Page 49 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

He turned on his heel and stalked off, his head shaking as he muttered to himself under his breath.

“You’re going to have to get her to like you first.”

Nolan and I both turned to find Maddie leaning against my open front door.

I glanced at him, then at her, and then around the front yard of my house. “When did you get here? How’d you get into my house? What are you even doing here?”

“I was already here,” she said.

“No, I would have noticed you,” Nolan said.

Maddie chortled. “You guys are so cute.”

“How’d you get in?” I asked again.

“Honestly, Wes, you need to be more aware of your surroundings. If I was an attacker, you’d all be dead already.” She examined her nails casually. “Also, you need better snacks.”

“Tell me how you got into my house, or I’ll tell Dad about your belly button ring.”

She just shrugged. Fucking shrugged. Like she’s not afraid of our dad when he goes into full alpha mode. Although, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go into full alpha mode on her. He just turns into a puddle. Damn, is that how I’ll be if I have female pups?

“Why are you even here to begin with?”

“I hang out here every Saturday at this time. You’re usually at training or hiking or something, so no one is here.”

“I—what?”

“I do my homework here.”

I walked to the doorway, and she moved aside to let me look in. Sure enough, her textbooks were thrown around my living room, and her laptop was open on my coffee table. “Why?” I asked.

“I don’t need the other teens to know I actually like school,” she mumbled. Then she shrugged. “And I like the quiet,” she muttered, crossing her arms.

I stared at her for a moment. “I will… buy you some snacks—”

“YES!”

“IF you tell me what you meant about getting Haven to like me again.”

“Deal,” she said brightly.

I leaned against the frame of the door opposite of her. “Please, elaborate on this whole getting her to like me again thing.”

“That’s the thing, Wesley. Getting someone to fall in love with you—that’s easy. But getting someone to actually like you? It’s a completely different game.”

“But what’s the difference?”

“Oh Goddess, Wes, no wonder you’ve had terrible luck with females,” she groaned, pressing her fingers into her temples. “You can love someone and not like them,” she grumbled.

“You can?” I asked with a furrowed brow.

“Well, she’s pissed off, right? She’s hurt, and she thinks you did something to hurt her on purpose, yes?”

“Yeah,” I growled, warning her away from that topic.

“So she doesn’t like you right now. But she still feels SOMETHING for you. Otherwise, she just wouldn’t care at all.”

I thought about what she said, and she continued. “It’s the same for you, with your previous women. You didn’t really like them, so it was easy for you to say bye to them when you realized it.”

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