Chapter 2
quentin
I've read the same paragraph about the skeletal system four times. I still can't tell anyone what it says. All I can think about is her.
This is pathetic. I'm pathetic.
I have an exam in two weeks. I should be memorizing the two hundred and six bones in the human body, committing their names and locations to memory, and building the foundation for my future medical career.
Instead, my brain keeps short-circuiting every time I try to focus, replacing whatever I'm reading with the same useless information on an endless loop.
Iris. Her smile. The way her braids click with those gorgeous gold beads when she walks. Iris. The sound of her voice when she's explaining numbers. Iris. The way she looked at me three months ago in that conference room.
Iris.
The thing is, I know exactly why I can't stop thinking about her, and that's almost worse than the distraction itself.
It's not just attraction. Attraction I could handle.
Attraction is simple, biological, and something I could compartmentalize and ignore until it faded.
But what I feel when I look at Iris isn't simple at all.
It's complicated and confusing and goes against everything I've been told about how designations are supposed to work.
She's an Alpha. I'm a Beta. By every social expectation, every biological norm, I should want to defer to her. Follow her lead. Let her take control.
Instead, I want to challenge her. Match her. Make her yield.
I'm a Beta who wants to dominate an Alpha. Totally normal. Nothing confusing about that whatsoever.
She smiled at me once. During a team budget meeting, of all places.
It lasted approximately 2.3 seconds, and I've thought about it approximately seven hundred times since.
That works out to roughly once every minute for the past twelve hours, which is a completely reasonable and not at all obsessive frequency.
Milo thinks I'm the composed one. The disciplined twin. The one who has everything under control at all times.
Milo is an idiot.
Control has always been my thing. It's how I survive, how I function, and how I make sense of a world that doesn't always make sense.
I plan. I calculate. I maintain order in my own head even when everything around me is chaos.
But Iris walks into a room and my brain just stops working.
It shuts down completely, then reboots with only one thought taking up all the available space.
Her.
I don't lose control. I don't get distracted. I don't pine.
And yet here I am, pining over the coach's daughter who wears sandals in winter and does math for fun. I'm a complete and utter disaster, and the worst part is that I can't even bring myself to care.
A sock hits me in the face.
"Q. Are you listening to me?"
I blink, the soft fabric sliding off my nose and into my lap.
Milo is standing in front of our shared closet, surrounded by an explosion of clothes that have accumulated over the past thirty minutes.
Shirts and slacks and blazers carpet his side of the room, my twin brother currently holding up a navy jacket with an expectant expression that tells me he's been talking for a while. I have no idea what he said.
"What?"
"I asked what says 'I'm sophisticated but also fun but also serious about my intentions but also approachable.
'" He waves the blazer for emphasis, the motion sending a shirt sliding off its hanger to join the growing pile on the floor.
His side of the room looks like a department store exploded; my side remains untouched, mocking me with its order while my brain refuses to cooperate with basic tasks like reading.
I stare at him. "Clothes."
"You're useless."
He disappears back into the closet, muttering something about emotional support and twin obligations, and more garments come flying out to land on his bed, his desk chair, and the floor.
I look down at my textbook, and accept that studying is not happening tonight.
Probably wasn't going to happen anyway, not with the auction looming over us.
Milo emerges with the navy blazer paired with khakis, holding the combination up against his chest and examining himself in the mirror mounted on the back of our door. He turns left, then right, then left again, frowning at his reflection like it personally offended him.
"Too preppy?"
"Fine."
He vanishes again, reappearing moments later in a black turtleneck and gray slacks. The turtleneck makes him look like he's about to commit a heist or discuss philosophy at a coffee shop, and he seems to sense this because his frown deepens.
"Too mysterious?"
"Fine."
The third outfit is a fitted burgundy blazer over a black shirt, paired with dark jeans. It's actually a good look, the deep red complementing his complexion, but I'm not about to tell him that because it would only encourage him.
"Too try-hard?"
"Fine."
Milo stops mid-pose and turns to face me fully, his hands dropping to his hips in a stance I recognize from childhood. It's his "I'm about to call you out" stance, and it usually precedes something annoying.
"Q." His voice is flat. "You've said 'fine' to three completely different looks."
"They're all fine."
"You're not even looking."
I glance up from the textbook I wasn't reading, making a point to actually focus on him this time. He's still wearing the burgundy blazer, his hair artfully messy, his expression caught somewhere between frustration and amusement. "I did see them. They're fine."
He picks up the sock from my lap and throws it at me again. I catch it this time, my reflexes at least still functioning, even if my brain has turned to mush.
"What are you wearing?" he demands, gesturing at me like my outfit is a personal affront.
I look down at myself, then back up at him. Team hoodie, jeans, tennis shoes. The same thing I wear almost every day. "This."
"You're wearing that? To bid four thousand dollars on our woman?"
"Yes."
Milo's face cycles through several expressions in rapid succession: disbelief, horror, resignation, and finally something that looks almost like pain. "The hoodie has a mustard stain."
I follow his gaze downward. There is, in fact, a mustard stain near the hem, probably from lunch three days ago.
I stand up without a word, walk to my closet, and pull out an identical team hoodie that doesn't have a mustard stain. This one has a small tear along the sleeve but otherwise it’s fine.
I change into it, hang the stained one back up for future laundering, and sit down on my bed.
Milo stares at me. "That's it? That's your whole process?"
"Yes."
"You're hopeless." He sighs. "Good thing you're pretty."
"I'm not pretty."
"You're very pretty. In a scary, murder-y kind of way." He cocks his head, obviously considering my current ‘look’. "It works for you."
I don't dignify that with a response, turning back to my textbook as if I'm going to suddenly start absorbing information about bones. The words blur together on the page, meaningless.
Milo finally settles on the burgundy blazer after checking himself in the mirror several more times, adjusting the collar, smoothing the front, and turning to examine the fit from different angles.
Then he commits the cardinal sin of sitting directly on my bed, right in the middle of it, completely destroying the hospital corners I spent ten minutes perfecting this morning.
"So." He's got that look on his face, the one that means he's about to pry. "Real talk."
"I don't do real talk."
"You're doing it anyway." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, his expression shifting from playful to genuine. "What do you actually want from tonight?"
I don't know how to answer that, or maybe I just don't want to. Putting words to the things I want feels dangerous.
"And don't say 'nothing,'" Milo continues when I don't respond, "because your scent literally changes every time she walks by."
"My scent does not change."
Even as I say it, I know it's a lie. I can feel it shift sometimes, going deeper and more obvious whenever she's nearby, but I'd convinced myself it wasn't that noticeable. That I had it under control. Apparently, that’s not the case.
"You smell like a pine forest having an existential crisis, Q. It's extremely obvious." He pauses for emphasis. "Everyone on the team has noticed. They talk about it when you're not around."
Everyone. The whole team.
My jaw tightens. "They have not."
"Coach asked me if you were 'going through something.'"
My stomach drops. Coach. Her father. The man who could end my football career with a single phone call has noticed that something is off with me, and that something is his daughter. "He did not."
"He absolutely did. Pulled me aside after practice last week, all concerned-father-figure about it." Milo's grin sharpens, my brother enjoying my discomfort far too much. "I told him you were just constipated."
"Milo."
"What? It was better than 'hopelessly in love with your daughter,' right?"
I have no response to that. Because he's not wrong, and we both know it.
I've spent three months thinking I was being subtle and keeping my feelings locked down tight.
Apparently I've been broadcasting them to everyone with a functioning nose.
The silence stretches between us, and Milo waits.
He can be surprisingly patient when he wants to be, when something actually matters to him, and apparently this matters.
"I want her to look at me again," I finally say, the words coming out quieter than I intended. "Like she did that one time. During the budget meeting three months ago."
"She looks at you all the time."
"Not like that." I shake my head. "That time was different. It was like she actually saw me. Not just another player, not just someone in the crowd. Me."
Milo's expression softens slightly, the teasing edge fading. "Q. That was three months ago."
"I know."