napped intermittently throughout the day. “Exercise. Read.”
“Read what—mystery, literary fiction, manga?”
“Fantasy,” Wyatt said from the reading chair, reviewing gymnastics practice footage on his phone.
While I appreciated the effort, I still corrected him. “Medical research. White papers.”
Joaquin shuddered and rubbed Tenny’s ear. “Tell your human those are tasks, not hobbies.”
“Don’t apply your personal definitions to the interests of others,” Owen interjected from the dining table, where he was working on his laptop. “It’s rude.”
“No, rude is commandeering the dining room all damn day.” Joaquin gestured toward the front door. “Slink back from whence you came, and stop being such a buzzkill.”
“Play nice, babe,” Alijah called from the kitchen, deftly slicing tomatoes for the taco bar he and Cal were putting together for dinner.
My boyfriend was browning a second batch of seasoned ground beef on the stove. The amount of food required to feed four male alphas was almost nauseating.
Owen drew my attention with a discreet cough, then held up a white paper dotted with several dozen sticky flags. One of the many I’d left littered around the loft in the past few days.
My attention span was still lagging. I’d read a page and forget the content immediately—something the guys picked upon, leading to a long-overdue conversation about my short-term memory issues over lunch. Alijah had tried his best not to look horrified, but it was Wyatt white-knuckling his fork that echoed in my head.
Now he knew all my shameful secrets. All the ways I was no longer the Morgan he once knew. How different my accident had made me. And he hadn’t walked away.
“Have you read Morton’s subsequent work on vocalization mechanics?” Owen asked.
“No, it’s not in any portals I can access.”
“I’ll email it to you.” He returned his attention to his computer screen, fingers flying across the keyboard. “And some other things you might find interesting.”
“That would be amazing. Thank you.”
“Quick question.” Wyatt crouched beside the loveseat, holding his phone at the perfect height for me to watch a vault practice video without moving my head.
The teenage alpha gymnast had good speed and decent form, but she didn’t place both hands on the table for an appropriate amount of time.
“She had a torn rotator cuff earlier this year,” he said, “so I can forgive a bit of guarding, but she’s heading for deduction city at this rate. Any advice?”
“Hard to say without knowing her rehab protocol, but I’d incorporate fascia scraping to break up scar tissue if she’s not having it done already.”
He sat on the edge of the coffee table. “At the sports medicine clinic?”
“There are a few physical therapists I can recommend there, but the one Piper goes to downtown is better. Grab my phone. I’ll send you his contact info.”
“Wait, I’ve got it,” Joaquin said, shifting his hips to grab his phone from his back pocket, keeping a steady hand on Tenny’sback. “I go there, too. Stops my neck from solidifying into one giant knot.”
He pulled up the contact and handed his phone to Wyatt.
Cal approached the dining table, drying his hands with one of Kelsey’s fall-themed dish towels. “Think it’d do anything for my knees?”
“Just bite the bullet, man, and get them replaced already,” Joaquin said with a sneer full of hot air.
He was right to be concerned. I was, too. Cal’s knees were worse than he cared to let on. Football had done a lot of permanent damage to his body.
Owen’s typing speed slowed, but he didn’t look at his two old friends, pretending that the current topic didn’t interest him.
I wondered if his left calf had recovered from the Millwright Marathon a few weeks ago.
“Have you ever had fascia scraping done?” Wyatt asked me after he returned Joaquin’s phone.
