Page 27 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

She frowned when she got a better look at me. “Uh huh… You okay? You’re all flushed.”

“Yeah, just overheated,” I said, even though it was a crisp morning and the basement always stayed pretty cool. I kicked the covers off to sell the discomfort and then held my hand out, and she gave me one of the mugs. “Thanks. I needed this.”

She winced and came to sit down on the edge of the bed. “I take it that means you didn’t get enough sleep? Again?”

“I did. It just wasn’t the most restful sleep. If that makes sense.”

“You either slept or you didn’t.”

I laughed. Georgie was hardly ever this confrontational. “That’s not true. There are, like, three levels of sleep. Maybe even four. And if you don’t get down to the deepest level throughout the night, you can sleep without feeling rested afterward. You know that.”

She huffed and looked down into her mug. “What I know is that you’re keeping something from me.”

I gulped, the hot coffee burning my throat a little as it went down. “Keeping something from you? Says who? Like what?”

“You tell me,” she said.

I stared at her, not saying anything for a few seconds. I really hadn't expected to be challenged like this first thing in the morning. And by Georgie of all people.

“Or, I guess you don’t have to,” she said. “Although, I was sort of under the impression that we told each other everything… Maybe I was wrong.”

“You’re not—” I stopped myself short and sighed, then began again. “You’re not wrong. We do tell each other everything… And you’re not wrong that I’ve been keeping something from you as well.”

“I knew it!”

It was hard to tell if she was excited or accusatory, but either way, she looked at me with a look of expectation. There was no taking the words back now.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” I said. “I just didn’t really know how to talk about it, and to be perfectly honest, I’m a little ashamed that it happened in the first place.”

“Ashamed?” Her brow furrowed. “You don’t often talk about feeling ashamed. Unless we’re talking about stuff that happened back when you still lived on top of the hill.”

I shrugged. “Ashamed might be too strong a word. Humiliated, maybe?”

“Alright,” she said. “Well, regardless of what word you want to use, I can promise you this, I’m not going to judge you. No matter what it is, I’ll understand. You’ve seen me through a lot of ups and downs over the last few years and never gave me any reason to feel embarrassed or afraid to talk to you about my problems. I want to offer you the same thing. Please, Di. You can trust me.”

“I know I can.” A smile crept through despite how much I didn’t want to have this conversation. “I’ll tell you. Just—one second.” I brought the coffee mug back to my lips and took another sip. This one wasn’t quite as hot as the first. If it had been even a little colder, I would’ve downed the entire mug before getting into the weeds—liquid courage of sorts. “You remember that guy, Andreas?”

She scoffed. “Of course, I remember him. We were just talking about him yesterday.”

“Right,” I said. “And while we were talking about him, I probably should’ve let you in on the fact that the two of us had sex. Yesterday morning. In my car in the middle of a parking lot.” I delivered these facts in a stunted manner and felt increasingly more embarrassed with each one. I couldn’t even look Georgie in the eye now that this was out in the open. I stared down at my legs, which were curled up underneath me, and waited for her to break the tense silence.

The few seconds that went by felt like a lifetime.

Then, finally, Georgie laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” She gave my arm a shove. “I can’t believe you kept that from me! That’s not something to be ashamed about. That’s totally fucking hot, Di. And so is he. You have to tell me everything. Now!”

“Okay, okay,” I said, laughing. I didn’t mind going into detail now that I knew she wasn’t upset with me. “I’ll talk. Just let me have a little more coffee and fully wake up first.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. Gran is making scones and they should be just about done anyway. Come up when you’re ready to chat. I’m sure she’ll want to hear all about this too.”

“What? I don’t want her to know!”

“Just tell the story like it happened to a mutual friend of ours,” she said. “C’mon, she’ll love it. You know how much fun she has when we bring her in on this kinda stuff. Last time we gossiped with her, she thanked us over and over again for letting her be a part of our ‘girl talk’.”

“Fine,” I groaned. But I swear to God, if you give her any hints that the story is actually about me, I’ll never share stuff like this with you again.”

“Like you could hide this stuff from me even if you wanted to,” she said with a smirk, then she leaped off the bed and hurried upstairs. When she opened the door to the kitchen, the scent of delicious homemade scones wafted down from above, and the smile on my face grew wider and wider. I felt so incredibly lucky to have found this little family of mine, and I was glad I no longer had to keep secrets from my best friend.

At work that day, I hesitated before going up the ladder to return some books to their rightful place, remembering how one of the rungs had broken underneath my feet in my dream. This memory, of course, then led to a memory of how that dream ended, and I knew I needed to find a more involved task to take my mind off of Andreas. I couldn’t turn bright red again at work without raising Georgie’s suspicions. I went to the computer and started printing out invoices for our online orders. I was about halfway through the orders when the computer beeped at me, announcing a new email. Georgie used her personal email for work as well, even though I’d been telling her for years it wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t care. She was too trusting. This meant that I had access to her personal email since I often needed to check for work-related correspondence.

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