Page 32 of Follow Your Instincts

I shook my head, looking down. “I was barely in control.”

Ben was quiet for a moment. “From where I was standing, I saw an Alpha doing his best to calm an overwrought Omega. Youpurredfor her.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said dismissively.

“It does mean something, and you know that, but I’m not going to argue with you when you’re determined to see the worst in yourself,” Ben said. I felt a light brush across my forehead and looked up, startled, but Ben had already stood up. “You’ve got to let her go,” he said quietly and left my office.

I sat for another hour, stewing in unhappy memories. When I finally switched off the light to go up to bed, the ghosts of the past followed.

Chapter 12

Maggie

True to his word, Ben arrived at the Center for our run at 6:58 AM. I was dressed for the chilly autumn morning, but he showed up in a pair of the smallest running shorts I could have imagined.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked, laughing as he jumped back and forth on the sidewalk.

“Fucking freezing,” he said, smiling. “How far are we going?”

“I usually do a 5k, if that works for you?” I said, my breath coming out in a cloud.

“Lead the way,” Ben replied and we took off in a jog. He let me set the pace and I held back a bit so we could still talk.

“So is there a reason you decided on booty shorts for a 7 AM run in October?” I asked. Ben kept pace with me easily and the shorts in question showed off his long muscular legs. He was a little taller than me and the extra inches were definitely all in his legs.

“Based on the way you’re ogling me, I’d say they served their intended purpose,” he said, grinning at me.

I blushed and pretended it was just the wind on my cheeks. We were running through the neighborhood around the Center. All the houses looked very similar: old Victorians with huge yards and massive trees. We couldn’t see the river off toour left, but I could feel it in the cold breeze blowing in. The streets were quiet here, just early commuters driving into the city, and the sun was just beginning to rise. The world seemed fresh and new in a way that I’d only found on these early morning runs.

“So, you know a lot about me,” I said after a few minutes. “But I don’t know anything about you other than you’re a personal trainer. Where are you from?”

“I’m a Midwestern boy, from a small town in Illinois. It’s a tale as old as time: cute bisexual Alpha moves to the big city to try and make it as an actor and instead winds up a personal trainer. There are dozens of us, I’m sure,” he said, laughing.

“Oh god, not another one!” I said jokingly. “That’s so cool that you were an actor.”

“Well, Iwantedto be an actor, and that is a key distinction,” Ben said. “I acted in high school and college, I even got a theater degree back in Illinois, but I’ve never acted professionally in anything beyond some shitty plays. But it all worked out. I’m much happier now than I ever was back then. And god, I was so poor!”

I laughed. “So you realized acting wasn’t working out. But what made you go into personal training?”

“Every audition I went on, I always got great feedback about my looks. Which yes, has done wonders for my ego, thanks for asking. I was spending so much time in the gym anyways because I had nothing else to do so I figured I might as well get paid for it. I told myself it was temporary, but it turned out I loved it and I’m really good at it,” he said, and turned to face me so he was running backwards.

“Show off,” I said, rolling my eyes and smiling.

He turned to face forward again. “I got a few high-end clients, and now I’m officially a business owner. And I have a couple of celebrity clients,” he mock-whispered.

“Anyone I know?” I asked.

“Unless you watch a lot of shitty reality TV, probably not,” he laughed.

We reached a dead end and had to turn back, retracing our steps onto another tree-lined street.

“Do you go to visit your family a lot?” I asked.

“Not really, we aren’t very close,” he said. “They’re both Betas and having an Alpha as a son, not to mention a queer one, was challenging for them I guess. It was quite a shock when I presented at 19. My dad especially struggled. I think he’s jealous of me being an Alpha, and pissed that I don’t act the way he thinks an Alpha should.”

“What, like an asshole?” I asked, angry on Ben’s behalf, and he laughed.

“Yeah, or maybe just straight and conservative like him. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t homophobes or anything, they just seemed so bewildered by me,” he said. “You’ll understand when you meet them.”

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