ALEX #11
I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing at them, fighting with myself about whether to say it, whether to ask what his judgment is of the whole stalker situation.
"There’s one thing I want to know," I begin with a trembling voice.
Right then the front door opens and Jared steps out toward the gate!
"Alex, everything okay?"
Damn, bad timing, but maybe it’s for the best. He saves me from myself. The question costs me too much.
I open the door and step out of the car even though it’s hard to stay upright, and Jared immediately grabs my hand. Bay watches me with intensity.
"Yes, the usual, just a bit of dizziness and weakness after the therapy, but otherwise I’m fine. Bay drove me today." I make an awkward gesture toward the driver.
"Oh, Bay?"
I see the surprise on Jared’s face, the last time he saw Bay was at my dad’s funeral.
It’s the same expression that I saw on Veyron’s face. Confusion, awkwardness, uncertainty. Right. I’m meeting with someone everyone knows is incompatible with me, and that’s bound to raise eyebrows. That’s just how ABO society works.
"Uh. Good to see you," he says, a little stunned as he glances between us.
"You too," Bay replies, though he doesn’t get out of the car. "I should get going, I have rehearsal tonight for the concert in two days."
"Of course, thank you for the ride."
Bay gives Jared a quick look, slightly… displeased that he’s still standing there, then says in a low, firm voice,
"Alex, one more thing. These past few weeks, I really couldn’t come by. I want you to know I wasn’t making excuses, my schedule was packed, and Eric would kill me if I didn’t show up at the recording studio."
I nod in understanding. "Sure, no problem… I really appreciate that you sent your brothers. They were very kind. You didn’t leave me without help, which was really caring."
I send him a shy smile, and hesitate.
Then I say it out loud. "You never left me without help." I put emphasis on those words and send him a meaningful glance.
Bay does not react, his face hard to decipher, but his quickening pulse betrays him.
We say goodbye with a nod.
He drives off while I head inside, feeling Jared’s watchful eyes on me.
"Wow, I didn’t know you two are seeing each other again and that there’s still so much… chemistry. The air was practically sparking."
For now, I don’t want to tell Jared what the real purpose of my desensitization therapy is, I don’t tell that to anyone. Everyone gets the official version that it’s just a basic anti-allergy treatment and they accept it easily because everyone knows my health issues.
We go into the living room and Jared, who has been feeding Tommy in his high chair, returns to what he was doing. While he was gone Tommy managed to knock over his bowl of soup, so I start wiping it off the floor.
"Leave it, I’ll handle it," Jared says with embarrassment as he nearly snatches the cloth from my hands, "you’re weak, sit down," and he takes my arm and guides me to the couch, where I collapse.
Jared stands there for a moment shifting from foot to foot, his beautiful, sculpted face uneasy.
"I admit I’m surprised to see Bay here, getting in touch with him…" He hesitates briefly. "Isn’t that a kind of… self-torture? You know you two can’t be together."
I swallow hard, and avert my eyes.
"He just… helped me, no strings attached," I mutter.
Why do I lie? It’s like I’m protecting something small, fragile, vulnerable, still too delicate to see the world. My timid hope.
Jared watches me with curiosity but he soon goes back to feeding Tommy, without pressing the issue.
I sigh in relief.
The second month of the experimental treatment is ending soon and Blue promised thorough testing to check for progress, so next week I have a long appointment in his lab.
Maybe after that, when I know everything is going in the right direction, I’ll be able to tell Jared. Maybe then… I’ll finally start accepting it’s real.
◆◆◆
Next week I meet with Blue in the lab. When I walk in, I notice a tall alpha with brown hair tinged with red standing by the entrance, seemingly guarding it, and his face strikes me as strangely familiar.
He gives me a sharp look, then suddenly turns away as if he recognizes me but doesn’t want to engage, his cheeks flushing red. I shrug, because why should I care?
When I step inside, Blue greets me, and to my surprise, his usually distant, sour expression looks a little less lofty and a little less dry today.
He immediately gets to work and runs tests on me, checking my reaction to Bay’s antigens.
I know right away that the result is very good, because Blue has a little smirk at the corner of his mouth. He lifts his eyes over the lens of the microscope and says,
"Beautiful. The result is promising, Alex, even better than I expected. Increasing the dose sped up the process, so we made the right call. The reaction is still there, but maybe at thirty percent of what it was before, and that is really good news."
My mouth falls open. Part of me has always carried this small doubt, because tests in a lab dish are one thing, but tests on a living body are something entirely different.
It was one of the reasons why I didn’t want to spread the news about the desensitization and even kept a dose of skepticism for myself.
Now I feel a mix of disbelief and almost overwhelming joy.
The realization that this nightmare is going to end soon sends a jolt through me, because all I want to do is call Bay and tell him we’re on the right track.
"Thank you, Blue," I whisper, swallowing tears. "Thank you so much."
The smirk never leaves Blue’s lips. "That is one of the reasons I wanted to become a scientist. Achieving things, making progress."
I press my hands to my face, fighting my emotions.
"I have to go, but I’ll be back next week for the next therapy session."
"Make sure you do!"
Blue gives me an all-knowing look and nods.
I rush out of the lab at full speed, nearly running straight into that young alpha who is still standing there.
I try to pass him, and he quickly steps back as if trying to avoid slipping into my line of sight, but suddenly something clicks for me.
Yes, many years have passed, but something in his features, the regular, classic lines, reminds me of the Nolan family.
"Gabriel? Gabriel Nolan?" I ask, slightly shocked.
The young alpha looks startled and ignores my question, his cheeks burning. He walks past me into the testing room and closes the door behind him. How rude!
For a moment I hesitate, wondering if I should follow him, but maybe I imagined it?
What would Gabriel, Bay’s cousin, be doing here anyway? I remember Gabriel fairly from years ago, when Bay saved him and Veyron from a runaway truck tire. Or was it the other way around? Gabriel warned us before it even happened… I shake my head and blink.
No, impossible. Just an illusion, a mirage.
I forget about it quickly.
In a joyful mood, I head home, getting ready to call Bay from my bed with a cup of tea in my hand, relaxing and savoring the thought of a future we might share, but the moment I step inside, I see that Jared has a guest.
It is Storm.
I stop dead in my tracks. Bay’s brother is sitting at the kitchen table with a large tablet propped in front of him.
When I come closer, they are both leaning over it intently, but they straighten up at the sight of me.
For a moment I don’t understand what I am looking at, and then Jared approaches me with a serious expression and says,
"Storm thinks he found the place where my True Mate is staying."
Wow, that is news. My eyes shift to Storm’s face, and his expression is serious as well, maybe even a little worried. What could this be about?
I step up to the table and glance at the tablet, and then I notice that it is showing a map, some kind of forested area.
Jared exchanges a look with Storm.
"I want to ask you, Alex, if you could stay with Tommy for a few days. I don’t want to take him with me into an uncertain situation."
I draw a breath and study Storm carefully.
"Wait. How on earth did you manage to find him?"
Storm looks slightly embarrassed. "The problem is that I didn’t, not exactly."
I frown. "I don’t understand."
"I can’t identify the man specifically, I only know where he is physically located, I mean I am convinced that is where he is."
"A point on the map, some village?"
"A point on the map, but it isn’t a village."
"Wow, that sounds imprecise."
Jared steps in, speaking in a rather grim tone.
"That region has a lot of what they call forest plots, people own summer houses there built about half a mile apart from each other, separated by woods."
"Did Storm point you to a specific one of those houses?"
"No, only the general region, that is all."
"That doesn’t sound safe, you are an attractive omega, you know how it gets in the countryside, those redneck alphas…"
"I have a gun, Alex."
I turn to Storm.
"You should go with him for safety," I say, pushing my chin forward and folding my arms across my chest, "because all of this sounds unbelievably reckless to me."
"I can’t, it’s the beginning of December and Damien has his exam session, I can’t leave him, we are True Mates and even a few days apart could be bad for his mental state."
I swallow. Right, that is normal, True Mates have what is called the Pull, something that draws them together, something that never really worked for Bay and me for some reason. I know that because of it Damien and Storm can’t be apart for long without risking their health and their lives.
Sometimes I wonder why Bay and I don’t have that, but no answer ever comes to me. Could my severe allergy have disrupted even that?
"Listen, Alex, I will manage. I will go there, knock on the doors of those five houses in the indicated area, and if it isn’t any of them I will just come back."