Page 8 of The Alpha Experiment
I loved Fiona, but man. She was a handful.
“I will,” Mom said. “I’ll call her in a minute and tell her to get packed up.”
My heart sank when my dad added, “And you and Colin can pick her up on your way home.”
“Ourway home?” It burst out of me, a little too loudly. “I’m not coming home!”
Not that I didn’t want to take care of Fiona, keep her safe, but…home? Packed in like sardines with everyone in the family? I had exams to write. Exams to administer, and then grade. I had a life with real responsibilities, and thinking about running home with my tail between my legs and throwing all that to the winds made me hyperventilate more than the stalker’s photos.
“The hell you’re not.” Dad. Using his I’m-the-patriarch-and-you’ll-listen-or-else voice, the one he’d busted out a lot when Evan and I were teenagers. “You’re going to come home and stay here until this is resolved.”
“I’ll go with Newt to get Fiona,” Colin volunteered, butting right in before I could start arguing. I glared at him, and he raised an eyebrow.Don’t be an asshole, Newt. I deflated, feeling like crap in the face of Colin’s helpful kindness, especially when he’d just cut off what could’ve devolved into a shouting match none of us needed. Jesus. He was doing this forme. Wasn’t he? I mean, he liked Fiona, too. He’d known her since we were all kids. And who wouldn’t like the gorgeous alpha she’d grown into? “As long as Stephanie calls her first and makes sure she’s convinced. I’m not going to carry her out of her dorm kicking and screaming. Getting arrested for kidnapping isn’t on my list for this weekend.”
“She’s probably just as safe in her dorm for tonight, actually,” I put in, hoping it didn’t sound too desperate. “And if someone’s watching, it might be better not to do anything drastic in the middle of the night.”
“They’ve sent the photos, Newton,” Dad said heavily. “Of course there’s going to be a reaction.”
Well, okay, fair point. I really didn’t think Fiona was in any danger in her dorm room, and I really,reallydidn’t want to be crammed into Colin’s car with the two of them for an hour plus. Fiona was such a flirt. An overbearing flirt. I didn’t want Colin to have to deal with fending her off. And she’d be complaining the whole way, on top of it.
But okay, fair point.
“I’ll call her right now and tell her you’re on your way. And thank you, Colin,” Mom said. There was rustling and footsteps in the background, as she presumably grabbed her own phone and left the room.
“You’re coming home too, Newton,” Dad said. “That’s final.”
“I’m bringing Fiona home,” I replied through gritted teeth. “I’m not staying.”
“We’ll text you when we’re on the road with Fiona,” Colin interrupted—loudly enough to drown out anything else my father had started to say. “Talk soon!” And he hit the end button.
I flopped back on the couch and covered my face, rubbing at it to scrub away the annoyance. “Fuck,” I muttered.
Colin laughed. “You know it’s bad when you drop an F-bomb.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed again, the bastard. “C’mon. We need to get going.”
I dropped my hands and looked him in the eye. “Col, I’m not staying there. There’s no way. I have alife.”
He gazed at me steadily for a moment. “You’d be safer there.”
Betrayal lanced through me, along with something else, something deeper and uglier. “Seriously?Et tu, Colin-e? I know I’m not an alpha werewolf, okay? Message received,” I spat. “But that doesn’t mean I’m—I’m—some helpless dependent who needs to hide while the real men do the heavy lifting!”
“Fionaisan alpha werewolf, Newt! Andshe’sgoing to go home where it’s safe, because that’s the best move. Jesus fucking Christ!” Colin jumped up from the couch, paced back and forth, and then spun on me, pointing an accusatory finger. “You have this hang-up about you not being a werewolf, not everyone else, okay?You. Not me. ‘Real men’? Seriously? That’s what you think I think?”
I leapt up in turn, propelled off the couch as if the springs had suddenly gotten new life and the energy to do more than squeak.
“Fiona’s a teenager and still calls Mom when she can’t figure out how to do laundry, so don’t make that comparison, it’s so goddamn patronizing. I think you and my dad and Evan would be happiest if the three of you went off and did your alpha thing while I stayed at home, yeah, I do! You trying to deny you feel that way? Like when you picture who’s taking care of this situation, it isn’t the big bad alpha males? I’ll take it back if you can honestly tell me you’re imagining me along for that ride!”
Colin’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. It opened and closed again a couple of times as he stared at me wide-eyed.
“Blub blub,” I muttered, and glared back at him.
Colin cracked first, shaking his head and dissolving into helpless chuckles. “Fuck off, Newt. Jesus.” He sighed. “Honestly? No. I didn’t picture you on the kicking-ass-and-taking-names crew, but—hear me out, okay? No! I didn’t. Not because you’re not a ‘real man,’ whatever that means, and not because you’re not a werewolf or not an alpha. Because I—” He stopped. “Because. Because, someone needs to stay home and take care of your mom, right? You and Fiona are the taking-care-of-Mom crew.”
That wasnotwhat he’d intended to say. I didn’t need to be his best friend to read that in his reddening face and shifty gaze.
I crossed my arms and glared more intently. Colin had low resistance to that, I’d learned over the years. Silence bothered him. I wasn’t above using it.
