Page 11 of Eight Steps to Alpha

It was a moment before she answered him, and he was about to respond once more, but then he heard her sigh. Loud, and without apology. Like she was running out of patience. “Look, you were right, and I was wrong. Just throw it over so I can put it back on the rack.

He cleared his throat again. “I—I can’t get it off.”

His shirt. He meant his shirt. He couldn’t get his shirt off. The one-eyed monster was now wedged into his waistband.

Fe laughed. “Ha ha. You proved your point, hand it over.”

He opened the door, gave her a little demo of how stuck it was, then lifted his brows. “You’re going to have to help me.”

She rolled her eyes, in a “Elli, you stupid toddler” sort of way, and pushed him into the stall again. She followed in behind him, closed the door, and grabbed hold of the hem of his shirt and began yanking it up from behind. She inched the fabric a little farther than he could achieve on his own, but the progress was still laughable. He met her stare in the mirror, and now she cleared her throat. As if to say this was a battle, and one she wasn’t willing to concede to.

“I just need some leverage,” she muttered, hiking up her Chuck Taylors to stand on the triangular wedge seat in the corner of the stall. He obliged her by turning to face in her direction, lifting his arms overhead as if she was his mother, and he a three-year-old boy.

She got to work pulling, inching up the fabric one millimeter at a time, her fingers pinching his skin in an effort to bring the shirt forth. Soon, her forehead glistened with perspiration, and she ripped the flannel she wore from her arms and threw it to the floor. He agreed. It was hot in here, fucking hot. All of a sudden, he was feeling quite claustrophobic. He began maneuvering his shoulders right and left trying to hurry the process, but then his eyes settled on her collarbone, where her shirt had been pulled to the side—revealing a light purple mark.

He froze. She did the same. The mark was so faint, faded, but he was pretty sure it was a hickey.

Pretty freaking sure.

All of a sudden, the stall ’s temperature inflated by a thousand degrees, and his vision became blurry. Her fingers were on his skin, her small, delicate fingers, but all he could think about was who had put that mark on her skin. Who had known her so intimately to leave something like that there?

He also knew he had to end this. To get her away from him so he could breathe. He grabbed the collar of the white vice, dug his fingers into the pansy fabric, and pulled. The shirt split in two, allowing him to pull in a full breath for the first time in a good minute. He met Fe’s shocked stair in the dressing room mirror and frowned.

He knew she had questions, ones that were legitimate given their circumstances, but he had questions too. “What happened?” he asked, flashing his eyes to her collarbone before raising them up again. He should have left it alone, but something inside him wouldn’t let that happen.

She moved the neck of her shirt without looking down, covering the mark once again. But the resulting blush that flushed her cheeks was all the confirmation he needed. It was a hickey. Fe had a hickey.

He didn’t even know Fe was dating anyone. Didn’t know she was even interested in anyone. But what was weirder, was that she hadn’t even told him about the guy. She told him everything. Everything. Even about periods, and mucus, and random girl crap he’d never cared to know existed. Yet she had a hickey, and he didn’t even know who it was from.

“I wear a large,” he said, handing her the now wadded up white fabric when she remained silent. She stepped down from the bench unable to meet his eyes again. “But I guess we’ll take this one anyway.”

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