Page 30 of Broken Ice
Beau opened and closed his mouth. Hadn’t Emilio listened to his second voicemail? Where he explicitly told him it had been a very funny joke?
The next voicemail started. “Apparently it’s rush hour, this fucking road is—I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sorry.”
Beau stared at his phone. What was happening?
Third voicemail. “I’m outside your apartment, but you won’t open up. Are you okay? Can you just…someone should have your keys in case of emergencies.” That last bit was said rather angrily.
Fourth. “I asked your doorman to let me in and he won’t do it, so. Fuck his entire face. Are you okay?”
The rest of the voicemails were similar in nature. There was a lot of cursing of the doorman, which was unnecessary, and berating of Beau for not giving someone a key, which—also uncalled for, especially since the medic teamdidhave a key. Beau had several safety plans in place, and was always assessed at the end of his heat to make sure nothing had happened. He even had a panic button, so.
Take that, Emilio.
At one point, Emilio called Greg, which explained the one voicemail from the doctor telling him that ‘a very agitated Emilio’ had just rang him and asked about Beau, and that Greg had not disclosed any information, of course, but that maybe Beau should let Emilio know he was okay after he got out of his heat.
Beau’s brain was very full by the end of it. He sent his normal ‘Heat ended’ text to Greg.
He got out of bed, squinting at the bright sunlight coming in through his bedroom window. He dressed and then shuffled to his front door.
The last call was from twelve minutes ago. Surely Emilio wasn’t—
Oh, yeah, no. That was definitely Emilio sitting outside his front door, floppy-haired and pale despite his olive complexion.
The Alpha sprung to his feet, making Beau yelp in surprise.
“Jesus Christ,” Beau gasped, clutching his chest. “What the hell are you doing?”
Emilio raced past ‘appropriate behaviour’ and landed on clutching Beau by the forearms and looked at him with the craziest eyes Beau had ever seen. “Beau.”
“Dude. Are you okay?”
“AmIokay? You, you—” Emilio let out a sound a chicken might make if it were being strangled.
“Whoa, okay. Uh…I’m fine. Just, you know. Sorry for calling you. Ididtell you to ignore that first message, though.”
Emilio scrunched his face up. Beau didn’t know what that meant, but it probably wasn’t good.
“Hey, so, I really need some sleep. I’m seriously sorry I called and made you come all the way here.”
Emilio stared at him unblinkingly for thirty very slow, very creepy seconds.
“O…kay. Are you sure you’re fine?” Beau asked.
Emilio didn’t respond. Instead, he let Beau go, went to a bag on the floor, grabbed something, and held it out.
Beau took it reflexively, only noticing what it was once his hand was around it.
It was a shirt. An undershirt, to be precise. An undershirt absolutely soaked in Emilio’s scent, to be even more precise than that.
“Oh,” Beau said dumbly. Obviously, the thing to do was to return it with a polite, “Thanks, but no thanks.” His mouth, however, had set up some sort of mutiny, followed by his arm, which retracted closer to his body.
Beau looked at the shirt. He looked at Emilio. He looked at the shirt.
“Thanks,” Beau’s traitorous mouth blurted.
Emilio nodded once and stepped away.
“All right. Well. I’ll see you at practice, maybe.”
