Page 23 of The Alpha: Part One
Silence eats up the miles as I drive us across town. I don't know where the twins live, I'm just driving. Now that I've said it all out loud, it's like there aren't any more words in my body. Other than Kaleb and his pack, and the doctors, I haven't told anyone about what happened at the compound. I don't know why I told the twins. Ben even gave me the option not to.
Michael catches my eye in the mirror. "It's hard to go against the people you've always gone with. It's harder to realize the people you run with are not who you think they are. You're not like them, though. You probably think you are sometimes, but you aren't. If you were, you'd still have your eye and all ten fingers. And the eye patch makes you look like a badass."
"It makes me look like a fucking pirate."
They both laugh. I don't know if it was all that funny but laughing with them about it makes me feel better.
We don't go to their house directly. We go through a drive-thru to get an entire box of tacos. Then we go to their house and eat all of them. All three of us are leaning back against their couch rubbing our overly full stomachs when Benny invites me to go to the beach with them in a few days.
"You'll love it. Desie is coming, too. We want to go before she starts having heat spikes."
I lean my head back and scrub my handover my face, careful not to dislodge my patch. I noticed her sweet mint scent as soon as I walked through their door, like candy canes and sugar cookies. I half way expected her to be waiting inside. "It won't bother you for me to go when she's so close to going into heat? You said, what, two weeks?" I don't open my mouth about my inability to handle being around an omega in or around their time of heat. That's not something I'm ready to share. Not yet.
"Nah," Michael says, leaning up to pilfer through the wrappers littering the coffee table. He can't seriously be looking for another taco. "She likes you. And I think it would be fun to watch you turn into one solid freckle."
"I don't have trunks."
Benny turns toward me rolling his eyes. "You can wear a pair of mine. You should wear a tee shirt, though. He might like to see you fry, but I don't want to watch Desie baby you when it happens. If she's rubbing lotion or whatever all over anybody, it's going to be me."
"Will you guys be in better condition by then? If she sees you looking like this, I can only imagine her reaction."
Ben shrugs. "We'll be good as new by the weekend. We have to go to another mixer on Saturday."
"Do we, though?" Michael asks. "It looks like we have a third. Wouldn't it be stupid to be there if everyone thinks we've already got a third and our omega and we're just waiting to register?"
He's not wrong. It definitely looks like I'm their third. It would be ridiculous if they were there looking around for a possible third, and everyone at the last one saw us do everything but piss on Desir'ee's table.
"I guess we don’t," Ben says. "We could go to the beach this weekend instead. We could catch the first night of the festival."
"What festival?"
Ben smiles over at me. "We have a festival this time every year. It takes over the whole town. There are concerts and so much food. Parades. Stuff for the kids to do. The first concert is this weekend. We'll hit the beach all day, go have dinner someplace, and then go to the park for the concert. It'll be amazing. We take Desie every year. It'll be better this year because you can watch from the balcony and me and Michael can dance with her. We won't have to take turns this time. It's going to be great." The last words are yawned, and he winces when the split on his lip stretches.
"Okay. If you're inviting me, I want to be there. Just text me and let me know where to be this weekend and when. I'm going to head back. I'm getting too old for all nighters." I wave Benny off when he starts getting up to walk me out. "I'll lock the door behind me. Text me if you need me for anything."
I have nothing planned in the days leading up to the beach trip. Minos calls once to invite me to the weekend agenda. He's disappointed when I decline, but he perks up again when I tell him about my plans for the beach and the concert at the festival. With nothing else to do, I go shopping. I get Iris and Zetty little dolls with flower crowns, and I spend too much time debating whether or not Dutch is old enough for a slingshot and if Trent will kill me if I get it for him. Ultimately, I get Dutch a doll, too. I was never allowed to have a doll or a teddy bear or anything. Studies have been done that show the positive effects having a doll has on boys. If I had a doll growing up, maybe I would have turned out better.
Saturday morning finally comes and Ben texts me with the address and tells me they'll be there after they pick up Desir'ee. Butterflies swirl around in my stomach the whole drive over. I feel like a teenager going on a first date. It's silly.
I text Ben after I get the car parked. I brought a blanket and a cooler with drinks, and sunblock. The one time my parents took me to the beach, that's what my mom brought. I haven't been since then, so I'm not really sure what else I'm supposed to bring. I did buy new swim trunks, and a long-sleeved shirt that's supposed to block UV rays. Call me a baby, but I'm not trying to deal with the sunburn I'm asking for by just walking on the sand.
Ben sends a text telling me to pick a spot I'm comfortable with and they'll find me, and another saying that they should be able to see me from the freeway. My stomach takes flight again because of the teasing. If I'm not careful, I'll get attached to the idea of the twins. Which brings my mind around to what they kept saying to each other the other night. Would it work? Me? My own optimism has my wishful thinking going wild with the thought that they were talking around the idea of me fitting in as their third. That couldn't work, though. I have to go back to the East Coast, and they can't come with me. Desir'ee definitely couldn't. She just started a new job at a huge, but understaffed hospital. I couldn't ask her to relocate, it wouldn't be fair to her. And that's assuming she agrees to me as their third, which may or may not be what they were even talking about.
My mind is still spinning when I trudge a path through the sand to the most uncrowded area on the beach. There isn't going to be a place where I'll feel comfortable, so I'm going for less than packed. Conversations are filtering through the sounds of the water. I'm catching excited snippets about the festival and the concert tonight, bits about the mixer event happening this afternoon, and even a few words about myself as the East Coast rep with an eyepatch. Apparently, the girls do think the eyepatch is hot. Then I hear my name shouted and I turn around and choke on my tongue. I'm still coughing when they reach me. The twins are smiling these shit-eating grins and Desir'ee's ignoring all of us in favor of the waves.
I could tell she was beautiful at the meet and greet, but she was mostly sitting behind a table and wearing a sweet, little dress.
Fuck. Me.
Today she's wearing a white swimsuit that is only a one-piece in name. It shows so much more skin than it covers coming up high on her hips with this sweet ruffle that does nothing to hide her cleavage, and the shape of her… Fuck. Jesus. I'm going to die with the image of her thighs burned into the back of my eyelids. Her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, and the icing on the cake is the bright red sunglasses perched on her nose. The longer I look at her the sexier she gets, and now I'm full-on staring.
“Fuck.” I look away, but, almost involuntarily, my eye goes right back to her body. “Goddamn.” I mutter even more eloquent curses while I look around for the blanket I'm still holding, or literally anything to wrap around her.
Ben and Michael are still smiling hard. Correction, Michael is smirking. “I know, right?” he asks, not bothering to hide how his own eyes rove over her.
Then I notice how hard the asshole sitting on a towel a few feet away from us is looking at her. “Water's over there, motherfucker,” I bite out, pointing at my eye and jabbing my finger in the direction of the ocean. If he doesn't get the hint, I'll just break his nose, that's all. It'll be fine.
“What is your problem?” Desir'ee asks, tipping her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to look at me with raised eyebrows.
