touch with him, then? You’re gonna be single forever at this rate!”
He thought about that, realized he’d given the situation no real thought. It was late Monday afternoon, and
he was still riding high on the endorphins of having met the alpha at all. He hadn’t thought past their
encounter in the woods. Maybe he didn’t want to. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “We never discussed
that.”
Not exactly a lie. They hadn’t discussed anything, hadn’t traded a single word, in fact.
Following the encounter, the alpha had disappeared and Kevin hadn’t seen him since, though he’d spent
considerable time over the weekend trying to track him in the woods. His scent had been there, musky and
feral, but fading too quickly to track very far. Would he see the alpha again? He didn’t know, but his heart
flitted with anticipation, and he found himself compulsively looking at the clock, willing it to move faster
toward six, when they opened the club for the night. He imagined the alpha sitting at the far end of the bar
as he had last Friday night, sleek and elegant, the lust burning coolly in his eyes.
He looked up at Jolene. “I guess I sound pretty stupid. Look pretty stupid, too.”
She patted his hand companionably. “Sugar, you look like a man in love. I hope it works out. You’ve been
alone far too long.” And off she went, to check on the dancers backstage.
Patrons started filtering in an hour later, and Kevin tried to put it out of his mind, but Jolene’s logic
bothered him, and as the hours began to pass without the alpha showing, he found his mood souring
considerably. Normally, he liked his job. He liked serving customers, chatting with patrons, and even
staying late to do odd jobs, whatever they were. He liked doing Jolene favors. It made him feel useful,
like he had an important place in the world. But when he finally realized that the sexy alpha wasn’t going
to show, he just wanted the night to end so he could go home and get some sleep.
The next night he found himself foolishly hoping to see the alpha again, but it didn’t happen. Not that night,
not in the nights that followed. He started feeling like what he was—a fool.
The week positively crawled by, and several times he found his patience for stupid or self-absorbed
patrons put to the test. He started questioning what he was doing with his life, and if there was something
better out there for him. On Friday night, he found his heart thudding nervously, hopefully…foolishly. It
didn’t want to give up on the alpha, even though his mind already had. It had been one week since their
encounter. He stayed late to close up for Jolene. He scrubbed the place down, then scrubbed it again. He
was the last to leave, but the alpha never showed.
He was alone. For the first time, the idea brought real terror to his heart, and he found he hated the alpha,
finally. He’d been okay with being alone until he’d met him. Now the idea filled him with despair.
He found himself trembling several hours later as he drove into the mountains. The cabin was the same as
when he’d left it. He threw his duffle bag down and stripped, racing off into the woods. He sniffed and
sniffed but found no trace of the alpha—or any other wolf. He raced through the woods, baying and
crying, calling out to anyone who might listen, but no one answered.
No one ever answered.
Jolene’s words haunted him. He should have gotten the alpha’s name, his number. Something.
A terrible thought gnawed at him. Was the alpha a dream, maybe? A fantasy? Something his lonely mind
had conjured up to comfort him and compensate for the isolation of his life? Was this what he had to look
forward to? Madness? A life of crying wolf…and receiving no answer?
The run left him feeling pleasantly sore, and the prey he caught filled his aching, empty belly. But the
alpha was not there, no one was there, and when he drove back to the city on Sunday night, he was forced
to stifle the tears that wanted to overflow.
***
Chapter Seven
Why hope to be happy?
It was a question Ron sometimes asked while in the midst of one of his alcoholic fugues. Kevin had
always taken Ron to be a pessimist, but now he was starting to understand the man finally.
He worked the bar, shuffling out drinks in record time, but kept his eyes on his work and off the
customers. He didn’t want to talk to them, didn’t want to hear their insipid tales and sob stories. He didn’t
want to hear how they’d had everything—jobs, families, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives,
only to fuck things up. That somehow the universe had conspired against them to bring them to this low
point in their little, useless lives. He didn’t want to hear how full other peoples’ lives had been. It made
him realize how little he’d always had, how much he had made do, how he could never hope for anything
more than this petty excuse for an existence.
“Over here!” his sister Hannah called. She was sitting at the end of the bar where the alpha had sat two
weekends ago, waving to him. She and a couple of the girls from school had passed midterms and were
celebrating. He rushed over to serve them their celebratory pitchers of beer and tequila shooters,
reminding himself to smile and congratulate them all.
“Oh my god, Han, this is your brother? He’s so cute!” the blond sitting beside his sister said and started
flirting with him.
The pretty black girl beside her elbowed her hard in the ribs. “Dumbass, it’s a gay bar, Selene.”
“Yeah, so what, Michonne?” Selene shot back. “They’re not going to throw us out, are they?”
Michonne rolled her eyes and pointed at Kevin. “Cute…and not on the menu. Get it?”
Selene looked confused and Hannah laughed at her friends’ antics, the joke entirely on Selene while
Kevin ran out more drinks for them all.
It did his heart good to see his sister happy. He liked how she had never let her handicap get her down. In
that way, she seemed so much stronger than he was.
Then Allison whipped his ass with her bar mop and said, “Stud in the corner wants a Manhattan. Chop,
chop.”
Feeling slightly annoyed, though Allison had never gotten on his nerves before, he said, “So what? Make
him one. You know how.”
“He says he wants you to do it.” She rolled her eyes.
Kevin mixed the drink, barely thinking about it, and carried the cocktail glass down to the table in the far
corner. He set a napkin down and put the Manhattan atop it, keeping his eyes averted so as to avoid
conversation. He almost got away, except the man put his hand over Kevin’s.
He had large, sinewy hands, the nails neatly manicured, and he wore rings. Kevin looked up.
The alpha sat at the table, dressed in a charcoal-grey pinstripe suit, his long black hair braided away from
his face, which was keen and centered on Kevin with obvious interest and appetite. His eyes looked hazel
under the lights of the club, but Kevin knew how quickly they could slip into yellow. He felt his heart
slam up into his throat, and for a long moment he could neither breathe nor speak.