Play Me: A1pha (Alpha) Part 1

by Blue Ashcroft

  He takes a deep breath, vein pulsing at the side of his head. “What happened last night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did Ethan take advantage of you?” he blurts out.

  “No, what are you talking about?”

  “So you weren’t with him last night?”

  “No, well, I was in his room, but we didn’t do anything,” I say, looking at Lulu to assure her there’s nothing wrong. “And why is it your business? Come on, Ollie, don’t turn into another Alex.”

  “And don’t come back into our lives and expect us not to care about you,” he retorts, emotion welling in his deep-blue eyes.

  “Okay,” I say placatingly. “Thank you for caring, but there’s no need.”

  “Oh yeah? Then why does Ethan have a black eye?”

  “He has a what?”

  “Oh, for…” Ollie grabs my arm and pulls me toward the house.

  Lulu follows us, head cocked in curiosity. “Never a dull moment,” she says lightly.

  Ollie gives her a quick glare but then pulls me inside to a nearby couch and tosses me lightly onto it. “Now talk. I need to know who to beat up.”

  I push myself up into a sitting position, checking the living room for who’s around. No one.

  “There’s not much to say. There was lightning, and I went to the only room with a light on.”

  “And?”

  “And he sort of… tickled me…”

  “Really? Is that all?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Though I did tell him not to.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ollie asks. I can tell from his face that he doesn’t believe me. “Is that why you punched him?”

  My eyes widen. “I didn’t punch him.”

  “So why did he have a shiner when I saw him in the bathroom this morning?”

  “It was Alex. He sort of walked in on us.”

  “Walked in on what?” Ollie narrows his eyes on me. “Alex doesn’t punch people without a darn good reason. Especially his best friend.” He thinks for a moment. “Actually, now that I think about it, he’s probably more likely to punch Ethan than anyone else. But back to the subject…” He waits for me to fill in the blanks.

  “It was a misunderstanding. He was just trying to help me with my fear of lightning.”

  Ollie puts a hand to his forehead and breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, Kira. Sweet, innocent Kira. Do me a favor next time and just come to me.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Oh, ‘cause you’re suddenly Mister Safe and Platonic?” Ethan says, materializing at the entrance to the living room. Ollie was right; he has a faint shiner over one eye, a small scratch beneath it.

  “Safer than you,” Ollie retorts.

  “Oh.” Ethan sneers. “Because if she went to your room in the middle of the night, you’d be a perfect effing angel?”

  “At least I wouldn’t try to take advantage of her.”

  “I didn’t—” Ethan shakes his head. “Why are all of my friends so quick to believe I’m some kind of predator?” He looks over at me. “Tell him, Kira.”

  “Maybe because out of all of us, you’ve been the most cavalier with women,” Ollie retorts.

  “All he did was tickle me.”

  “It’s true,” Alex says in a deadpan voice. He walks past us casually and goes into the kitchen to open the fridge. “I misunderstood. It’s my fault.”

  “What the eff did you punch him for, then?” Ollie asks.

  “I didn’t think about it,” Alex says nonchalantly, pulling milk from the fridge and sniffing it.

  “I drank out of that one,” Ollie says, smirking.

  “Damn,” Alex says, setting the milk on the counter and wrinkling his nose at it in an adorable way.

  “Maybe think before you punch next time,” Ethan mutters.

  “I heard Kira scream. I came into your room and saw her struggling under you.”

  “Bastard,” Ollie growls.

  “It was tickling,” Ethan reminds him, pouting.

  “She was screaming.”

  “As we discussed last night, not all screams are bad, Alex. Right, Ollie?”

  “I still want to slap you,” Ollie mutters, folding his arms.

  “Noted.” Ethan nods. He turns his attention to Alex with a gleam in his eye. “But maybe we’re focusing on the wrong perp.”

  Alex freezes, like a trapped animal about to run.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Ethan says. “I saw you carry her out.”

  “I took her back to her room.”

  “And went in,” Ethan says. Ollie snaps his suspicious gaze toward Alex.

  I put my face in my hands and let out an aggrieved sigh. Men are stupid.

  “We had to talk,” he says in a low voice.

  “So if she’s in my room to talk, you get to punch me. But if you go to her room to talk, that’s totally fine,” Ethan mutters.

  Alex’s patience snaps and he turns, eyes blazing. “If you don’t like how I do things here, you’re welcome to find another place.”

  “Not before I give you a piece of my mind,” Ethan says, taking a step toward Alex.

  “Ooh, kiss,” Lulu whispers quietly, watching them with rapt enjoyment. I guess I can see where she’s coming from, watching the two men step toward each other, testosterone radiating off them in waves.

  Ollie’s look as he turns to her is a mixture of disgust and shock, but she doesn’t notice.

  I jump off the couch to get between them before they can hurt each other, but Ollie grabs me by my shirt and yanks me back easily.

  “Hey…” I say.

  “I’d stay out of it if I were you.”

  “Just stop it, all of you,” I yell at them. They don’t listen. I sit back with a growl. “Obviously me coming here has made things too complicated.”

  “Complicated indeed,” Ollie agrees. “I don’t even know who to punch anymore.”

  “You aren’t helping,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth, keeping my attention on Ethan and Alex, who are still arguing and taking steps closer together. “If you won’t let me do something about it, then you do something.”

  “Sorry, girly, if two stupid dudes want to fight over territory, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Oh, come on… You just don’t want to.”

  “Why choose who to punch when I can just wait for them to punch each other?”

  “Is this a regular occurrence?”

  “Naw, just when a hot chick moves in.” He grins mischievously.

  “Huh?”

  “There’s one of you and three dudes. It’s bound to cause problems.”

  “I can take one,” Lulu offers helpfully.

  “Wouldn’t you rather two of them just made out?” he asks sardonically.

  Lulu flushes but is shameless enough to nod.

  Ollie’s face twists in confusion, and then he shakes it off. “Weirdo.”

  “Proud of it,” Lulu says. “But yeah, I’d take one.”

  “Better figure out if any of them are sane first,” I grumble. “Obviously, these guys need to get out more. Badly.”

  “We have been a little cooped up since…” He trails off.

  “We know about it,” I say.

  He glances at me in surprise. “You do?”

  I point with my thumb at Lulu. “She Googled him.”

  “Oh,” Ollie says, turning his attention back to the fight. Ollie has a nice profile. His brows and lashes are a deep black. His nose is slightly beakish, but it just draws more attention to his amazing lips.

  Alex is now silently glaring at Ethan, while Ethan’s shoving his finger in Alex’s face and yelling animatedly. Ethan better watch it. I can tell from Alex’s stillness that at any moment Ethan could be getting a new shiner to match his other one.

  “This is ludicrous.” I jump off the couch and twist out of Ollie’s reach. I walk to the two men and slap them both lightly on the face simultaneously. They turn to me, shock readily apparent. Ethan puts his
hand up to his cheek. Alex just raises an eyebrow as a small red mark appears on his face.

  “Stop being stupid! You are all my friends! We were a team. Has everyone forgotten that?” I turn to Ollie to include him in my censure. “And if you all keep acting like idiots, then I can’t stay here.”

  “As if you had somewhere to go.” Alex huffs grumpily.

  “I’d find something. I’d rather fly home to my family and live miserably with them than stay here and watch my old friends tear each other apart because of me.” Tears sting my eyes but don’t fall, and I turn my head away from them. I know it’s not only me causing the tension. I know they’ve all been dealing with a lot because of what happened to Alex. Everyone has been slightly helpless. But I can’t help them with that and watch them destroy each other at the same time.

  “I can’t deal with it,” I say as a tear finally falls. Each of the guys looks stricken by it. “And I’ve had enough of violence in the past year.”

  The room goes quiet. It doesn’t even sound like anyone’s breathing.

  When I look back to Ethan and Alex, I see horror and regret plain on Ethan’s face and a subtler version of it on Alex’s. A1pha can feel guilt? Another little miracle.

  “Kira’s right,” Lulu says, stepping behind me and putting an arm around me so I can pull myself together. I give her a grateful smile and she nods and takes over. “Not that I’m not enjoying the display of raging testosterone here, but come on. This is ridiculous. You’re going to fight each other? Isn’t there someone better to fight? How can you even focus on that if you’re busy bitching at each other?”

  They turn to her in shock. Lulu is sometimes inappropriate and a little odd, but never loud, never angry. At least that they’ve seen. But it takes a lot to set her off. “There’s just an astounding amount of selfishness going on here.”

  Ethan opens his mouth wordlessly and then shuts it and pouts.

  “I’ll take Kira back to my place and guard her with a machete before I let you all make her life hell here.”

  “That’s unnecessary,” I mutter to her.

  She shrugs and tosses her blond hair back over her shoulder to face the men again. “Maybe for the sake of roommate peace you should all just back off and give her a little space,” she spits out angrily.

  The guys are standing dead still, as if waiting to see if it’s safe to respond yet.

  “I can do that,” Ethan says sheepishly. “She came to me…”

  “I already planned to give her space,” Ollie says.

  We all turn to Alex, who folds his arms and looks deep in thought.

  “A1pha?” Lulu asks. “How about you?”

  His beautiful green eyes meet mine, an unreadable intensity deep inside them. He’s the one I don’t want space from, but he seems determined to put space between us anyway.

  “Well?” Ollie asks impatiently.

  Alex just exhales a huge breath, like he’s been holding it, then turns on his heel and stalks out of the room. His footsteps thunder up the stairs and then his door slams.

  “So was that a yes or a no?” Ethan asks, turning to us playfully.

  “I think it was an ‘I don’t take orders from anyone but myself,’” Ollie says, grimacing.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Lulu says, grabbing me by the arm. “Let’s get out of here before the raging testosterone lowers our IQs.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m going to the arcade,” Ethan says, striding past us.

  “And just where were you girls planning on going?” Ollie asks.

  “I—” I don’t really have anywhere to go. I’m still wary of going out while I don’t know what Nate’s up to.

  “You wouldn’t go anywhere without us, would you?” Ollie groans.

  “We can go where we want,” Lulu says.

  Ethan stops at the doorway. “Yeah, where are you going?” he asks.

  “We… uhh…” I look at Lulu for help. She shrugs. “We’re going to lunch,” I say.

  “Convincing,” Ollie mutters.

  “Have lunch here,” Ethan says, hand still on the doorknob. “Alex made breakfast. There’s leftovers.”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Good,” Ethan says, grinning at us. “Stay safe, Lotus. I want to continue to get to know you.”

  I have to admit his grin is panty-melting good. At least it would be if my stupid heart wasn’t insisting on Alex.

  Ollie rolls his eyes. “I’m going to take a nap,” he says, striding off to the hallway. “Don’t go anywhere without telling me.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  He sighs. “Honestly, Lo. I know you want to do this on your own. But you gotta let us get at least a little involved.” He grins sardonically. “I mean, we’re practically bored to death here.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I just let him go. He disappears into the hall.

  When we’re alone in the living room, I turn to Lulu and sigh.

  She sighs back. “I take it back. I don’t envy you living here. Assholes. And they don’t even kiss each other.”

  “Um, that’s normal.”

  “Hmph. And did you see Alex just run away like that?”

  “That’s Alex. Does what he wants when he wants.” I shrug.

  “You’re so into him,” she says, narrowing her eyes on me. “Although, from what I can see, you could take your pick.”

  “I think I’ll wait until I know whether I have an insane stalker or not,” I say.

  “So you think there’s a chance he’d just let you go?”

  My chest tightens at the thought. I’m afraid to hope for such a thing. I want to believe he could just move on, but a part of me knows he’s just not that well adjusted.

  So instead of answering Lu’s question, I just go to the kitchen and look in the fridge. I see Tupperwares of eggs and bacon and pull them out. I serve them onto plates and pop them into the microwave one at a time.

  We chat about her nail polish blog as we set the table. She geeks out about nail polish the way I geek out about new expansions for the games I like.

  She takes a bite and moans. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He can cook too?”

  I taste it and gasp at the flavors exploding over my tongue. The onions, peppers, and cheese are in perfect proportion and cooked to fluffy flawlessness. They melt away in my mouth.

  “That’s not even fair,” she says with another moan. “If you decide he’s not fixable, can I have him?”

  I frown.

  “I guess not.”

  “I mean, it’s not for me to say. It’s not like I have him.”

  “But it still bothers you to think of him with someone else?”

  I’m about to retort when I notice the small smile on her face as she chews. She’s teasing me.

  “I’m not answering that,” I say stubbornly.

  “But he carried you to your bedroom last night?”

  “Yeah,” I say, stabbing the eggs with my fork. “And we fought.”

  “Judging by your red face, that’s not all you did.”

  “I just… I can’t even describe it. It was that intense.”

  “Oh, man,” she says. “I’m so unbelievably jealous. I always thought there was something between you two.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what do you want to do for the rest of the day? Want to go try and get your car from Nate?”

  I sigh. “I do, but it’s exactly the type of thing the guys were warning me against.”

  “Right,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Because we always do what they say.”

  “It’s not that. It’s probably not safe. I do really want my car, but I guess I can wait.” I stab around at the eggs on my plate. “It’s just hard for me. Not having a car sucks. It feels like not having feet. I hate having to ask for rides.”

  “Well, you have me to drive you whenever you want. Fall semester doesn’t start for another couple weeks.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “And I
’ll go with you to Nate’s whenever you want. I can handle him.”

  I just smile because I would never let her. The truth is I don’t know what I’ll do when Nate finds me. I don’t know how the guys would react. How I’d react. I came here to be safe, but could I be safe if it meant putting them all in danger? They’re strong, but Nate’s crazy.

  “I think I’ll just take a nap for now,” I say, standing and taking our plates to the sink. The sunlight is still shining through the windows, but it’s becoming less bright as the afternoon wanes.

  “Are you sure? You want me to stay?”

  “No,” I say, rinsing the plates. “I’m sure you have stuff to do today. You’re job hunting, right?”

  “Yeah, but there’s no real rush. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “Are you kidding? This is fun for me.”

  “Well, we can have fun for the next week. Then I start work for Alex.” I mock pout.

  “What, like his PR rep?”

  “Maybe, or his assistant.

  “Wow,” she says. “Sounds like a sweet gig.”

  I shrug. “Could be. Or it could be hell.” I put the dishes on the dry rack to give Lulu a hug and walk her outside. After she gets in the car and drives away, I watch the street for a moment.

  A flash of silver down the road on the other side catches my eye, and for a split second, I see a dark-haired man beside it. Muscular, curly hair. My heart jumps.

  Nate.

  Chapter 12

  I run back to the house, stumbling over the front walk to yank open the front door. When I’m inside, I flip around, shove the door shut, and lock it. I lean against it for a moment, taking a few deep breaths while I decide what to do next. Lightning has nothing on the fear just the sight of Nate can cause in me. Did I even see him? Did I freak out over nothing?

  I push off the door and take a couple steps backward, as if I’m not sure whether the door can keep him out, and then flee into the hall, grabbing the banister to pull my way up the stairs. By the time I reach the top, huffing and breathing heavily, my heart feels like it’s pounding out of my chest, and I slump on the carpet in front of Alex’s door.

  It opens.

  “Kira?” Alex’s stern voice asks. “What are you doing?”