24. Chloe
CHAPTER 24
CHLOE
I was smiling and acting like everything was fine, but inside my mind was racing.
This was Stupid Lunch Interview for alpha number twenty-one, Nyle, and I was running into some serious problems. This was more problematic than realizing that the alpha I was interviewing was my scent match—and THAT had been a major hiccup to all of my carefully planned and diagramed life ambitions.
Nyle had dreamy green eyes and windswept brown hair, with that boy-next door charm. Though he was not my type, (right now I’d developed a taste for hot blonde and blue eyed twins) Nyle was drop dead gorgeous, and not doing anything obviously offensive. Since this was one of Titus’ pack candidates, there had to be something wrong with him. There had been something off or wrong with every single alpha Titus had sent my way so far. My work was cut out for me to figure out just what was wrong with this one.
It was time for me to dust off my Red Flag Alpha Asshole Checklist.
Nyle hadn’t done anything obviously rude.
He hadn’t come to the lunch interview late. Hadn’t said anything misogynistic. He hadn’t even talked too much about himself or challenged me why I thought I had the necessary skill to even bother interviewing him at all—that had been the mistake of alpha number nine—which was great. I was able to cancel interview nine super early and use all that extra time for some much-needed studying.
Alright, he’d passed the first test. But that didn’t mean that Nyle wasn’t hiding the fact that he was a raging, emotionally disturbed monster.
It was time to move on to the second test on my Asshole Checklist—did he have anger issues? I typically found that the easiest way to trigger anger issues in alphas was simply to ignore them. Any alpha with a chip on his shoulder, or an over-inflated sense of his own importance, tended to lose his mind once the spotlight wasn’t shining directly on him. Some alphas needed to constantly be drowning in attention, or they’d snap just like a little yappy dog who’d gotten his bone stolen from him.
“So, would you say that you’re enjoying your classes at the Institute?” Nyle asked me politely, just continuing the conversation. He had no idea that the jig was about to be up.
“Yeah, hold on.” I pulled out my phone and clicked straight to the contacts.
Me: Hey
Kain: Hey yourself, Gorgeous
Me: So why are we not talking about Brutus?
A bubble with three lines popped up on the bottom of my screen and then disappeared.
The fact that there was a whole alpha in their pack that I’d never seen was… honestly kind of weird. I’d gone to their pack house multiple times, and I’d never even spoken to him. He ll, I’d slept with most of my scent matches and then there was one that I hadn’t even spoken to. I didn’t even know what he looked like. It was almost like they were hiding him.
Me: Is Brutus a cannibal serial killer or something?
Out of the corner of my eyes, I was tracking Nyle, to see if he was starting to get agitated with the silent treatment—but no. Nyle was using the lull in the conversation to patiently eat his sandwich. He looked ready to wait for me to finish what I was doing, without interrupting me even a little.
Okay. Either he was even more malicious than any other alpha I’d interviewed before, masking the depths of his depravity and evil… or he was potentially a nice guy. I grit my teeth. If this guy was an asshole, I’d find out soon enough. There was no hiding from my red flag checklist.
Kain: Brutus is hot enough to be a maneater, but he’s not a cannibal
Apparently, Kain thought that wasn’t an appropriate reply, as the next two texts came in rapid fire.
Kain: We didn’t want to overwhelm you with all of us at once.
Kain: He’s looking forward to meeting you.
Hot enough to be a man eater? Was that supposed to be a compliment? Wait. What exactly was a man eater? Was it some kind of sexual thing about eating men? Whatever. It wasn’t in the Institute approved curriculum, so it couldn’t be all that important.
Me: Is he free this weekend?
Kain: Hold on, I’ll go ask him
Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that Nyle was getting a bit fidgety. He was almost finished with his sandwich.
If he was going to get pissy with me, he would have done it already.
Fine.
I’d tentatively cross anger issues off the red flag checklist.
What was the next thing on my list? Oh yes. I’d see if Nyle could respect personal boundaries. I’d give him a weird one and see if he would feel tempted to violate it.
“I don’t feel comfortable eating when someone else’s tray is too close. Would you mind giving me a little bit of space?”
Nyle raised an eyebrow, and shifted his tray back an inch. He didn’t say a word about how there was already over a foot between our lunch trays.
“Thank you,” I had a demure smile on my face.
Damn it.
Thought I would get him with that one. Okay, so obviously Nyle didn’t have problems with respecting boundaries. But he had to have something wrong with him. There was no way that Titus managed to find someone this attractive, with not a single red flag to speak of. It was mathematically impossible.
Alright, I had time during this interview for one more test. It was time to check if Nyle was a covert sociopath, or at very least a narcissist.
“All my classes are really cutting into my time for hobbies. I haven’t been able to read anything for fun in weeks.” I had googled enough about mirroring to know that everyone did it to an extent. But no one did it with the same intensity as a sociopath—all to create intense feelings of connection in their victim, just to manipulate them.
“Oh, you like reading? What books do you like to read?” Nyle asked me politely.
“The last book I got to read was a romance with a werewolf pirate, and his adventures in getting all of the booty. What about you? What books do you like to read?”
Here was the moment of truth. Was Nyles going to fake an interest in a one-eyed, peg legged swashbuckling wolf? Sorry, but if he even tried it, it was going to be obvious as hell.
“Well, reading isn’t my thing. But I do pick up Self Improvement books. It is fascinating to learn from the greats about different tips on improving oneself.”
“Oh.” I said politely.
Nyle was making zero attempt to mirror me.
It was almost like all of his strong endeavors to hide his dark past were working so effectively, because he wasn’t actually hiding anything. Nyle was just a nice guy (not one of those nice guys who just pretend to be nice, to sleaze their way into someone’s pants, and if he doesn’t get there reveals himself as a raging incel. I mean, actually kind). A nice guy who was built enough to wrestle a bear, with a perfectly symmetrical face.
Huh.
I somehow found an alpha that I could genuinely recommend to Titus for his pack.
Oh right, I should probably show some interest in the thing that he just said—though the thought of reading a Self Improvement book sounded about as fun as stepping on a lego in the middle of the night. “What was the best bit of advice from the books?”
“Probably that,” Nyle tapped his index finger against his chin, “I get to choose which of my thoughts I pay attention to. That a negative thought I have about myself is only powerful if I pay attention to it.”
Okay, so this guy literally spoke ‘therapy’ as if it was a second language to him. That was about as opposite to a sociopathic cannibal serial killer as an alpha could get.
“Well, that’s all the time I have for this interview. I’ll text Titus the results in one to two business days.” I drummed my fingers against the table.
Nyle nodded, holding his hand out to me. He shook my hand with a nice firm grip, without doing that asshole thing that some guys do, where they crush your hand a little bit to show how tough they are.
No. Nyle didn’t even crush my hand a little. Just gripped my hand firmly, shaking it with confidence before he continued on his way.
Ugh. Fine. Not only was there nothing wrong with him, Nyle seemed obnoxiously perfect. He and my brother could walk off into the sunset together and have an emotionally mature, boundary respecting and healthy relationship together.
My phone buzzed, so I flipped it back over.
Kain: You have a date with Brutus. Saturday at 3 pm at our packhouse.