Page 42 of Perfect Alpha

Gavin:Stop wasting time with Britt, you fucking idiot. Go get Victory back or Bobby and I will beat the shit out of you.

I laugh and send him a selfie of me giving the middle finger with the woods behind me.

Cade:Come say that to my face.

Gavin agrees to meet me and bring our hunting gear, which makes me way happier than the thought of a weekend with Britt ever did.

When he confirms that he’s bringing Scout, the best tracking dog in the state, my weekend gets infinitely better. I turn the GPS signal on my phone so he can find me before continuing to make my way to the clearing I crave.

When Gavin and Scout catch up with me, he immediately gets on my case about Victory without missing a beat.

“You aren’t getting any younger,” he reminds me.

“We’re the same age.”

“Right.” He grins as we sort through our gear in practiced harmony, setting up the tents in record time. “But either way, you’re wasting time because you’ve already found the girl for you. So, I might be old, but you’re an idiot.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I respond dryly.

“It’s true. I don’t understand the deal with you two. Even being a regular witness to the ridiculous antics, I still don’t get it,” he complains.

I sigh and scrub a hand over my face. “I don’t either. It’s just… I guess it’s a habit, man. I can’t be with her, but I also don’t want her to be with anyone else. I’m clearly the king of maturity and shit.”

“Why can’t you be with her?”

“You know why. Besides, she’s already moved away. It’s too late.” Not that the distance has helped us to get over each other, but still.

“That’s bullshit,” Gavin challenges. “Victory would move back home in a heartbeat. She’s just waiting for a reason.”

I shake my head. “She’s happy in the city.”

“Do you even listen to her when she talks?” Gavin demands. “All she does is work. No one would be happy living their life like that, man. She’s a family girl, a small-town girl. The big city life isn’t for her. She was just running away from you and how much you hurt her.”

There’s no way that she picked up her life and moved away just because we broke up. When I ended things between us, it just made the choice she was always going to make easier to live with because she had no one else to consider.

Surely I didn’t push her away when she actually wanted to stay.

I start gathering kindling for a fire to avoid Gavin and his relentless intervention, but he follows me.

“I didn’t want to be in her way or the reason she was stuck here,” I insist. “I didn’t want her to have regrets about not taking a really great opportunity.”

“You don’t get to decide any of that for her. Just tell her the truth. What can it hurt?”

“Everything!”

“And what you’re doing is better? You two haven’t let each other go, and it’s been years.”

“That’s because we can’t. We love each other. It doesn’t matter how many years pass, there’s no one else for me. We’re just stuck in really shitty circumstances.”

“That just proves my point. Tell. Her. The. Truth.”

It might be my looming birthday and another year that I’m still alone. Or perhaps, it’s Hannah’s second pregnancy and the realization that I still have a supporting role in her life.

Maybe it’s the women I’ve been spending time with, who will never measure up to the woman I want to be with for the rest of my life. Or, it could just be loneliness coupled with the fear that Victory is going to settle down with someone else.

But Gavin is right.

Whatever it is, I can’t keep putting myself through hell. Even if we have to be together long distance, it’s better than this bullshit. She can have her dream job, and I can have my dream girl. There has to be a way.

---