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13. Lights, Camera, Action!
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Keeping My Alphas at Bay 14. Having Cakes and Eating Cakes
Sebastien and I pull away, him with reluctance and myself with mortification. Thankfully, however, the crowd isn’t jeering at us.Looking up, I see the big screen is no longer showing Sebastien and myself on the kiss cam, but instead a slow-motion replay of the last goal. It starts with Emeric uncharacteristically fumbling a pass and getting dogpiled, then ends with the other team scoring a touchdown.The game is on pause as they prepare to kick the football through a strange metal contraption, and I look around the field at the various players on standby. I don’t even realise what I’m looking for until I find it.I freeze. Emeric is glaring daggers at me, angry blue-grey eyes seeming to be so much darker and stormier than Sebastien’s. Is he upset that I kissed his brother? Or is he upset that I’m here at the game at all?I look over at Sebastien, who’s looking at the fumble replay on the big screen with a placid smile.I’m not the only one looking at Sebastien, however. Just as the g
Keeping My Alphas at Bay Interlude 2: To Be Stolen (Em)
Lips. Soft and gentle and yielding, pressing eagerly against mine. Warmth and desire and the overwhelming scent of sweet pine, rain, and something indistinctly floral. Mine, a part of me yells. Mineminemine. The football has dropped from my hands in my distraction, and impacts fall on me as three different players from the opposing team throw themselves on top of me. I’m too dazed to even care. I remember last Saturday, when Cecilia had shown up with Bas, how determined I was to not care about either of them. “You don’t mind, do you?” Glenn asked me then, and I’d genuinely meant my reply. “Do what you want,” I said, thinking that if Glenn managed to steal Secilia out right from under Bas’s smug nose, then at least he’d understand: this girl doesn’t care about us, neither of us. But even with his freshly broken nose, Glenn managed to give me a look of surprise. I remember feeling slightly resentful, then, that this human had the audacity to doubt me. Bas was still my brother—my l
Keeping My Alphas at Bay 1. Homecoming Chaos
I think, if I’d known what I was getting into, I’d sooner have moved across the country than stay. Moving around the country for the first fifteen years of my life worked out well enough—I should have known better than to think that I could settle down for more than a few years here. Or maybe, just maybe, this all could have been avoided if I’d stayed behind in that lab. It started like this: despite my better judgement, I let Lily coax me outside into the autumn afternoon. Lily is my partner in our Intermediate Medical Lab Sciences class, and she’s normally pretty responsible with classwork. Homecoming weekend, however, is apparently where she draws the line. We had a lab section earlier this afternoon, and I tried to linger around afterwards, but it’s Friday, and the homecoming parade is tonight, and Lily practically got an aneurysm when she realised I wanted to stay after-hours. We’re just undergrads, so we don’t have access to the lab on the weekends, and the assignment write-u
Keeping My Alphas at Bay 2. A New Job
Just as soon as I realise that the man who saved me from the crush of the crowd is the same man who minutes earlier had stared me down by the practice field, he bends slightly and heaves me into a fireman carry, perched precariously over the uncomfortable plastic of his football shoulder pads. I yelp and hang on until I’m set down beneath the canopy of a massive sycamore. Number 07 says nothing, not even as I steel myself and catch his gaze. I was right—his eyes are that terrible, tempestuous blue-grey and, even though I tried to prepare for it, I’m still struck dumb by its intensity. The world disappears from around us, the din of the parade crowd fading as if we’ve gone under water and the amber light of the setting sun seeming to coalesce around him, around my saviour. He’s no longer wearing his helmet, so I can make out his features more clearly. Something about him seems familiar in a strange way, like something deep within myself recognises him somehow. His skin is perfectly
Keeping My Alphas at Bay 3. Breaking the Ice
“Hey Rob,” Emily calls out, starting towards the football coach again. “This is Cecilia Thornill, my new assistant. Cecilia, this is Robert Harris, the football coach.” The coach is a fit man in his mid thirties, not a single grey hair and only the barest hint of crow’s feet when he smiles. He’s probably only recently retired from professional play; I remember hearing something about the coach being a former major league player. “Just call me Rob,” he says, extending his hand. I smile at him in return as we shake our hands. “I’m surprised they found another one so quickly,” Rob comments, then turns away to holler, “BOYS!” To my mortification, all of the football players immediately stop, looking our way. “New med assistant,” Rob tells them. “Her name is Cecilia.” I give an awkward wave. A couple of them call back greetings, but number 07—Emeric, apparently—barely glances at me before he turns away again. I don’t know why, but it leaves me feeling strangely empty. I almost wish
Keeping My Alphas at Bay 4. Dangerous Gossip
As time-consuming as my new position as a med assistant is, the next few days pass by without much incident. Emily seems perfectly willing to take on the brunt of interactions with the football players, so I manage to more or less avoid Emeric entirely.By the time Friday afternoon practice lets out, I feel better than ever about my decision to sign up with the sports med team. I even work up enough courage to ask Emily if she can let me know about my probationary status with the student med team ahead of time. “It’s just, I’ve still been picking up shifts with my part time job, and if I can quit, I’d rather do that sooner than later,” I explain to her. Emily looks up from her clipboard, startled. “Hmm? Oh! No, of course. I’m supposed to give them weekly reports about your probationary status, but it’ll mostly just be a formality. You were excellent with the boys’ physicals on Wednesday, and you did well with Jessica today.” She walks over to the other side of the cramped office, s
Keeping My Alphas at Bay 5. A Moonlit Rendezvous
Emeric also seems to be frozen, staring intently into my eyes. It’s just as intense as before, but maybe because I’m already used to the effect he has on me, and maybe because he’s been so much nicer this time, it feels a little different. I’m still utterly captured by him, but the fear isn’t as strong as the fascination, and it feels less like I’m being peeled apart layer by layer, but more like his presence has seeped into my very core—cold and stinging like seawater, but also strangely invigorating, like moonlight and a chill breeze on a summer night. I don’t have to look away this time. Emeric breaks away first. Silently, he takes my fallen book bag and shuts it into the storage compartment on his bike. A warm helmet is jammed brusquely onto my head and I’m lifted bodily into the seat of the motorcycle. “Hang on to me,” he says as he slides into place in front of me. I come back to myself. “Wait, what are you—” I squeak as the rumbling beneath us becomes a roar, hanging on for
Keeping My Alphas at Bay Interlude 1: The Other One (Bas)
I’ve long since resigned myself to being mistaken for Emeric. Friends, teachers, cousins—even our parents, they all assume both the best and worst of him. Me? I’m just there. Some part of me has given up hope that anyone will see me as anything more than just “Emeric’s twin.” What’s worse is that, growing up, whenever anything went wrong, it was always a safe bet to blame Emeric. He always messed everything up for me. Don’t get me wrong—I did the same to him, probably. Actually, I probably fucked with him on purpose far more often than he did likewise. Maybe it’s part of why I was so frustrated about it—the fact that Em was almost never doing it on purpose, that I had to go out of my way to return the favour. But I guess that this, too, is something that I’m used to. He’s doing his reading homework right now, completely ignoring the fact that Cecilia could be coming downstairs any moment now. I wonder why he’s being so unreasonable about it all. He and I got into such a big fight
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