Play Me: A1pha (Alpha) Part 1

by Blue Ashcroft

  By the time I get downstairs, Lulu has already been let in and is waiting on the couch. She’s wearing a pink tunic-length tee over bright floral leggings and has her long blond hair in a braid that accentuates the small pink highlights. Her glasses frames are pink as well. We grin at each other in greeting.

  She jingles her keys at me. “Want to go out?”

  I’m about to say yes, but then I pass the kitchen and feel a pair of eyes on me. I turn to see Alex standing by the fridge, glaring. Waiting to see if I’ll dare to defy him.

  I’m tempted to tell Lulu I’ll go, just to see his face. But it’s safest to just stay here and I’d rather be safe than do something stupid just to set him off again.

  “No, let’s just go talk outside,” I say. “It’s a nice day.”

  Alex turns back to what he’s doing and Lulu raises an eyebrow.

  “It’s fine just staying outside? Like on the grass? What if Nate comes by?”

  “Even Nate isn’t going to try to pull up in broad daylight.”

  “I hope not,” she says hesitantly. She leans forward, eyes focused on Alex in the kitchen. Reassured that I’m not breaking his rules, he’s now turned his glare on a jug of milk, probably trying to deduce if any of the roommates have drunk straight from it.

  “What’s going on there?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows at me mischievously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something’s definitely up,” she murmurs, gray eyes glowing. “I saw the way he looked at you when you came down. And then there’s the way he’s trying so hard not to look at you now.” Her tone is sardonic.

  I can feel a flush creeping up my face. “It’s nothing,” I mutter a little too quickly.

  “Oh my gosh, something happened. You are going to tell me what happened, and you are going to tell me right now. I won’t take no for an—”

  “Shh,” I say, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Let’s talk about it outside.” I throw a meaningful nod in Alex’s direction.

  “Oh right,” she mumbles behind my hand. “Sounds good.”

  Alex is now turned toward us, holding the milk and giving us a confused, irritated stare.

  Lulu giggles as I remove my hand, and I stifle a laugh of my own as I push her in front of me out the door. We both go out into the sunshine, throwing our heads back to enjoy the warmth.

  “Beautiful day,” I say.

  “So gorgeous,” she says, sparkling back at me. “Man, I’ve missed the drama of having your dude crew around.”

  “Drama?”

  “You know. Most girls would love to hang out with those guys.”

  “Err… most girls don’t know them.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “So you don’t like it?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I say, sitting on the grass and wincing because it’s a bit damp. “It’s wet,” I say, frowning up at her.

  “That’s okay,” she says, sitting beside me and bumping me with her shoulder. “That’s what washing machines are for.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Speaking of which, now that you live in a house with washing machines, can I use them?”

  The apartment I used to share with Lulu doesn’t have laundry facilities. We always had to trek to a sketchy laundromat downtown.

  “Sure. Well, I’ll ask Alex. Honestly, dealing with him might not be worth the savings.”

  She grimaces. “Trust me, it’s worth it. The laundromat’s even grosser now.”

  “As long as you don’t mind Ethan possibly messing with your laundry.”

  She blinks. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I say, deciding it’s best to let her keep her rose-colored glasses about the guys for as long as possible. “So what have you been up to lately?”

  She sighs. “Boring. But fine. Not much. I graduated. My parents are paying the bills while I look for a job.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Something in programming probably, while I look into master’s programs.”

  Lulu and I both graduated early from high school, but I’m still surprised by the speed at which she plowed through her Bachelor’s degree.

  “Think you’ll do one?”

  “Maybe. But honestly, you’re boring me to death making me talk about myself. You live with three hot dudes, and Alex Dumont looks like he just wants to eat you up.”

  I swallow. “Oh. It’s not that interesting.”

  “Tell me what happened last night. Did passion explode between you as the tension of the past just couldn’t be contained?”

  “Not exactly,” I say. “It’s only been a couple days.”

  “After years of pent-up frustration.”

  “I don’t know about that, exactly.”

  “He looks like he wants to eat you up,” she insists, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them intently. “I stand by that.”

  I sigh. “According to him, he doesn’t want to eat me up.”

  “Dang, straight from the horse’s mouth?” she asks.

  “Yup.”

  “Boo. I don’t believe him.”

  “I don’t either,” I say, leaning back on my hands. “I mean, it’s like he says he doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want me to be with anyone else either. Mixed messages.”

  “There are a lot of women who would like any kind of message from him,” she says, giving me a subtly mischievous grin.

  “What?” I ask, studying her suspiciously. “You Googled him, didn’t you?”

  She has the sense to look guilty. “Come on, he doesn’t talk to me. Like I was going to find out from him directly.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I say, looking stubbornly ahead. Not unlike Alex when he’s trying to avoid something.

  “Not even if he was a pro gamer with tons of fans?”

  “What?” I ask, trying to hide my shock. “Really?”

  “Yup.”

  “A1pha, super hot gamer, started on the scene a year ago, took the championship for Thunder. Didn’t know the game, but I looked it up.”

  “Ah, that makes sense,” I say. Thunder is a quick trigger shooter where perfect reflexes would definitely stand out. And Alex has those in spades. “And women are into him?” I ask, feeling a little sick at the thought of it. He was mine before any of them knew about him. Sort of.

  “It doesn’t hurt that he’s a newly minted billionaire,” she says.

  “What?” My body goes hollow in shock. “What the what?”

  “Billionaire. That’s what the fan stuff says.”

  “But gaming doesn’t make you a billionaire. Gaming doesn’t… even if he has merchandise, even if he streams.”

  “Streams?”

  “Plays online and streams it for people to watch.”

  “Oh.”

  “But even then, he wouldn’t… He couldn’t.”

  “Hm, another secret, then?” she asks, pulling out her phone and swiping to unlock it. “A little stalking should clear this right up.”

  “Stop it,” I hiss, blushing. “This is invasion of privacy.”

  “Not if it’s on the interwebs,” she hisses back.

  “Not when he’s our friend.”

  “Your friend,” she says flippantly. “I barely know him. This is the only way I’m going to find out anything about…” She trails off, her face falling. She goes visibly paler, and she’s pale to start with.

  “Lulu? What is it?”

  She opens her mouth wordlessly and then closes it.

  Chapter 10

  “What. Is. It?” I put a hand on either side of her head and pull her to face me. “Why do you look so sick?”

  “I…” She holds out her phone, then pulls it back and hides it against her chest. “You were right. I shouldn’t have looked it up. You should ask him.”

  “I have,” I say. “But he won’t tell me.”

  She opens her mouth wordlessly and then shakes her head. “Well, I have no idea where to go from here.” She looks out into the dis
tance, not focused on anything. Her normally sunny disposition has turned cloudy. “I’m a douche for even talking about the gaming or the money. But I mean, I don’t know him like you do. If I feel this bad, you’re going to feel…”

  “Super crappy?”

  She gulps. “Real bad.”

  “Oh, come on, Lulu,” I say, my impulsivity getting the best of me. I did want Alex to tell me on his own. I didn’t want to learn through Google, but now that Lulu knows and has that terrible look on her face, I’m going to be guessing what it is anyway.

  And besides, it can’t be as bad as Lulu is making it out to be. She has a flare for the dramatic. That’s part of why I love her. I reach for the phone, and she hesitates, then gives it to me, expression dark and sour.

  I flip it around so I can read it. As my eyes focus in on the words, struggling to put it all together, struggling to make it clear, a strong sense of foreboding shoots through me. Shock rises around me like water. I’m going to drown in it.

  Looking at the story, it’s an inappropriate metaphor. I drop her phone on the ground.

  Lulu was definitely not being dramatic this time. If anything, she was downplaying it.

  Alex Dumont has every right to hate me, and my heart is breaking not knowing if there’s any way I can ever make things right for him.

  The headline of the internet article flashes up at me for a moment before the screen saver comes on.

  “Billionaire and family lost at sea. Remaining son inherits entire Dumont empire.”

  “His family. His family died?” I choke out desperately from vocal chords that don’t seem to work anymore.

  Lulu picks up the phone silently.

  “And… I wasn’t there?” I shake my head. “But how could I have known?”

  “That’s the thing,” Lulu says, flicking a few times on her screen and then holding it up to me. “Everyone knew.”

  On the screen in front of me are dozens of links with links to hundreds more. I click one and see Alex’s face, harried and harassed in paparazzi photos. The Dumont name splashed everywhere. At least it seems to have stayed somewhat separate from his identity as A1pha, though just the billionaire part seems to have leaked through.

  No wonder the mansion out here away from everything. No wonder the secrecy.

  “Everyone else hunted him, but I abandoned him,” I say. “I didn’t say anything. Not once. And I was his best friend.” Horror washes over me in waves. It’s endless. “Knowing that, I feel like such an ass. But I can honestly say I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t know either,” she says quietly.

  “That makes me feel slightly better,” I mumble.

  “We’re both assholes.”

  “No, we’re both people who don’t read the news and don’t follow celebrities. Or talk to our friends…” Guilt curdles in my stomach like sour milk.

  “And you never knew his family was rich?” she asks disbelievingly.

  I shake my head. “No, he lived so normally. Well, there was one hint in a whole two years. When we were on the porch one time, he said he didn’t have to worry about money. I thought he meant because of his future job in engineering.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I would have thought.” Lulu sighs and stares forward. She turns to me with wide eyes. “But with something this huge, why wouldn’t he have said anything?”

  “Like what?” I ask. “Hey, asshole, my parents are dead. Don’t you want to at least give your condolences before begging to move into the mansion that I have because they’re gone?’”

  “Not that exactly, but he could have said something.”

  “My guess is that he doesn’t want to talk about it. None of the boys will either. Probably after being stalked and forced to talk about it for months, he’s done talking. Plus, he was convinced I already knew and was just pretending so I could feign innocence.”

  “He should know you better.”

  “The old Alex did. This one has changed. And now I know why. Sometimes I still see the old Alex in him, and that breaks my heart. But the new one, I don’t know how to get through to him. How to help him. Not when he’s so mad at me.”

  I pull in my legs and rest my head on my knees. My heart thuds painfully in my chest. I’m no expert about grief. Aside from my dad walking out on us, I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close to you. Was Alex even close to his parents? He never spoke about them. I knew he’d come here to school from out of town, but he never gave more information about where he was from or who his family was.

  Now I know why. They were rich and famous and he didn’t want anything to do with that. Now it’s on him whether he likes it or not. How does he feel about that?

  “Dang it.” I swipe at a tear that’s threatening to escape one eye. “Life is freakin’ sad sometimes.”

  “You really care for him, don’t you?”

  “I always have,” I say, sniffing. “I never stopped, even when we were apart.”

  “But could you really have been there, even if you wanted to?”

  “I would have done something,” I say, wiping away another tear. I’m so selfish. Crying for Alex now when there’s nothing I can do for him.

  She shrugs. “Maybe you should talk to him. You know, a real talk. Not a fight where he ends up carrying you around.”

  I laugh and wipe away the last of the tears. “Funny thing, that happened again last night.”

  She smiles softly and nudges me with her shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I watch the breeze hassle the perfectly landscaped yards across the street. The whole neighborhood is something out of a magazine. But it smells amazing out here, like grass and flowers, not pollution and decay. I could get used to living like a rich person.

  But not at the cost Alex paid.

  “What are you thinking now?” she asks, interrupting my reverie.

  I sigh, brought back to the painful present. “It’s just a shock. It’s still setting in.”

  She lets out her breath in a huff and reaches forward, wrapping an arm around my back to pull me against her. I’m around the same height as her but curvy where she’s lanky. I sigh and let her comfort me, though I don’t deserve it.

  And who’s comforting Alex? Up there alone in his mansion with a couple dudes that pity him but don’t possibly have the emotional intelligence to help him the way he needs. They aren’t exactly going to hold his hand and walk him through it.

  I want to walk him through it.

  “You know, Kira,” Lulu says, stroking my hair. “No one is perfect all the time. Most of us are barely passable as people. We’re all going to mess up. What matters is what we do about it.”

  “And what do I do about this?”

  “I think you should take Alex’s lead. It’s been a year. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s his choice. I mean, you could give your condolences, maybe apologize, but don’t make it your life.”

  “I don’t have much of a life now, anyway,” I say.

  “You graduated, right?”

  “Yeah, mid-summer, after spring term.”

  “In psych?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still want to go to law school?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Actually, I’m going to work for Alex for a while, apparently.”

  She laughs and swats the grass in front of us. “So forceful.”

  “Yup,” I say.

  “I don’t think he wants to wallow in it. I don’t think he wants you to either. Let him take the lead. Be his friend. Let him show you what he needs.”

  “He doesn’t think he needs anyone,” I say, frustrated.

  “Then let him be needed,” she says, giving me a frank stare. “Maybe that’s the best thing you could do.”

  I nod silently, staring out at the road.

  “And frankly, it’d be good for you too, since you do actually need him anyway.”

  I nod begrudgingly. “It seems counterintuitive, letting him help with my problem when all I want
to do is help with his.”

  “Sometimes the best way to help someone forget their troubles is to let them help you.”

  I nod, aware that perhaps I’ve been focused on what’s wrong with Alex so I didn’t have to think about the problems in my own life.

  “Well,” she says, giving me another squeeze around the shoulders. “As sad as this all is, I’m glad it’s out in the open. How about you?”

  “I still feel vaguely shattered,” I mutter. But then she elbows me and I laugh. “But you’re right. The truth is out, and the truth is always powerful.”

  “Right,” she says. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “Get my life on track,” I say resolutely. “Keep Nate away until I figure out how to deal with him.”

  “And?”

  “And fix things with Alex Dumont.”

  She grins. “Sounds good. Room for conventions with your friend Lulu in there?”

  “Ha, there’s room for you everywhere. Those are the things I’m going to do. I didn’t say who I was going to do them with. Or what I was going to do for fun in between all of that.”

  “Oh, good,” she says, smiling. “I was worried you were going to leave me out of all the fun times.”

  “Oh yeah, all fun times, straight ahead,” I say sarcastically. She meets my eyes and we both laugh, only slightly hysterically.

  “I do like a good adventure.”

  “It’ll be that. Might not always be that safe, though. You’d probably be safer not hanging around me until this all blows over.”

  “Safe is boring,” she says, and we stare at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter again.

  The front door opens and slams shut, and Lulu and I stop laughing and whip our heads around to see Ollie, red faced and angry, storming down the front walkway. His dark hair swishes across his face as he stomps toward us.

  He stops with a huff, folding his arms and fixing us with an intense glare. Ollie’s usually the charming and calm one, but he can still get angry, like anyone else.

  “We need to talk,” he grates out, running a hand through his inky black hair. “Now.”

  Chapter 11

  Ollie’s awful, pink button-up ripples with the wind and highlights his lean beauty.

  “What on Earth is wrong?” I ask, standing and brushing grass off of my butt and reaching a hand down to Lulu.