A Is for Alpha Male Read online

  “So he was super possessive,” I supplied, throwing my forearm over my eyes.

  “Yeah, but I had literally like just met him, and he practically had a tantrum about it, acting like I was his girlfriend or something!”

  “Geez, that is creeptastic! Good thing you gave him the boot.” When she didn’t say anything, I moved my arm off of my eyes, sat up, and asked, “You did give him the boot, right?”

  Allison rolled her eyes with exaggerated intensity and said, “God. Yes, Haley. I got rid of him quickly. Plus, he didn’t even smell good. I mean he didn’t smell bad, but he didn’t smell good. You know?”

  Oh yeah, I knew. All the best guys in books had a distinct smell that made you just want to eat them up. Or be sucked into their skin so you could set up camp there permanently. My brother smelled really good, and so did Danny.

  I had gotten a good whiff when he leaned in really close to tell me to bring my books. He smelled fresh and slightly sweet, but it was natural and far from overpowering. It was like an aura of smell, strong, but hazy enough to be subtle. I didn’t know if it was something he got out of a bottle or if that’s just how his skin smelled. What I did know, was that I liked it.

  Mother effing Danny.

  Dragging my heavy body back up off of the bed, I trudged over to my bag and rifled through it until I found my pajamas, a little baby blue camisole and short set I had just gotten from Victoria’s Secret.

  I whipped off my shirt, stripped off my shorts, and then pulled the camisole and shorts over my turquoise cheeky panties. The smell of bar lingered heavily on my skin, but I had absolutely no desire to put myself through the torture of showering and drying my hair.

  Because there was no way I could just shower, I would have to dry my hair too. Otherwise I would go to sleep on it wet and wake up looking like Chewbacca, my hair matting unceremoniously on and around my face.

  Instead, I would go the lazy route and just wash off my makeup. Asking my mom, “And what about the other suitors? How were they?” I made my way into the bathroom and reached blindly to my wrist to grab my ponytail holder.

  Unfortunately, my searching hand came up empty, meaning I must have lost the one that had been on my wrist tonight.

  It was known to happen on occasion, but it was still super annoying. My mom started talking, and she only got clear enough to understand when I cleared the door to the bathroom on my way back to my bag for another ponytail holder.

  “....bad breath, a comb over, and the biggest set of man boobs I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Jesus. I missed most of that, but I was pretty confident the ending had correctly conveyed the gist.

  “Well, with any luck, Danny’s uncle will be a looker, the antithesis of creepy, smell delectable, and have all the other qualities of our list. And most certainly, I hope he doesn’t have man boobs.”

  Plucking a new hair tie out my bag and heading back to the bathroom one more time, I looked up to see that, this time, Allison was following me and had already changed into her kelly green nightgown. “You’re telling me. Man boobs are scary, Haley. I really had no idea until I got that up close and personal with a set of them.”

  “Really, Mom? Boob play isn’t your thing? You didn’t have an urge to motorboat them? I, for one, am shocked.”

  “You are such a smartass,” she said as she pinched my arm.

  “Ouch!” I screeched and then frowned.

  Allison paid no attention to the woes of my pain, so I got back down to business, pulling my hair up in a messy ponytail and securing my lavender hair tie around it. Allison pulled her hair off of her face with a thick, white, stretchy headband, and we both got down to the routine of washing the evidence of our days away.

  As I washed, I glanced superficially at all of the similar features of our faces. My mom’s hand scrubbed using circular motions, and then swiped carefully under each eye before closing them in order to get the eyelids. When I moved my gaze back to my own reflection, I noticed that my motions were the exact same, a seeming recreation of my mom’s movements.

  I very rarely thought about my dad, because I was so little when he died, but it was little stuff like this that made me yearn for him. But my yearning had nothing to do with me. I wanted this for Hunter.

  I know that a relationship between men, be it father and son, brother and brother, or best friends, is different from the relationship between women. But, in times like these, leaned over a sink together doing the same mindless activity, I got to see myself in the future and my mom got to see herself actualized in someone that she produced.

  Hunter didn’t get to have these little things.

  “Are you interested in Danny? Because it seems like it,” my mom said, breaking me out of my thoughts and bringing me back into reality.

  “What?” I questioned, having missed most of what she said.

  “I asked if you like Danny,” my mom semi-repeated.

  “Yes,” I answered, figuring honesty was the best way to go. In my opinion, honesty was always the best way to go. But I made sure to add, “But I don’t know that he’s really interested in me. Regardless, I really like him platonically. I think he really might turn out to be one of my best friends. Whether I can keep all of my emotions separate remains to be seen.”

  My mom finished wiping her now clean face dry with the hand towel, turned toward me, and met my eyes. Her face was serious and softly determined as she stated, “I just want you to know how proud of you I am, Haley. You have your crazy moments...well, a lot of crazy moments. But you are such a strong woman. Confident and classy, despite your sailor mouth, and you always but always choose honesty over a lie. Whether that be when it comes to others or even just being honest with yourself. Fiercely protective of the people you love and loyal to a fault. I am so proud of the woman you are. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

  As a layer of wetness coated my eyes and blurred my vision, she leaned in, kissed my cheek, and finished. “I really like Danny, I do. There was something so natural, even familiar about him, but none of that matters. Whatever happens with Danny, I know you’ll make the best of it. And I know you’ll come out of it even more remarkable on the other side.”

  She cupped my cheek with her soft, petite hand briefly, and then turned and left the bathroom.

  It took me a few minutes to get my emotions under control and dry the tears off of my cheeks. When I finally made it into the bedroom, she was curled up on her side of the bed, facing my direction with her kindle open in front of her, but she was sound asleep.

  Walking around the bed to her side, I gently reached for her kindle, closed the case to put it to sleep, set it on her nightstand, and clicked out the light above it.

  After padding back over to my side, I pulled the covers back, climbed gently under three layers of sheet, blanket, and comforter, reached back and clicked off my light, and then blindly reached out to find my mom’s hand that was loose and relaxed on the bed in front of her.

  It took me several minutes, my mind reeling about what a lucky lot in life I had gotten, but my breathing finally evened, and I fell asleep, my hand tucked gently into the one of the woman I wanted to be.

  OUR MORNING HAD been pretty routine, filled by mindless gabbing and breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We decided to do that instead of venturing out because I wasn’t really sure what Danny’s plan was for the day, when he wanted us to come over, and most of all, the buffet of food looked really good.

  When we got back up to our room, I was six crispy pieces of bacon, two eggs, and a piece of toast heavier, and feeling like I should have laid off the bacon at slice three.

  Still, I didn’t waste any time and took out my phone to call Danny as soon as we walked back in.

  He answered after one ring, and his greeting was vaguely omniscient. “Hey, Hales.”

  My guess was that he knew it was me by the unknown number, but who knew. He had pretty much proven his skill as a pick pocket last night. I had no idea what else he
was capable of.

  A smart girl would have been scared of a guy like him.

  Thankfully, I had a knack for flipping the switch to the off position on my smarts. Being stupid was way more fun.

  “Hey Danny. You sound too chipper for someone who has a late night job this early in the morning.”

  “Chipper?” he questioned in a way that made me rethink calling a guy “chipper”.

  “Okay, maybe not chipper. But awake. Yeah, you definitely sound awake,” I replied stupidly.

  Silence.

  “Right. Listen, I wasn’t sure when you wanted us to come over so I figured I’d get a plan going early so that we know what the day is going to bring.”

  He barely even breathed when I finished talking, let alone paused, but instead jumped right in with, “Come over now.”

  “That sounded an awful lot like an order, Dan-o. Do you think I’m the kind of girl that does what she’s told?”

  Once again, he didn’t miss a beat. “It was an order, you’re not even remotely that kind of girl, but you’re still going to come over now.”

  I smiled, bit my lip, and then answered, “Well, at least you’re honest. Fair enough. Just tell me how to get there.”

  I listened to him talk, spitting out four or five lefts and rights before I realized there was no effing way under the sun I was going to remember these directions if I didn’t write them down.

  Therefore, I let him finish, just because I was kind of mean like that, and then told him, “Yeah, um, I didn’t get any of that Dan-o. You’re gonna have to repeat everything so I can write it down, m‘kay?”

  Danny paused for one beat, and then two, and then busted his gut laughing in my ear.

  He waited for me to get a pen and paper, double checked that I was ready and set and in note-taking position, and then ran through the entire set of directions again, adding in cute anecdotes like, “If you get to the bush that looks like a set of balls with elephantiasis, you’ve gone too far.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I was considering going too far just so that I could see such a bush.

  After I got off the phone with Danny, I spent a good fifteen minutes contemplating what to wear. I wanted to look cute of course, I always wanted to look cute. But I was also thinking about the fact that he was so adamant about a long sleeve shirt. From that, I could extrapolate that I would probably need some long pants too. But it was southern Alabama in mid-July. Translation: It was hotter than Hades. Therefore, I settled on wearing a pair of white, jean, cutoff shorts and a baby blue camisole and would just take a pair of older, worn jeans with me.

  They were still cute, with holes worn through at the knees. Luckily, I came by the holes honestly and hadn’t bought them from the store that way. What a waste of money.

  Anyway, they were cute, but they were old enough that it really wasn’t a big deal if they got ruined somehow.

  I had a long sleeve shirt packed, something I always threw in just in case, but I very meaningfully closed the suitcase and zipped it with the shirt still inside.

  Sue me, but I wanted to wear Danny’s shirt. Whether he liked me or not, I was going to take advantage of the opportunity.

  I had been in my own world for awhile, easily occupied by all of the clothing decisions, but I was finally ready. Turning around with a heavy sigh, I came face to face with Allison. She was seated on the edge of the bed, completely ready, and wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top of her own. The shorts were dark denim, the tank top a pale pink, and her feet donned flip flops.

  Flip flops sounded nice, but once again, I was torn.

  Deciding what was good for the goose was good for the gander, I settled on wearing flip flops and taking my boots along, much like I was doing with my bottoms.

  “Ready?” Allison asked.

  “Yeah, I’m about as decisive as a squirrel in the middle of the road while a car bears down on it, but I’m finally ready,” I replied, and then huffed a deep, mildly aggrieved sigh.

  “A simple “I’m ready” would have sufficed,” Allison informed me.

  I gave her a look, one that said I was so not in the mood to be messed with, and luckily, she picked up the hint, cradled it in her arms like a football, and ran with it.

  Smiling gently, she tossed me my wristlet and phone, grabbed hers, linked arms with me, and led us out of the room.

  As soon as we pulled up in Danny’s gravel driveway, things got interesting.

  The drive over had been pretty simple.

  Top down.

  Music blaring.

  Sunglasses on and bodies bopping.

  But when we pulled up in front of the house, climbed out of the car, and saw that Danny and his uncle were standing outside on the porch all hell broke loose.

  Don’t worry, they didn’t start shooting at us or anything.

  It’s just that when Danny’s uncle stepped out from the shadows, it became unquestionably clear that he was a motherfucking clone of Tim McGraw.

  And just like that...Bam!

  Allison fainted.

  No joke. She made it around to my side of the car, the side closest to the house, took one good, long look at Timmy Two, and passed right the hell out.

  Thank God I caught her. I’ll admit, it was a struggle getting us both down to the ground gently under her weight, but I somehow managed it.

  However, I would never, ever tell her that. If she asked I would be all, “Light as a fucking feather, Madre. You were so light I balanced you on my pinky finger for a few seconds, just to show off.” Honesty was my policy. Always. Except when talking about a woman’s weight. When confronted with this timeless issue, lie, lie, lie your ass off.

  Luckily, Danny and Timmy Two sprang into action, leaping off the porch and charging toward us like thunder at a full run, their faces both masks of concern.

  For me, it was easy to surmise what was going on. Allison was having a nice semi-conscious journey through the same scene she’d had playing in her head when we left Knoxville.

  Tim in nothing but his skivvies, or maybe just nothing at all, a soft, tasteful porno music in the background, and a twinkle in his eye that said his next destination was right between her legs. And he planned to stay there for awhile.

  For the men, it could have been anything.

  Malnourishment.

  A poisonous spider bite.

  Invisible ninjas with perfectly aimed throwing stars.

  Or even some kind of spontaneous heart failure.

  So when they got to us, they jumped into first aid techniques like it was their job.

  No, seriously. They were scary efficient. Like they worked together administering first aid on people all the time.

  “Guys, she’s fine, seriously,” I assured them. Of course, they didn’t actually listen.

  Their hands continued to check her over feverishly, searching for the wound or some indicator of what was wrong, running over all of her limbs and testing to see if her abdomen was distended.

  I, however, knew there was nothing really to be done, except maybe letting her finish the film reel of her fantasy, so I slumped back, sagging my weight to where my cushiony ass met gravel fully, and moved on to something I was better equipped to handle.

  Like adding to an already dramatic entrance by stirring the pot.

  That’s right. Have you ever added to the ridiculousness of an already ridiculous situation?

  So. Much. Fun.

  Taking my attention and switching it from the group as a whole to Danny alone, I accused, “You think you could have warned me that your uncle is the walking, talking, normal person version of the new, improved, and ripped Tim McGraw?”

  Confusion settled on his face as he looked over at his uncle and really studied him, for what looked to be the first time.

  “Jesus! It was too much for her system to handle with no warning!” I semi-hysterically shouted, my hands flailing wildly and then settling on the sides of my head with my elbows pointing out like chicken wings.

&nb
sp; Danny, of course, ignored me. My shouting and accusations were nothing but background noise aside from the brief moment he had taken to look at his uncle.

  I really admired that. It took a will of steel to truly ignore someone when they were feigning a psychotic outburst.

  About that time, Allison’s eyes fluttered and opened, and then looked right at Danny’s uncle. When she took him in, a breathy, “Tim?” came pouring out of her mouth.

  Timmy Two (I still didn’t know his real name) scooped up Allison in his arms, stood at full height, and muttered to the group at large, “You two certainly make an entrance.”

  He turned and headed for the house, and as he walked, shaking his head slightly the whole time, I could still hear him muttering to himself, “Nope, most certainly don’t ease people into meeting the two of you, that’s for sure.”

  I immediately liked him. His mindless muttering suggested that he might just be as weird as the rest of us. And in the land of me, that was a good thing.

  Danny asked, “Well, that was interesting. Did the drive at least go uneventfully?” and brought my focus back to him.

  Picking myself up off the gravel, Danny’s hand at my elbow to help, I answered him. “Yeah, no problems at all.”

  Then, of course, I remembered a little detail I may have forgotten about before.

  “Oh, actually we almost hit a deer, though.”

  “Jesus, seriously?” he asked, his face jerking with surprise and slightly worried interest.

  “Well, yeah. Except it had a John in front of it, an “e” on the end, and the guy was still on it,” I clarified.

  Forgotten about, blocked out, whatever. Same thing.

  “Jesus, Hales. You scare me, you know that?” Danny remarked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  I just nodded. This was nothing new. I scared most people.

  Hell, I scared myself most of the time.

  “Yeah, well. We missed him. It’s all good,” I deadpanned.

  Danny shook his head again, one of his dimples making an appearance thanks to his smirk, and said, “Yeah, it’s all good. No lawsuit or prison sentence today.”