Page 12 of Eight Steps to Alpha

Chapter 4

Shoppingwith Elliot had been one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. Her entire life. Even standing next to him now, walking down the crowded corridor of the mall, she could still feel mortification crawling up her insides and slowly squeezing her windpipes. He’d seen her hickey. The hickey that Todd Peeking had grossly bestowed upon her neck three days prior.

There was no doubt in her mind he knew what it was. She could see it in his eyes as he stood there holding his ripped off tee shirt. But God, she hated the disappointment she saw behind those black-rimmed glasses. Hated how his bronzed skin seemed to lose all color and sink from his face like melting ice-cream cone. How his jaw tightened, making him appear almost—scary.

But Elliot was one the least judgmental people she knew. He didn’t give a shit if you were gay or straight, black or blue, male or female. If you were a generally a good human, he’d take the shirt off his own back if he saw you were freezing. Unless it was a size medium, then he’d just rip—

She closed her eyes, not allowing herself to think about his dressing room performance again. About the shirt ripping, or how great his body appeared without clothes on, because that was beside the point. Elliot wasn’t judgmental, so to see him look at her in that way really hurt. She was pretty sure the vision of him, stone faced, bare chested, with his pale blue eyes meeting her stare in that dressing room mirror, would forever be burned into her hippocampus. She could practically feel the memory veining over her entire cortex, embedding itself in every crevice of her brain so she’d never forget.

But what bothered her most was the fact he’d judged her at all. What right did he have? To judge her over a tiny mark? He himself was the man wanting to find out what Mary Poppins carried in her tight little purse. Actually, now that she thought about it, he didn’t even know the love bite was from Mr. Peeking. He didn’t know quite how inappropriate it really was, yet he’d judged her. He’d simply judged her for bearing the mark at all.

The more she thought about it, the more she was reminded of The Scarlet Letter, and the angrier she became. Because she was pretty sure Elliot was being quite chauvinistic. She was about to tell him so, to really let him have it, when Ed and April dashed out of the arcade, almost crashing into her chest.

“Hey!” April said, slightly out of breath from her quick sprint. “Fancy meeting you here. We just came from your apartment.”

She looked relatively tame given her normal eccentric taste. Her signature socks were stretched up to her knees, but they were a solid red today, which somehow made her look normal.

“Oh?” Elliot asked, stopping in his tracks to hold a conversation.

“Yeah. You guys weren’t home,” Ed said, jokingly.

Him and April were like the ultra-nerdy version of Fe and Elliot. If such a thing existed. Friends, only friends, though everyone assumed they were more. Including all their millions of gaming fans around the world. Fe didn’t even blame their followers for wishing it to be true. Ed and April were adorable. Ed, and this overgrown mop of golden locks that someone fit him perfectly. And April—who was effortlessly cute, even on days when Fe was pretty sure her mission in life was to be as mismatched as possible.

They’d all been roommates their first year of college, and normally, Fe would be excited to run into them on a random Thursday…but not today. Because she was still fuming mad at Elliot right now and annoyed with the interruption.

Ed went on to tell Elliot about the new video game that had hit the market, and just like that, the two boys were down for the count, engrossed in a conversation about pixels, internet speeds, and other game geek details.

But this type of excitement was expected of Ed—expected when your best friends were YouTube stars. Ed and April lived, breathed, and presumably bathed in video games. Fe could hold her own when it came to games, but right now, she had too many other things consuming her thoughts. Like Elliot, the chauvinistic ass-hat.

Fe turned in the opposite direction, trying to calm her emotions, but apparently, her instincts for self-perseveration had not come soon enough. April narrowed her eyes, catching her gaze, obviously aware of Fe’s foul mood. She came to Fe’s side lacing her hand in the crook of Fe’s arm before pulling her over to the side of the corridor. “What are you guys doing here?” she whispered into Fe’s ear.

A waft of sweet cinnamon sugar hit Fe’s nose, and she inhaled deeply, keeping her vision locked on the pastry shop below. “Shopping.” She shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

April narrowed her eyes. “Ed needed an adapter thingy for his joy stick. We were just going to go to dinner when we saw you guys.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and I have to say, you looked kinda pissed. Are you guys fighting again?”

“Again?” Fe met April’s stare.

“Yeah, you know. About the incident.”

Fe braced her arms on the railing, pressing her lips together so she didn’t say too much. It was true. They’d been fighting more than usual since they kissed, but the fact April brought it up again made her ridiculously uncomfortable. She glanced over her shoulder to Elliot, who was still deep in conversation with Ed. “We weren’t fighting,” she whispered to April. “He just did something that pissed me off. I’m over it now.”

Which was true, she could never stay mad at Elliot for more than a minute. What bothered her now, however, was the fact that April was talking about “the incident” and making things weird all over again.

Yes, April was Fe’s closest female friend outside of Mrs. G, so it was natural she shared about their New Year’s kiss, but right now, she regretted it. Regretted it more than the time she wore too tight of shoes to Disney Land.

When she’d told her, she though she needed April’s opinion. That she needed an outside perspective so she could stop herself from overthinking it. Because most people in her life thought it was impossible for her and Elliot to be just best friends. She knew Ed and April were completely platonic, so she thought April would understand—but clearly not. Ever since she’d told April the intimate little secret, she wished it back. Especially when April labeled it “the incident” and made the kiss ten times bigger than it actually was.

“What are you shopping for?” April asked after a long, somewhat awkward pause.

“Clothes for Elli,” she said, turning to lean against the rail so she didn’t appear quite so pathetic. But she sucked in a breath when Ed and Elliot started walking toward them.

“Fe is giving me a makeover,” Elliot interjected, winking at her in an intimate kind of way—a way that said they both shared the same secret.

Her blood heated with his less than stellar timing, and she almost glared at him. But she stopped herself, forcing a smile, and looking straight into his light blue eyes.

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