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“Yeah, me neither. Until Luke. He was such a dork up until the last couple years of high school. Then, suddenly, he decided he didn’t want to be like everyone else after all. It was like a switch flipped overnight. He went from this geeky kid who wanted to study theoretical physics and had zero real friends outside of home, to a track star who made friends with literally everyone he met.”
“Oh, wow. That must have been something to see.”
“It was. My parents were proud of him. I was worried, but he was still Luke. He was just a bit cockier, and a bit more physically fit. He studied less and ended up applying to sports management courses instead of science at college.”
“Did you ask him what made him decide to accept being an Alpha, instead of continuing pretending to be a Beta?”
“I tried to talk to him a couple times, but he brushed it off. He made jokes that I was jealous.”
“Ouch. Sorry, that sucks.”
I shrug. “We’re both Alphas. Sometimes that can breed competition. I didn’t feel that way, but he did, which I turned a blind eye to because it felt easier. He showed his true colors the day I brought home my college girlfriend. We’d been together for close to two years. She was my first love.”
“I don’t think I like where this is headed,” Sapphire admits.
“You and me both,” I mutter. “It was Thanksgiving. My dad sent me out for a case of beer, because I was the only sober one. Luke was acting like a dickhead, and I didn’t want to leave Amy there, but she insisted it was fine.”
My knuckles go white as I grip the wheel tighter.
Just thinking about what Luke did makes me so fucking angry.
I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“It wasn’t fine. I ended up getting caught in traffic coming back to the house. I was gone for more than an hour. When I got back, my mom was in the kitchen working on dinner, my dad was trying to fix the TV reception for some stupid special that was coming on, and I couldn’t find Amy or Luke. At least, not downstairs.”
“Oh no,” Sapphire murmurs.
“I found them upstairs. Fucking in my old bedroom. It was the worst night of my life.”
“That’s awful. What did you do?”
“I left the room, stood in the hall for a minute to pull myself together. I tried to find a reason for it, something that made sense, but there wasn’t one. I went back in and asked what the hell they thought they were doing.”
She gasps. “Oh God, you went back in? I could never.”
“Believe me, I wish I hadn’t.”
The smirk Luke gave me when he looked back at me, not stopping, not even slowing down, that fucking killed me. It told me he didn’t give a shit. That what he was doing meant nothing.
“Amy was drunk. She let him mark her.”
“She didn’t!”
“Unfortunately, she did.” I let out a sigh. “That was the end of us. We both knew that without having to say it. She moved out of my apartment when we got home. Packed up, said sorry and left. I tried to speak to her a couple days later, to make sure she was okay. She wasn’t, but nothing I could say or do was going to help. You want to know the worst part?”
“No,” Sapphire says, her gaze sad when I look at her.
“You don’t?”
“I like happy endings,” she admits, giving me a rueful smile.
“Me too,” I tell her, with a laugh. “But don’t worry. We’ll still get one of those. Together.”
She smiles, and I’m reminded that all that shit with my brother might as well have happened a lifetime ago.
I’m over losing Amy. I would have lost her sometime. She didn’t really want me.
“Amy just wanted an Alpha to mark her,” I finish. “I realized that later. She was fixated on it, thinking it would mean forever. Luke showed her it doesn’t have to mean anything. He’s an asshole. He’s not the brother I grew up with.”
