Page 19 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

I’ll never be good enough for a pack anyway, so what’s the use? Alpha suppressants are practically useless and they make you depressed.

Speaking from experience.

Beating one out is a lonely thing. A sorry relief. Sometimes not a relief at all. I should hit the gym, hit the weights. Use the punching bag. But it’s kind of late, so beating one out it is.

I grab my phone, thinking to scroll through some porn, hoping it will help, and it pings with a text.

It’s Grey.‘Whatcha doing tonight?’he writes.

I grin, braced with one hand on my small desk as I gaze down at my phone.Well, well.This is a better development than I’d anticipated for the night.

I may be an asshole but I try not to call him when I’m worked up over someone else. It wouldn’t be fair to him. What we have may be a thing of convenience but there has to be some respect, too.

‘You,’I reply, kinda smug, I’ll admit. And relieved, but my one-word response won’t betray me.

‘Come over,’his reply hits my phone mere seconds later.‘Roommates are out.’

I give a fist-pump.‘Gonna jump in the shower first.’

‘Nah, come as you are.’

Nothing more, no explanation, but my grin widens. He likes my scent. He’s said so before. And tonight, I could do with a boost to my ego. It’s not like I don’t have girls and boys sending me meaningful looks all the time. I can’t lie, it’s the truth. It’s an alpha thing, another one. We give you alphas: tireless sex-machines, aroused at the drop of a coin, able to go all night without flagging. Occasionally sporting a knot, which makes things uncomfortable if you’re not an omega in heat, but still.

Which is fine. You know? I’ve spent lots of good nights with girls and boys who came on to me. Physical release is necessary, especially when you come of age and all those hormones kick in. But now?

I’m too young to feel so jaded, as my buddy Kade says, what with only being twenty-seven, and it’s not just the fact I’m still living in a shared apartment, or anything, but I need something more.

I need steady partners, I need a home, I need a family. The urge is hitting me hard, and yeah, I suppose it’s yet another alpha thing—alpha and omega thing—or so I’m told.

I need a pack.

And the sucker of the matter is that I can never have it.

* * *

His name is Greyson Ford.

He’s an apprentice at Ink and Shadows where I rent a booth from the owner, Cole, to ply my inking trade and work my art.

Grey is a new addition to the store. Used to work in a smaller studio up north, he said, but he’s not experienced enough to have his own booth here yet. I don’t automatically go for betas—with the exception of Gigi, obviously—but from the moment I saw him, cheesy as it may sound, I felt something.

Something in my dick,I tell myself. Grey is sexy and the idea of having someone for sex, someone who’d be on the same page as me, was appealing.

Still is.

I think about that as I hoof it over to Grey’s place, huddled in my leather bomber jacket, my combat boots thumping on the sidewalk. It’s roughly half an hour on foot and I prefer walking rather than taking my Ducati—an old model, bought second-hand and still my favorite mode of transport, although I’m not into motorcycles as much as I used to be.

Walking gives me time to sort my thoughts for one, and for another, it saves me the trouble of dragging the Ducati out of a friend’s car workshop down the street where I have it parked.

By the time I reach his apartment, I’ve regretted taking the time to think. My head is full of regrets, fears, and resentment. Not how I want Grey to see me. Not how I want to meet him. He deserves better.

Better than me.

I hesitate outside his door—the buzzer downstairs is broken but the door has been broken, too, ever since I first came here. The building is in much worse shape than ours.

It’s as if Grey hears me breathing, though, because a moment later the door opens and he grins at me. His faint scent of apples and fresh mint reaches me as he braces an arm against the doorframe and I can’t help but look at the way his navy-blue T-shirt rides up, baring his hard stomach, the way his biceps flex.

Or the way his lips curl, flashing a dimple, and fuck, who knew I was a sucker for those?

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