Page 16 of Broken Alpha

“Try it,” he said, picking up one of the pieces with his child-sticks and cupping a hand under it to catch anything that may fall.

I looked at him curiously before leaning in and taking the item into my mouth. My brain couldn’t make sense of what I was eating. First, the yellow product was cold, while the rice was warm. It had a spongy yet fluffy texture, its sweet flavor enhanced by the eel sauce, and yet the flavor was also familiar in a way I couldn’t place.

“Like it?” he asked hesitantly. I nodded, looking around for more and seeing that it was a ways off. I’d make sure to graba plate when it came back around. “It’s Tomago. Basically, it's a Japanese rolled sweet omelet. Every place makes it slightly different, but it’s just seasoned beaten egg. My favorite kind is made with sake. It’s one of my favorite things to get when I get sushi, even though it’s not actually sushi. I attempted to make it at home a few times but always failed, so I gave up. If I can find blocks of it at Asian-international markets, I’ll snag a few blocks and force myself to cut it up so that I’m not just munching into it. Erik leaves them alone because he thinks it’s cheese, and he’s lactose intolerant.”

While I know Harllow didn’t stand a chance, not with me in the picture, I still didn’t like the idea that someone living with Aidyn was also in love with him and could only smile as Aidyn mentioned his roommate. I wonder if Aidyn knew how Harllow felt, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask because, honestly, I didn’t want to know the answer. But at the same time, Aidyn was here with me, so the answer was meaningless.

When our stomachs had become exotic aquariums and were too full to add more, we stacked our plates up by color, ranging from least expensive to most expensive according to the charts they had posted, and I paid the bill before Aidyn had a chance to reach for the clipboard. He wrinkled his nose at me, and I smirked as I signed the receipt, and we left the restaurant.

The sun was beginning to set as we made our way back to the car, painting the sky in shades of purples, pinks, and oranges. Unlocking the back driver-side door, I grabbed the bouquet I had picked up earlier, instantly nervous as I awkwardly handed them to Aidyn. Growing up, my parents always told me to bring flowers to the person you were interested in, and I had debated a great deal on whether or not I should purchase them. Aidyn stared at the flowers as he got into the passenger seat. They weren’t anything special, just a mixture of white flowers that I didn’t know the name of, with a few blue daisies placed for a popof color. Moving to the driver’s seat, my brain was rather unkind to me, insisting that he hated them and that it was weird to give another man flowers.

“It’s okay if you hate them. I didn’t know if you liked —”

“I once read that the only time a man receives flowers is at his funeral, and they don’t even get to enjoy them. I remember thinking how accurate and depressing that statement was, having never received flowers myself. Men don’t really give each other flowers, so I simply wasn’t expecting them. They’re beautiful.” He reached for a daisy, pulling it out by the stem and breaking off a part to shorten it before tucking it behind his left ear and smiling at me. “Blue daisies are actually my favorite flower. Thank you.”

“You look beautiful,” I said softly, touching the petals lightly to avoid ruining them. My heart swelled with affection as he blushed at my compliment. I loved watching him react to me as if no one had complimented him or cherished him before. “B or C?”

“What?” Aidyn asked, suddenly confused.

“Pick a letter. B or C.”

“B?”

“B it is!” I grinned at him before pulling out of the restaurant parking lot, ignoring the curious and confused look Aidyn gave me. I was having fun. Maybe a little too much fun, but it’s been amazing. I enjoyed planning out the date locations and being with him. We didn’t have to worry about anyone knocking on my office door or Harllow coming home early and catching us. I got to be in the moment with someone I liked and felt like my heart would burst from overjoyment.

Pulling into the bookstore parking lot, I checked the time on my watch to ensure they didn’t close soon before stepping out of the car. Aidyn was already out of the car again before I couldopen the door for him, but he moved to my side, sliding his hand into mine.

“B for Bookstore. Clever. What was C?”

“Cat Cafe.” I smiled. “I love animals, and I thought it would be fun to pet cats and drink coffee after dinner.”

“Either way, I would’ve walked out with something. This way, we didn’t have to make any unplanned stops for pet supplies.”

A deep laugh rumbled through me, briefly picturing what it would be like to raise a cat with Aidyn. The images brought on an odd warmth that blossomed through my chest, and I had to shake it from my mind as we entered the bookstore. As children, we grew up being told to whisper in libraries, and I feel this carried over to bookstores as well, noise dampened by the pages of books. As long as you’re not being obnoxious, you can talk at a normal volume level, but you forget that when you see how quiet bookstores are. You feel you have to whisper.

“Alright,” I said, looking at him. “I assumed the books in your apartment belonged to you, so I thought we could come here. But the idea was, I could pick a book out for you, and you pick a book out for me.”

Aidyn’s eyes brightened at the idea. “But what if I pick something you hate?”

“Judging by your bookshelf, that’s not possible. But if you do, I’ll still love it because you picked it out. I have no trigger warnings to avoid, and I read everything.”

“Same, but I am a sucker for a good dark romance. No triggers here either.”

“Sounds good. Let’s meet at the register in twenty minutes?” I suggested.

He smiled. “Make it thirty. I want to take my time.”

Before he could run off among the stacks, I stepped into his space, lifting his face to mine. I couldn’t resist the urge to scent mark him, dragging my nose along his cheek, down his neck, anddown into his hair. The scents of the forest mixing with the daisy in his hair caused my Alpha to release a pleased sound from low in my chest. Somewhere along the way, my eyes had closed, and I opened them to find Aidyn had closed his as well, enjoying my marking. With his eyes still closed, I leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on his soft pink lips before stepping away. He opened his eyes, slightly unfocused as he glanced at me, and I headed for the romance stacks with a wink.

Over the past few years, the romance genre had blossomed, making other sections a little smaller so that romance could take over. Despite this, outside of Pride Month, when certain titles were pulled from the shelves to display, it was rather hard to find gay romance readily available. Not to say I read only gay romances, but it was something I easily identified with and enjoyed the romances that I never thought I’d have. It was a way for me to explore my sexuality. I never feared coming out to my parents. Bringing home a man was treated the same way as if I had brought home a woman. However, I was forced to have a conversation with my parents upon entering adulthood, that it was expected of me to set aside my preferences for the sake of duty. Male Omegas were rare, and in our social circle worthy of my parents’ status, they were practically nonexistent.

Glancing up to search for Aidyn, I located him by the blue daisy still tucked behind his ear as he wove through the fiction shelves. We had known each other less than a month, and I felt like I had known him my whole life, as if I had been waiting for him. Internally, things were progressing quickly for me, yet something was drawing me toward him. When we were apart, it felt like there was something missing inside me. But I was also afraid. Of him, of myself. He had the power to destroy me, and I was often irrational and obsessed with him, so I wondered if I was going insane. My Alpha was sure he was ours, our mate, our everything. My Alpha cared little about the timing and pace of arelationship, eager to mark him, form a Mates Bond with him, and tie us together for the rest of our lives. My Alpha was ready for that bond the moment Aidyn stepped into my classroom.

But what if he didn’t feel the same way I did? What if these feelings were one-sided? He mentioned he was worried about rushing us, but that didn’t quite mean he felt the same way I did. My parents wouldn’t accept him. Keller wasn’t a name I had grown up hearing, so I knew he didn’t run in the same circles we did. The size of his apartment, with the addition of a roommate, meant that wealth wasn’t in his background, unless they didn’t want to offer too much financial support. But none of those things mattered to me. I love him for who he is, but I knew telling my parents that I might’ve found a partner would be a pain in the ass. I didn’t need them to like it, just to accept that I can make my own choice.

Shaking away my thoughts, I return to the books before me. Instead of just pulling the books out to look at them, I tilted my head, straining to see the titles as if that was easier. If a title catches my attention, I’ll pull out the book anyway, checking out the cover before reading the description. Some people have said not to judge a book by a cover, but it’s a window into that world. However, I personally will pass on a book due to character names. I once found a book where the love interest was a man named Jason who was enraptured by his best friend, Teagan, and I couldn’t help but gag at the thought. Not interested in the trauma that would be handed to me by two characters sharing the same name as my dad and sister.

The title caught my eye first, but it was the cover that kept my attention once I extracted it from the shelf. A shirtless male surrounded by pine trees covered in fog stared back at me, the faint outline of a wolf's paw print in the background. It was dark blue with the title ‘Fated Alpha’ in scripted font. It appeared to be a wolf shifter romance about a lower member being kickedout of her pack for refusing the advances of her pack leader and running into another pack that was traveling through the state. The summary alluded to some big secret the visiting pack was hiding and if the female main character could handle it while things heated up between her and the leader of the visiting pack. While I thought Aidyn would devour this, I wanted to double-check if the book was part of a series. The only trigger I truly had was that I hated books ending on cliffhangers, so I always double-checked in case I needed to grab the second book. Pulling out my phone, I entered the book's title into the search bar. The reader community never fails to let me down, and I instantly found that it did not end on a cliffhanger and that there were also several spicy scenes that readers went crazy for. Apparently, the visiting pack leader was ‘amazing and a big cinnamon roll’ in regards to the main female lead. However, another tag caught my eye as I was about to put my phone away.

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