If someone is in distress, sometimes the situation requires distance rather than closeness.
Senator Diego Paolo declines both questions and interview requests. It makes us wonder: what is he hiding?
Sario paced outside of the bathroom door, listening to the shower run. The pounding water was loud enough that Sario could only hear the faintest hints of Luca's apparent agony. The sobbing was ripping his heart out. He knew Luca was not the melodramatic type, so it worried him even more. Several times, he raised his hand to knock and ask if there was any way he could help, but he stopped himself every time. Luca would kill him if he reacted with any sort of pity. Finally, at his wits' end, Sario grabbed his phone off the nightstand and called Rowan.
The call connected, and Rowan answered with a sleepy "hello?"
"Hey," Sario replied, trying to sound as apologetic as possible. "I think I'm in trouble."
Rowan chuckled. "You're never not in trouble, Sario." He thought Sario was overreacting, and Sario could not blame him.
"I think I broke my new husband."
There was a moment of silence on the other end. Then Rowan laughed again. "What does that even mean? How would you break him? He's not remotely close to a porcelain doll."
Sario gritted his teeth together. This was serious, and he was done with Rowan treating him like a miscreant toddler. "Then would you like to tell me why he's in the shower sobbing and screaming and cursing every deity to ever exist?"
"Shit," Rowan swore softly, finally realizing how serious Sario was. "My bad, man. Tell me what's going on and I'll see if I can help you out at all."
"Thank you," Sario breathed out. "He forgot to take his suppressants, so with…everything we did last night, his body isn't playing nice."
"Sario."
"What?"
"Are you telling me that Marlowe's an omega?"
Oops. He had not meant to let that secret out of the bag. Well, now he did not have to worry about Rowan knowing or not knowing anymore, even though that was another thing Luca would kill him for if and when he found out. "Yes…?"
To Sario's relief, Rowan did not mock him or ask why Sario had never said anything before and actually started to offer him some advice. "Okay, then he's probably a little mad. And really fucking emotional. Heats are like that. They kinda screw us over. He's probably feeling extra screwed since you two have this enemies thing going on where he acts like he hates you and you desperately try to mollify him. And maybe also cause you screwed him last night."
"Rowan!" Sario hissed. "That's not helping! I offered to go get him some medication, and he said nothing helps!"
There was a long pause. "Nothing?" Now Rowan sounded worried. "Normally I would ask if he was joking, but based on the screaming in the shower, he might very well be serious."
"He said it hurts," Sario added in a small voice. "I don't know what to do."
"Call Noah."
"What?"
"You heard me," Rowan replied, his voice rising slightly. "Call Noah. That's not normal. Noah specializes in omega treatment. Call him."
Sario nodded even though Rowan could not see him. "Okay. I'll call him." He hung up and stared at the phone in his trembling hand for a moment before he lifted it up to his ear again to call his brother's best friend.
Noah picked up on the second ring. "'ello." His voice was groggy. There was the sound of sheets rustling and someone else, probably Camille, making an annoyed whimper. "Sorry, angel," Noah said away from the phone, comforting his sleepy boyfriend. "I'll take the call downstairs, okay?" After a minute of various domestic sounds, Noah yawned. "Okay, Sario, there'd better be a good reason why you're calling me early enough that my overachieving boyfriend was still asleep."
Sario bit his bottom lip hard enough to taste the sharp tang of blood on his tongue. "Um, yeah, there is. Rowan said to call you?"
"You called Rowan before this?" There was the sound of Noah facepalming. "Sario!"
Sario bit down harder on his lip. "Noah, please don't get mad. I need help."
Noah exhaled aggressively. "Is there ever a time when you don't? For goodness sake, Sario, it's the morning after your wedding!"
"Marlowe's screaming and sobbing in the shower and Rowan said to call you," Sario said in a rush, desperate to get the words out before Noah got too far into his insults and complaints.
Noah took a second to process and then asked very calmly, "What?"
Sario inhaled deeply and started to explain, since he knew that was probably what Noah wanted. "He forgot to take his suppressants yesterday, so, um, he's in heat now and he's in pain and Rowan said that wasn't normal and to call you."
"Ah." There was another pause as Noah turned that information over in his head. "Okay, I'm gonna need you to try to talk him out of the shower and get him to the hospital if you can. If he's not listening to you, call me back and I'll come get him, okay?"
Sario swallowed hard. "I-I can try. I don't think I'll do much good, but I'll try."
"That's all you need to do. If you want, I can stay on the phone so I can come over right away if it doesn't work."
"That's fine," Sario managed. "I'll just call you right back if I need you to come." He hung up, slid his phone into his back pocket, and carefully opened the bathroom door, getting smacked in the face with a wall of steam. "Hey," he called out cautiously, taking one careful step in. "Luca? Can you turn the shower off? Please?"
"Go away!" Luca sobbed out from behind the fogged-up glass. "You're horrible, and I don't want to see you!"
Sario clenched a fist in his loose sweatpants. "You don't have to see me if you don't want to," he tried again. "Just close your eyes, and I'll turn the shower off for you." When no reply came, Sario stepped over to the shower and opened the door very slowly. After making sure that Luca was not about to kick or throat punch him, he reached in, hissing as the scalding water hit his arm, and yanked the shower off. Then he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around Luca's body the best he could. Crouching in the slippery shower, he tried to get the towel more firmly around Luca. "Come on, let's get out. I know it hurts, but sitting in burning water isn't going to help."
"It did help!" Luca snapped, even as he let Sario pull him to his feet and out onto the bathmat. "I was fine!"
"You were screaming and sobbing and cursing," Sario shot back, toweling off Luca's reddened skin. "What about that is fine?"
"It's how I deal with things," Luca bit out, his tone venomous. "If you don't like that, maybe–" Whatever he had been going to say was cut off as he doubled over, his face contracting into an expression of terrible pain. He would have fallen over if not for Sario's arms around him. A half-aborted cry made it past his lips, and he squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking down his flushed cheeks. "Fucking hell." He tried to stand up straight again, but his knees quickly gave out again and he had to clutch his stomach.
Sario half-dragged, half-carried him out into the bedroom and got him dressed in some clothes, doing his best to work around the pain and doing everything he could to keep from being the cause of it. Then he picked Luca up and carried him down to the back entrance of the hotel, where he had ordered an Uber to wait in an attempt to avoid the paparazzi. He got them both into the backseat and told the driver to go to Falville University Hospital and then texted Noah their ETA.
Noah sent a thumbs up emoji – fucking android user – and then sent a three-word message: Meet you there.