Chapter 141: Stomach Bug
Leo
I was still staring at the blood on my wrist when the first knock sounded.
It wasn’t a soft, polite tap; instead, it was a heavy thud that vibrated through the wood of the door and settled right in the center of my chest.
"Leo? You in there?" The voice called out.
It was Miller. Of course it was Miller. He had this uncanny ability to show up exactly when the world was falling apart, usually with a joke, but his voice sounded different now. It sounded impatient.
I turned toward the door and then looked back at Kayden on the bed. I stared at his unconscious face and saw that it was no longer pale. The color had returned to his skin.
"Leo!" Miller called again, knocking on the door repeatedly.
I heaved a deep sigh but didn’t answer. I couldn’t, because the air in the room was still so thick with my pheromones that I felt like I was standing in a cloud of smoke.
If I opened that door now, the scent would hit the hallway like a physical wave. Anyone, especially a True Alpha like Miller, would be able to figure out that I was an Enigma.
"Leo! Come on, man. Coach is asking about Kayden. He’s supposed to be at practice and it’s getting weird out here because Rhys keeps asking about him. What is happening?" He hit the door repeatedly.
"Why is the door locked?" Miller’s voice dropped, and I noticed that his tone had changed from loud to concerned. "Leo? If you’re performing surgery or something, just yell ’piss off,’ but don’t just sit there and say nothing. You’re creeping me out."
I forced my hands to stop shaking. I grabbed a sterile wipe and swiped the blood off my wrist, then threw it into the biohazard bin.
I had to act fast before Miller decided to forcefully enter the room.
"I’m occupied, Miller," I called out. I tried to make my voice sound like the usual, detached version of myself—the one that found everyone else’s existence a mild inconvenience. "Go away!" I yelled.
There was a long pause on the other side of the door. I could almost hear Miller’s brain working, connecting dots that I really needed to keep separate.
"You’re occupied... with the door locked? You never lock the door, Leo. Not even when Jaxson came in with that ’embarrassing’ rash weeks ago. If anything is happening, then you need to let me know!"
I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead against the cool surface of the door, and sighed. "I said you should leave," I said through gritted teeth, then rolled my eyes angrily. "Kayden is having a severe reaction to a... um..." I thought of what to say as I scanned the room, and my eyes landed on a box of supplements on the shelf behind me.
"He is having a severe reaction to a new supplement," I continued. "It’s messy, and I don’t need you trampling through my sterile office with your unwashed jersey."
"Supplement, huh?" Miller’s voice was right against the wood now; I could hear his breathing. "Then why does it smell like a burnt office out here? Did you burn..."
"It’s a chemical stabilizer, Miller. Kayden has a stomach bug, so unless you want to be the one to tell Coach why Kayden might not play in the finals because you kept disrupting me, I suggest you go back to the ice and tell everyone he has a stomach bug and he will be fine in few hours."
"A stomach bug?" Miller asked, sounding as if he hadn’t heard me the first time. "Are... then let me see him and assure the Coach that he is alright."
I groaned and punched the door, but I didn’t unlock it. "You are not a doctor, Miller. Your ’assurance’ is medically irrelevant. He is currently sedated and... indisposed. If you walk in here now, you’ll likely catch whatever he has, and then I’ll have two useless players instead of one."
"Sedated? For a stomach bug?"
"Miller! Go away. I am not done with him, and if you decide not to listen to me, I am canceling our trip next week!" I told him.
There was silence for a moment, and then he cleared his throat.
"Damn baby, you sound really serious. I just want to find out why he isn’t out yet, and it seems things are not how I had expected, so I am going to leave."
I rolled my eyes and clenched my fists tightly, hoping that the assistant doctors didn’t hear when he called me "baby." I had told him over and over again to keep our relationship a secret, at least until we were ready to come out as a couple.
"Miller, just leave," I yelled at him and then hit the door again. "Come back by evening. Whatever is wrong with Kayden should be gone by then."
I heard him groan in response, followed by the sound of his footsteps retreating. I listened closely until I knew that he was gone; only then did I turn back toward Kayden. I leaned against the door and inhaled deeply.
He had almost found out about what I was. Another minute there and he would have known the truth.
An Enigma. An anomaly of the ranks and someone who shouldn’t exist.
But the words Kayden had said made me rethink my own stance. I wondered if I could be as brave as he was and come out to Miller.
Kayden let out a groan, and I immediately rushed to his side, but he just stretched and turned to the other side of the bed.
I smiled as I watched him, then leaned in to inhale his scent. I expected his orchid scent, but there was none. It meant my pheromones were successfully suppressing his.
"I truly hope that you know what you are doing, Kayden, because sometimes love isn’t enough," I muttered, touching his forehead.
And it was one of the reasons why I haven’t told Miller anything about me.
I don’t even know if I loved him yet.