Crazy for the Alpha (Sequel to Tutoring the Alpha)

Chapter Two: Welcome to Paradise

             My Biochemistry lecture was first thing in the morning, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am, followed by a lab in Clinical Human Anatomy that I found faintly horrifying but mainly intriguing. The school was so big that none of the other students even tried to introduce themselves to me, despite my attempts to look friendlier and more approachable, and when noon finally arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find that that was all I had on my schedule for Monday. Medical school was supposed to be a lot of work, but most of it was attributed to the hours of studying required to do well, not the hours spent in class.

             After spending a few hours in the afternoon studying, my favorite activity, I decided to head back to the pack house even though I knew Mickey wasn't there to welcome me back. The loneliness hadn't been so bad yet, but I was getting worried at the prospect of losing him for weeks at a time when the regular season started. The medication I was on kept me away from extreme feelings of depression, as well kept me Sabrina-free, but I still feared that going too long with Mickey might trigger something in me. Stop being ridiculous, Benny. You don't need him to stay sane. It was confusing, though, because after all, Mickey had been the cause of both my psychotic break and my road to recovery.

             When I turned my key in the lock of the mansion's massive double front doors, I was greeted by the sound of "No Games" by Rick Ross and Future blasting from the kitchen speakers that I'd had installed as soon as we'd moved in. There was nothing I loved better than playing music out loud, and even though I wasn't a huge fan of rap music, I dropped my bag on the stairs and rushed into the kitchen to see what was going on. When I saw the rows of shirtless men, about fifteen of them in total, doing pushups in the living room space across from the kitchen, my heart spiked as hope blossomed in my chest, my eyes frantically searching the sweaty guys in search of the only one I was interested in. Disappointment welled up in me when I didn't see him, sour and tight in my stomach, and I turned back towards the kitchen with a scoff that went unheard among the booming beat of the intense pump-up song.

           "Hey Benny, what's up? How did your first day go?" Jennifer, or Jenna as she preferred to be called, asked me from across the island as I headed straight for the fridge to grab a beer and join her on one of the many counter stools behind the expansive granite island in the center of the enormous kitchen. All of the women in the pack, which was only nine, were gathered in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the entire pack like they did every evening. Every day, rain or shine, we ate dinner together as a pack, and it was always delicious. The women of the pack were all human, like me, which was comforting, but none of them had taken a liking to me except for Jenna. She'd reassured me that the other women were just jealous of me because of Mickey, or else intimidated by me because I was technically their "boss" or whatever, but I wasn't convinced.

Now, for instance, the minute I sat down on the empty stool beside Jenna, the two women on her other side quieted down immediately and turned to stare at me with blank looks. They probably think I'm some horny bitch, I thought angrily, thinking back to the few times I'd interacted with any of the women in the pack. Once, I'd been looking for Mickey. Another time, I'd been on the hunt for post-sex snacks for the two of us. Wow, I really am horny.

"It was fine. Very anticlimactic, actually. Nobody even spoke to me," I confessed, taking a swig of my beer as the other women got back to work, chopping vegetables and frying some kind of meat in about four skillets on the gas stove. Every so often, I noticed one or two of the women shooting glances at the shirtless men working out across the room, and I put two-and-two together. They must be working out where the women can see them to show off.

"Aw, that's too bad. Are you saying the magical powers of my blue blouse didn't attract new friends to you like moths to a flame?" Jenna gasped sarcastically, and I knocked her shoulder playfully with a smirk. Jenna was almost as sarcastic as me, which was a real feat, and also one of the main reasons we'd become such fast friends. She'd been married to Mickey's older brother Eric for several years, and had a one-year-old daughter named Jennifer Jr., or JJ for short.