Page 125 of Altius
“Sorry,” Wyatt said as the elevator arrived.
He held the door, letting me on first, Cal next—and then Owen, who materialized out of thin air, as crisp and cold as ever, travel mug of coffee in hand. After giving us each a cutting glance, Owen stepped into the elevator, not waiting for Wyatt to get on before pressing the garage button.
Wyatt lunged through the closing doors. They caught on his duffel, the seams creaking under the pressure before the safety sensors kicked in. The bag dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
“What’s your problem?” Wyatt grumbled, reaching down to grab it.
Owen took a leisurely sip of coffee.
“Nothing,” he said dryly as he glanced in my direction. “Just enjoying the show.”
“Huh.” Cal rocked back on his heels as a slow smile spread over his face. “Never knew you liked to watch.”
A loaded silence filled the tight space. Owen stared at the display screen, his mouth compressing into a tighter, grimmer line with every passing floor.
I bit my lip, trying my hardest not to smile.
Wyatt cracked first with a blustery guffaw, which triggered Cal.
Their laughter rang through my head for the rest of the day—but not as loudly as the faint smirk Owen shot my way as he stepped out of the elevator.
***
The biting wind couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I exited my doctor’s office Friday afternoon. And it wasn’t because a silver pickup truck was waiting for me at the curb.
Cal leaned across the center console as I approached, pushing open the passenger door for me.
Hurrying the last few steps, I climbed inside and launched myself across the seat into his arms.
“Clear to drive?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Yes, but that’s not all. I got lucky. Super fucking lucky.” Holding a handful of paperwork, I showed him my temperature, blood pressure, white blood cell count, and liver levels. “All back to normal.”
“Almost.” Cal reviewed the printouts with skepticism.
Sure, my temperature was still a little too high, and my white blood cell count was elevated, but my heat had done wonders for my overall health.
“You lost another three pounds?”
“Don’t act like you had nothing to do with it.” Taking the paperwork back, I slid it into my bag. “If anything, we should celebrate it wasn’t more.”
Leaning against his solid arm, I peered up at Cal over the rims of my glasses. “Rory’s been complaining about gaining the freshman fifteen. One of his friends told him to have an early heat so that he could drop his mate weight. At least, that’s what we used to call it. Guess the kids say they’re going on a knotty diet.”
He cut me off with an amused kiss. “Where to—loft or dinner out?”
“Dinner out. A dinnerdate, to be more precise.” Unzipping my coat, I flashed the shoulder of the preppy blue varsity sweater underneath. “It’s Friday. You know what that means?”
“The all-you-can-eat snow crab special,” Cal said, pulling me in for a longer, more affectionate kiss. “You absolute minx.”
He started the truck and headed for the downtown expressway, in the opposite direction of campus, the stadium, the bridge…and home.
Picking at the seatbelt, I voiced what had been bothering me for the past few weeks. “So hypothetically, if your girlfriend—your perfect, minxy girlfriend who enables your crab addiction—happened to have a shitty memory and wasn’t sure about something…”
“Something like?” he asked, easing off the accelerator to let a sports car cut in front of us.
“Oh, nothing much,” I said lightly, suddenly finding the cuticle of my left thumb fascinating. “Just professing her love and begging you to move in with her during her heat.”
“I would have been very flattered. Touched. Happy.” Cal’s hand settled on my knee. “But I would have known better than to accept. Heats are weird. Things get said. A lot of which doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.”
