Page 36 of The Alpha Experiment
“Jesus, man.” I dropped down next to him on the couch and nearly fell through the cushions. Yet another reason why I needed fame and fortune. “Would it be too much effort to try to sound a tiny bit happy for me? This is everything I’ve been working for. I mean, the circumstances could be better—”
“You think? Maybe the blackmail and the totally screwed-up self-experimentation and the pretending to get mated by a guy when you’re straight aren’t super fucking ideal?”
That left me speechless.
Colin sat silent for a long minute, drinking most of his beer at one go and setting the bottle down on the table with a loud clunk.
He turned to me, looking as serious as I’d ever seen him. “Look, I was thinking about it on the way home and while you were in the shower. Thinking about a lot of things, and maybe not liking a lot of it.” Hehadbeen incredibly quiet, and weirdly subdued. I’d thought that was just him being tactful, or maybe feeling guilty, but apparently not. “It’s not just the blackmail and the—whatever else. I know this is your life’s work. And I think it’s really cool what you’re doing—in general, Newt, in the lab. But not this. Trying to change yourself? I don’t get it. And I really don’t fucking like it.”
“We’ve been over this!” I lost my grip on what was left of my temper and slammed my own beer down on the table, a few drops flying out the top. “You’realready an alpha werewolf, Colin! Why the hell would youneedto change yourself?”
“And why the hell doyou?” he shot back. “What’s so wrong with you, just the way you are? What’s so damn great about being an alpha werewolf, anyway?”
“I’m not what I should have been, and I’m sick of being the only one who’s boring and plain and weak! You’re not any of those things, andthat’swhat’s so great about being a goddamn alpha werewolf.” The words felt like they’d been wrenched out of my chest, leaving me raw and aching. “I finally, finally, maybe have a chance to make a real breakthrough here. I felt something! And you’re acting like it’s a bad thing. You don’t get it? I don’t get you!”
Colin took a deep breath, blowing it out long and slow, the tension in his body easing.
Like he was doing it on purpose, so that he didn’t blow up at me.
Atme. WhenIwas the one with a grievance here!
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly. Very quietly, like he was carefully keeping himself in check. “You don’t understand me at all if you don’t understand why this bothers me so much. You’re not boring. You’re my favorite person in the world to hang out with, Newt. You always make me laugh. You’re so much smarter than I am. And you’re not—I mean, like, I’m not the best judge of what guys look like. But you’re not plain. Or weak. How many times have you propped me up when I needed you?”
My eyes started stinging. Probably all the dust I’d gotten in them rolling around on the ground earlier, but dammit.
You’re my favorite person in the world to hang out with.
If I wiped at my eyes, then I’d really look weak.
“Not that often, lately,” I got out, without sounding too choked up. Mostly.
Colin’s hand twitched, almost landing on my knee. He pulled it back. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to be a burden, you know? You feel bad about me being away from my pack for so long. But I didn’t want to—what kind of pack leader would I be, and what kind of friend would I be, if I called you every night whining about my problems and asking for your advice, right? When you have shit of your own to deal with.”
“I would’ve answered the phone every night, Col.”
His eyes lit with something that warmed me all the way down to my toes. “Yeah, I know,” he said softly. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Then help me see this through, okay? You’re here, and you’re the only one who can help me. And aside from the fact that I can’t think of a good way out of the corner I’m painted into right now, I really want this.” Colin opened his mouth, and I shook my head at him to stop him from saying whatever it was. “I know you don’t like it. And I’m—thanks, okay? Thank you for thinking all that about me. But I want to do this. And it’s not just for me, either. It really is for science. This is the closest I’ve come to a real breakthrough, ever.”
“Is it a breakthrough, though? If you can’t—I mean, aren’t experiments supposed to be something you can do again?”
I hid a wince. Yes, that was definitely a flaw in the whole plan, and made my ‘it’s not for me, it’s for scientific progress’ argument a lot weaker. But I’d thought about that, too.
“Yes, they should be reproducible. But the data I collect will allow me to do some work in a laboratory setting later, and possibly lead to an experimental model with ethically reproducible results. I just wish I’d drawn some blood earlier today, instead of when I got home. I didn’t think of having a kit with me. So stupid. I’ll have to make sure to have it along next time.”
Colin’s exaggerated look of horror nearly made me laugh. “Draw some blood? Yourownblood?That’swhat you were doing in the bathroom?”
“Well—yeah. I mean, if I want to test for the presence of elevated hormone levels—”
“Okay, okay, I give,” Colin said. “Fine. If you’re willing to draw your own blood in your bathroom, not to mention a forest, you’re serious about the science. I’ll help you. I think. But I’m still a little worried about what the fuck you meant by ‘push the experiment to the next level,’ dude.”
Aaand here it came. The sticking point.
I looked down at the coffee table. Picked up my abandoned beer, drank some, put the bottle back down. Turned the bottle.
“Newt. Sometime this fucking year. Before I start thinking you’re going to want to actually mate, you know, for science.” He let out an uncomfortable-sounding laugh.
I found the courage to look up at him, to meet his eyes. I knew he wouldn’t be thrilled about this, but—we were intimate in every other way, weren’t we? It might be a little awkward, but it didn’t need to be worse than that. We were friends, we’d be doing it because it was the next logical step in my experiment. It didn’t need to mean anything more than that, and surely we’d be able to shrug it off, have a drink, and laugh about it later.
