Page 36 of Two For the Show
“I feel like a kindergarten teacher sometimes,”I grumble, rubbing my temples where a headache is starting to form. “Could you not handle this between yourselves?”
“It’s my song!” Rex shouts, waving his arms. “I’ve been using it for like half a year. He doesn’t get to decide to use it, too!”
“You can do your folding and tumbling routine to any song! This song is perfectly timed for my act,” Paul, our juggler, replies petulantly.
“You only know that because you heard me using it!”
“So? It’s not like it’s a hardship for you to change!”
I sit back in my chair, letting the two performers argue over the music choices for their acts. My trailer feels overcrowded with these two Alphas in here. It’s not like my pack, who belongs here. These two are interlopers, and I don’t want their scents in here.
Honestly, I need to get over that, because where else am I going to handle personal discussions with my crew? It’s not like we have an HR office to handle this.
They’re still going on about the goddamn song. I don’t fucking care who uses it, honestly. We lost our lighting and sound crew when we ran Travis and Chet out of here, so I would prefer not to make changes right now while Edmund is learning the ropes.
“Enough!” I bellow, slamming my hands on the desk in front of me. “It’s a fucking song, guys. Now is not the time to be switching shit up. Music stays as is. You can do whatever the hell you want during your time—jerk off, for all I care—but the cues have to stay the same until I get someone to help Edmund and both of them trained up in the box.”
They stare at me like they forgot I was here, even though it’s my trailer they’re arguing in, stinking it up with their angry pheromones. “And another thing. These petty fucking disputes shouldn’t be coming to me. You’re grown-ups. Handle it yourself. Now get out of here.”
They stomp out, and I bury my face in my hands, trying to rub the budding migraine away. I am exhausted, physically and mentally, from dealing with this place. It’s my livelihood, and I love what I do, but fuck, dealing with this type of thing is the worst part of my day.
“I told you you need an HR department.” I jerk my head up and see a smirking Alex staring at me from the doorway. “I mean, if you had one, all interpersonal disputes could go to them, leaving you free to do…showrunner things.” She closes the door behind her and drops into the chair in front of my desk, the humor in her voice not matching the exhaustion that lines her face.
I want to ask her if she’s doing okay, but it’s obvious she’s not.
Her scent is acrid, overbaked, and a sure sign that she’s still struggling to kick the FOS. Despite all of us sleeping inher bed last night, I don’t feel like we’re making much of a dent in her symptoms.
Before I can ask her if she’s okay, or if I can do anything for her, she drops her elbows to her knees and buries her face in her hands.
“Jude.” Her voice is pained. “I need to ask something of you, and it’s awkward and weird and I don’t want you to make a big deal out of it, okay?”
“Okay…”
She’s not looking at me, and her voice is muffled when she speaks next. “I need to nip this FOS thing in the fucking bud. I cannot keep living like this, and it’s absolutely pathetic for me to be still dealing with it when I have a whole crop of scent matches at my disposal.”
“What do we need to do? Do you need more cuddle time? More of our clothes?” At this point, I’d do anything. Those months without her were the worst and showed me how skewed my priorities have been.
I was nearly as cynical as Dexter, thinking she was going to leave us at any moment. Instead of showing her how she fit into our lives, I tried to put her into a neat little place on the shelf.
Whatever she needs from me is hers.
“I noticed something after my date with Dario,” she says cagily. “And I think you can help. You’re the Prime Alpha of the group, Jude.”
“Yeah, that’s what the doctors said. Strongest pheromones or whatever.” I’ve always been a strong Alpha, my bark able to override almost every other one that I’ve met. I never thought about how that would make me fit within a pack.
“I need you. If I am going to help Quinton get better, which is obviously a priority, then I need to be operating atfull capacity. I need a pheromone treatment from you to help me push this shit out of me for good.”
“But we can’t go to the hospital,” I remind her. “You’re a missing person. Your face is everywhere.”
She rolls her eyes. “They just couldn’t let me go, could they?” She rubs the back of her neck. “I know we can’t go in. But I’m a doctor. I can DIY it.”
“You want to do a pheromone treatment yourself? What about all those machines that they had you hooked up to for it? And the ones I had to use?”
The memory of the knot squeezer they used in the hospital to completely drain me is fresh in my mind. My dick hurt for like a week after that.
Alex flushes, the pink spreading down her face and onto her neck, and her knee starts to bounce rapidly. Whatever she’s about to say, she thinks I’m not going to like it.
“I don’t need the machines. I just need your pheromones and then I can do the treatment myself.”
