Page 131 of Altius
He’d also been pressured into giving three pre-meet interviews with different sports networks. With his handsome face and gymnastics pedigree, he was the natural choice to sacrifice to the media—something my poor boyfriend would have to get used to.
Thankfully, my omega had decided to be amused by the attention Wyatt was attracting rather than feel territorial.
Our scent match was loyal, almost to a fault, and the only straying he was capable of was the occasional lingering glance in my direction.
Something I hoped Dr. Flemming and the other coaches hadn’t noticed.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Instead of a reply from Jenna to my earlier question about how classes were going, I found an alert from PheroPass for an elevated reading.
I pulled up the record in question on my tablet, recognizing the name—Nika—as the gymnast currently performing on the uneven bars. Her pheromone emission levels were minimal, butthe readings for pheromone exposure were just high enough to result in a warning.
Tabbing through the rest of the squad, I looked for anyone with a corresponding pheromone emission rate.
Nothing. Just like the football team.
Two possibilities came to mind.
Either the sensors had a flaw that quality assurance testing had failed to identify, or even a double dose of scent blockers couldn’t contain Wyatt’s pheromones during gymnastics meets.
I took a screenshot of the reading and emailed it to Owen and Cal, along with a suggestion that we ask Wyatt to start wearing a PheroPass sensor.
Not only would it provide unique insight into someone living with mate waning syndrome, but it would help to confirm or deny if Wyatt’s pheromones were disrupting the other readings.
And if it wasn’t Wyatt…
I slowly surveyed the people surrounding the uneven bars. It was just the gymnastics team, some coaches, the judges, and a couple of cameramen.
Nothing abnormal. No glassy eyes or labored breathing. Completely different from the savagery of the football team.
They were just a group of people focused on the competition, inside a well-ventilated sports complex, where pheromone clouds only lasted a scant few seconds.
Which meant the sensors were malfunctioning. There must be a minute detail Owen and his team had overlooked, resulting in a weakness that the football team’s pheromone bomber had exploited for maximum chaos.
But what?
I decided to take another look at the quality assurance testing reports tonight.
A heated gaze brushed my cheek as the Northport gymnastics squad walked past, moving from the uneven bars to the balance beam. They had a comfortable lead over the visiting school, which would only grow once they reached the floor exercise, their best apparatus by far.
Keeping my head down, lest Dr. Flemming or anyone else notice Wyatt was looking at me, I mindlessly scrolled through biometric dashboards.
On second thought, combing over the PheroPass testing reports might have to wait until tomorrow night.
Such a dominant performance deserved to be celebrated—deeply, thoroughly, with a bit of hair pulling and some dirty talk—until Wyatt begged for mercy.
“Excuse me,” a tentative feminine voice asked. “Are you Morgan Van Daal?”
I looked up, finding that a roving reporter from an omega sports streaming channel was holding a microphone in my face, while a camera loomed behind her.
“Do you have a few minutes for an interview?”
“I’m sorry,” I said with a sufficient amount of professional tact, “but I’m here as a physician, not a commentator.”
That’s right. I was at work, and I needed to focus on the meet.
Not the devastatingly attractive boyfriend of mine, smirking at my misfortune, twenty feet away.
Yeah. The reports could definitely wait.
