Page 3 of Alpha Wolf Bodyguard

As I explored a little deeper, the funner it sounded. They had an immediate need for bodyguards and event bouncers, which I could totally handle. If nothing else, I’d spend fewer nights alone watching TV. The starting rates were double my salary, so even though I didn’t really need the money, it was a nice bonus. Within a few minutes of clicking around on the site, I made the decision to fill out the application and join their roster.

Now it was just a waiting game.

I’d just sit back and see if anyone even wanted to hire me for anything. Trig got tons of jobs as an alpha, but that didn’t mean anyone would want me as an alpha wolf.

I turned on the TV and found a cheesy romcom. Just because I wasn’t ever going to get my happy ending didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy watching other people find theirs.

Chapter 3

Nate

I liked to believe that when you did good things for others, the universe rewarded you by doing good things to you.

Every day, I went out of my way to hold doors open for strangers, help little old ladies cross the street, and pay for the coffee for the customer behind me in line at the drive-through. I did those things not for the accolades or recognition, but because I was just trying to add a little bit of good juju to my karma bank.

Since I was a kid, if there was a hole to fall in, a digestively challenged bird to sit under, or a speck of a crumb to choke on, I found it.

Why the universe was out to get me, I had no idea. But it was half the reason I continued to do good things. I just couldn’t give up on the hope that all my bad luck was just winding up for some amazing jackpot of good luck coming my way some day.

However, today was not that day.

I got out of a client meeting an hour later than I expected and found a boot on my car tire because the street parking that I used every single day had recently been converted to paid meter parking at 6 PM. When I arrived at my car at 6:27, the damn thing was undriveable.

Luckily for me, the questionably moral traffic enforcer happened to roll by again and was generously willing to accept my $200 direct payment of “cash via his payment app” to unlock the boot so I could drive home.

Not the best way to start my weekend, but pretty on brand for me.

I’d been craving pizza all week. And I thought, hey, why not treat myself to my favorite food? It’ll be the happy ending for the craptastic day.

I drove to the other side of town where they had the best pizza in the state and parked the car, this time making triple sure that I wasn’t in a zone that would get me another ticket. Been there. Done that. Paid the money. Repeating it wasn’t on my list of things to do for the day.

When I walked into the pizza parlor, it was no shock that I wasn’t the only one who had the idea that pizza would be delightful. I had to wait in line for about ten minutes. I didn’t mind, it gave me time to figure out which pie I wanted, sausage and mushroom or classic cheese.

My college roommate hated mushrooms, and when we lived together, I never had the pizza I liked. After I moved out. I ordered sausage and mushroom every single time because I could. It was great, but also, I was ready for a change. A boring change, but a change nonetheless.

When I placed my order, they told me it was going to be at least forty-five minutes before my pie was ready. Between the people in the store ahead of me and their deliveries, they were swamped.

“That’s fine.” I could be patient.

I paid them and decided to walk around outside and get some fresh air. Maybe the kitten-distribution system would be in my favor tonight. I was joking, but also, not so much. I did love kittens and finding one was way better than anything else that had happened so far today.

Once outside, I scented the air deeply and my bear got pissy. He hated the way the city smelled, and pretty much everything else about it.

My bear was done with being crowded all the time. What he needed was a weekend away, preferably in the mountains. A place where he could just be free to roam around. Unfortunately, that wasn’t gonna happen for at least a few weeks. Between work and more work, there wasn’t the time. We’d have to wait for things to simmer down first.

I half remembered that there was a bakery nearby and made that my destination. I could have looked it up on my phone to see the exact address, but I had so much time to kill that I thought, “Hey, it’ll be a good idea to wander around and find it.”

Fuck, I was so beyond wrong.

I saw the sign for Pat’s Bakery with an arrow saying it was one block down. And because I didn’t always make the best choices, I decided to cut through the alley. It wasn’t like anybody could hurt me. All I had to do was whip out my bear, and they’d run away. The worst things I was likely to encounter were stinky dumpsters or people who were doing things I’d rather not see.

In my experience, that meant sex, peeing, or shooting up. But people never failed to surprise me, so who knew what the night could have in store for me.

Spoiler alert: Nothing good.

I was halfway down the alley when I discovered I wasn’t alone. One of the most difficult things I’d had to deal with while adjusting to being back in such a crowded town was my inability to isolate all the scents coming at me from every direction.

That was the case here.

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