Hunter's Alpha (gxg) ✓

15. Trouble

"Groceries?" I blurt out, and I almost can't believe it.

Fresh produce and meat and milk . . . in the Underground. I don't even know how to understand the process of getting it down here, but I stare in amazement through the glass at the array of chilled yogourt.

Tommy nods eagerly. "Yeah, they're heavy, but when I get the shift for grocery carrying, I get to have first pick on whatever's here."

"First pick . . . wait, does stuff run out?"

I imagine it if all the people down here―Wolves and gang lords―run out of food, and the image isn't pretty. But Tommy gives me a puzzled look.

"What? No! I just want first dibs on the pistachio ice cream."

I wrinkle my nose. "Seriously? Out of all the flavours you could pick first?"

Defensively, he says, "What? I guess the Mafia have a thing for pistachio ice cream! It's always gone within the first two days of a new shipment."

"Yeah, right," I mutter. "That's probably the worst―"

"Shh!" Tommy says, glancing around the aisles at the other shoppers. Tattoo-coated, leather-wearing, gun-toting shoppers. "Don't say that too loud. You'll offend them."

"Over pistachio ice cream? Are you making this up?"

Then I hear the sound of a deep male voice. "Tommy Junior!" I look up―right at the man who kissed me only days ago.

As soon as he sees me, he pales.

Jesus. He must be deathly scared of Hunter.

"I'm not a Junior anymore," Tommy grumbles, reminding me of Jeremy. "I'm all grown up. I'm fifteen."

And I'll admit, even if Tommy is fifteen, he does seem grown up―if it weren't for the gangly limbs and the lanky height, I'd think he was closer to twenty. He has the strong jaw and nose and cheekbones that his sisters have, and his blue eyes glitter.

Although, when he speaks, it's easy enough to remember he's still a teenage boy.

"Fifteen, huh?" says the man, eyes flickering to me. He's handsome, too―with black hair and green eyes and white teeth. "Well, you're almost there, man. Speaking of shipments, when was the last one?"

He's a little scary, too―not in the heavy, muscularly defined way, but in a more subtle, fluid manner. His limbs ooze power, and the tattoos that crawl up his thick biceps tell me he definitely has strength. He looks like someone Tommy would idolize.

"The last shipment?" Tommy says. I sense another ramble, and I begin to tune out. "It was just today, man! You've got to see it! You know what came in? Pistachio nut and pistachio chocolate chip! I saw that and I lost it, but my sister never lets me buy . . ."

Until he said my sister, I wasn't paying attention.

"Your sister?" I interrupt.

"Hunter," Tommy agrees. "She never lets me buy more than one tub of ice cream and she says it's because I could get sick, but that was only one time I threw up in the sink, and it was when I was ten, so I think she's over exaggerating. Besides, there was that embarrassing time where she once, like, and don't tell anyone, or she'll kill me―" At this, the colour in the man's face drained away completely. "But I totally know it was her, and she was the one who tried and―"