by Julia Kent
A long time ago Mom told me something I didn’t understand. She said, “Marry a beta-alpha.”
“A what?”
“A beta-alpha. It’s a kind of man. You know what an alpha male is, right? The dominant, self-assured, slightly arrogant guy who annoys you just enough to hate him but he’s so powerful and commanding that against your better judgment you want to sleep with him. Desperately.”
“Uh, sure.” She’d said this to me right after Steve dumped me, and if I was going to sleep with anyone, it would be Ben & Jerry.
“A beta-alpha is different. He’s the man who seems more docile. Whipped, even.”
“Like Dad.”
She had laughed. “Like your father, but don’t ever be fooled, Shannon. Jason is the one in charge when he needs to be. We’re equals—always have been, always will be—and he just doesn’t care about the trivial stuff like I do.”
“Dad has an alpha side? Where does he hide it? In your purse?”
She’d held up one perfectly manicured finger and wagged it in my face, hard. “And that’s your mistake. With your father, you can push and push and push and he won’t push back until you cross his line. That line is way, way farther back than most men’s lines, but it’s there.”
“A line?”
“You cross a beta-alpha’s line and the alpha comes out. And it takes a long, long time to make it go away. And don’t ever think that it’s lesser just because he’s a beta most of the time.” She’d given me a long, hard look. “Beta-alphas always, always win.”
“Over a what? An alpha-alpha?” I’d snickered.
Her wistful smile had made my heart pause. “Over every other man who think they have the right to cross the line of anyone your father loves.”
I think Declan just found that line.
“Pleasantries.” Declan’s not asking a question, or requesting clarification. “No.”
The abject silence that follows his final word makes me feel like I’m floating to the ceiling, like gravity ceased to exist with that single declaration of “no,” like all the laws of physics don’t matter any longer, because my father and Declan are facing off over me.
Me.
“Good. I’m not here to yell at you or exact revenge, or”—Dad blows a long puff of air out, and I can imagine him shifting his weight onto one hip, his toes curling under as he struggles with something he doesn’t want to face, but makes himself do it anyhow—“but I’m here to tell you that if you broke up with Shannon because of what happened to your mother, then you might want to rethink that.”
Your mother? Dad knows what I’ve been trying to figure out for the past week? It’s like God took the world and shook it, hard, like a snow globe.
“Excuse me?”
Dad laughs, not the gentle laugh of my childhood, or the boisterous, rumbling sound of comedy, but a more nuanced sound, one that is masculine and just the tiniest bit dangerous.
“Steve was the last man to hurt Shannon. I never liked him.” Dad’s voice goes raspy. Confidential. I see his fingers twitch at his hip, as if he’s holding back from grabbing Declan’s elbow and pulling him in closer to tell a secret.
“Never liked him,” Dad continues, eyes narrowing. “I faked it. Pretended he was fine, but there was always something not quite right with him. Slimy. He was a user. The kind of man who views people as fleshbags they manipulate for their own purposes, then chuck aside when they’re done.”
Declan makes an ambiguous sound in his throat that sounds like Man Code for “go on.”
“You, though, are nothing like Steve.”
I can hear Declan smile.
“I liked you the moment I met you, and I know Shannon fell for you. Hard. You don’t get that in life more than once, you know? That moment when your eyes meet a total stranger’s and you realize you’re a goner. Done. You just met the love of your life and forever isn’t some fantasy people weave to get through reality. It’s staring at you over an injured dog.”
“Huh?”
Dad laughs again. “Long story. In your case, it was staring at you over a men’s room toilet.”
Declan snorts.
I can’t stand it. Inching slowly, cheek against the wall, I position my eye so Dad comes into view.
Dad’s face goes deadly serious so quickly it’s like he’s rebooted his emotional core. “But maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you’re more like your father than I ever imagined.”
“What the hell does my father have to do with anything?”
“I think you damn well know James has a great deal to do with what you’re doing to Shannon right now. And I can’t do a damn thing to stop you, but I won’t keep my mouth shut, either.”
Their conflict has my heart ricocheting around my ribcage, and I feel like I’m floating as the two men I care about most in the world are going head-to-head. Dad’s face is so red he looks like he’ll have a heart attack, and Declan’s nostrils flare like a bull’s.
“You’re just like your father,” Dad says, delivering the KO punch.
Gravity does, apparently, cease to exist, because I fall over in shock, my body flying forward and out into the lobby, shoulder and knee cracking against the polished floor, my shriek of surprise echoing in the enormous, airy building like a gunshot ricocheting.
I’m on my side and my hip and shoulder are screaming. I look up to find my father, completely dumbfounded, with his jaw hanging so low it’s resting next to me like a pillow, offered in shock.
And Declan is smiling.
Chapter Eleven
He can’t fake it, no matter how hard he tries to hide the grin that just spontaneously popped on his face, but the smother job he does is pretty damn good.
“Just testing out my Lucille Ball imitation,” I say as I roll onto my back, afraid to stand up. This is far less conspicuous than any limp, anyhow.
“Can I step on her, Mommy?” asks a little toddler as his mom drags him by the hand on the way to the bathrooms.
“No.” She’s dressed in all-white running clothes, and the little boy is wearing nothing but white, too. “You might get dirty,” she snaps.
“You must be Jessica Coffin’s sister,” I call back to her. She ignores me.
Declan’s eyes light up, though he doesn’t smile. Dad bends down to help me stand up, but I wave him off.
“You two were about to compare penises, so don’t let me interrupt you.”
I didn’t think Dad’s jaw could fall open any more, but somehow it does. Half of Declan’s mouth inches up with a quirked look, his eyes on me, conflicted but determined at the same time. He looks like a stern headmaster at a girl’s prep school, the pinnacle of authority and a role model for how to comport oneself at all times.
Yet just as likely to take the older girls to his office for a spanking when they’re naughty.
Parts of me that aren’t supposed to be warm right now feel like sunspots. And parts of me that aren’t supposed to be wet are. All in front of my father, who is grasping my elbow like he’s pulling me out of the rapids on the Colorado River in the middle of a flash flood.
“Shannon!” Dad exclaims, his voice shifting from the dominant fight tone he just used with Declan to the kindly, concerned father tone I know so well. All the information Mom’s given me about him and James from thirty years ago swirls around inside, a churn I can’t contain. No one can pivot readily from one stance to another, though; his muscles are corded steel underneath his middle-age paunch, and he has a look in his eyes that makes me a little afraid for Declan.
Once that alpha is unleashed…
“Why are you talking about penises, Shannon?” Declan adds, then shakes his head. A fight between two approaches to me and my father is brewing inside him. I can see it. Mr. Cool is trying to win.
Penitheth, I think, but don’t say. Then I giggle as I get on my feet, nursing my sore shoulder. Green eyes narrow and he goes somber. Challenging.
Mr. Ass is, apparently, taking over. This is the same guy I saw a month a
go. The one who gives no quarter. Dismissive and closed off, he won’t be worth talking to.
And then Declan surprises me.
“Jason,” he says, turning to offer Dad a hand to shake. The two grip each other like a stripper hanging on to her pole after a high heel breaks. “Good to see you.”
Dad is dismissed. His eyes harden, and while he’s older and softer, he’s not going anywhere. “Good to see you, too, Declan.” Both of them look at me for a microsecond and, like synchronized swimmers, cross their arms over their chests, brows lowering, necks tight, mouths set.
Who are these people?
I don’t want to hurt my dad’s masculinity here, but I also don’t want to miss out on the first chance to talk to Declan in what feels like forever. Because my brain shuts down in overwhelmed moments like this, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind:
“Andrew thinks Amanda is hot?”
Declan lowers his head, biting his lips in that super-sexy way that he thinks is somehow suppressing a laugh but that just succeeds in making me want him even more.
“Eavesdropping? My dad was right.”
A flame of fury engulfs me. He’s itching to find reasons—really stupid reasons—to make our breakup my fault. So not my fault. Even when it’s on fire, my heart beats for him. Damn it. Time to extinguish it with just the right words.
Which are…
Not there. Because I’m so happy to be a few feet from him, to look at him, to have his eyes on me. I can’t come back with a retort because there are no retorts. If I say something—anything—right now, it will probably be a string of babble that makes me sound like I’m speaking in tongues at an evangelical revival.
So I just stare at him like Dory the fish. Just keep staring, just keep staring…
And he stares right back.
Dad clears his throat and gives me a look of consideration, the kind of glance you give someone who impresses you. Like he’s underestimated me and has reconsidered based on evidence I don’t know I’ve provided.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” he announces, and gives me a wink. Have I neutralized the beta-alpha?
Or did Dad just defer to me because he knows he’s secure in who he is?
I’m not nervous. Not anxious or worried or scared or—anything. I am present. Here, fully, in the company of Declan.
And ready to talk.
“Your dad was right about which topic?” I ask Declan, who frowns slightly, confused. One hand slips into his pants pocket and the other opens, palm flat against the wall as if he’s holding it up.
Propping up the world.
Andrew’s words pump through my mind, analysis impossible right here, face to face with Declan. I can’t smell him, breathe in his air, watch the movement of his body under his suit and shirt while dissecting what his brother meant moments ago.
All I can do is ask the source and see if he will reveal any new truths to me.
Then again, why should he? In his mind I’m just the woman who used him for his money and connections.
“What do you mean?” He’s being coy. He knows I heard his conversation with Andrew, and instead of tipping his hand he’s tipping my heart. Upside down, shaking it like a pickpocket rolling a victim.
“What isn’t your fault? What was Andrew talking about? Something happened ten years ago and you’re blaming yourself for it.”
Blood drains from his face, but he doesn’t change expression, eyes hard now, mouth immobile. No answer. No reaction.
Just a silent no.
I refuse the no, though, because I’ve decided that I can do that. Other people have the right to live according to their internal core, and so do I.
So do I.
What I want is equally important, and if someone else has a different opinion then they can express that and instead of living life as one big chain of reactions to other people’s reactions, I’m going to act.
Act.
And process it all later.
My hand covers his, the one pushed against the wall. When our skin connects I feel his trembling. A little too good at making the surface look placid, he keeps all the ripples underneath.
He doesn’t have to do that with me.
And he doesn’t move his hand. If he had, he would drag my heart with it, and right now I can’t handle the road rash.
“Declan?” I prod, my voice as tender as can be. “Where have you been?”
His mouth is set in a firm line, tense and unforgiving, but those eyes narrow with a questioning look, reading my face, and then the tension in his jaw lessens, as if a single layer is peeling back.
His lips part, a thin line of white showing between them as they start to form a word, the beginning of a sentence that will break through whatever wall has been built between us.
“Validating myself.” He says it with such nuanced dryness that I’m not sure whether to laugh or be offended.
And then—
“You’re not supposed to be here,” says a woman’s cold voice behind me.
It sounds like death.
I turn around.
Close.
A Coffin.
Declan doesn’t move his hand. I cling to that single fact. It’s all I have, literally, to hold on to right now.
“Here to take out the garbage? Don’t you need that weird little car that looks like you’re carrying a bowel movement on the roof?” Jessica says with a sneer.
“No,” I say, eyes on her, hard as rock. “If I need a piece of crap to do my job,” I say, looking her up and down slowly, “I can find one anywhere. Even on Twitter.”
Her eyes lock on my hand. The one touching Declan. The one he’s not moving.
Hardened again, he stares at me, then lets his glance dart to her. “You interrupted us,” he says coldly.
Is he talking to me? No. I interrupted him and his brother, not him and Jessica. Instead of opening my mouth and stammering a nonsensical apology, I inhale slowly, as silently as I can, and just keep my eyes on Declan, pretending Jessica doesn’t exist.
Turnabout is fair play.
“The race is ending. We have photo ops to attend to.” Her tongue rolls inside her cheek, the movement so masculine it makes her look like Ann Coulter for a moment.
Declan blinks exactly once, but his fingers move just enough to squeeze mine affectionately, grasping me. “I’ll be there.”
Her eyebrow arches and the look she gives me makes it clear she thinks I deserve my car. “Don’t waste your time. We have more important things to attend to.”
He makes a small, derisive sound. “The world won’t end if I’m not in a picture at the finish line, holding a ribbon.”
She looks like she’s been slapped.
“When your company donated heavily to support this charity, it meant—”
“I know what it meant.” He is iron. Steel. Titanium. But his thumb caresses the back of my hand, and for all his hardness, I turn soft, my insides a twist of silk sheets, my mind airy with a floating feeling that makes it hard to breathe.
“Don’t ruin this for everyone, Declan,” she challenges.
“You should take your own advice, Jessica,” he says, cool as a cucumber. “How’s business?”
She storms off in a mumbling fit.
I don’t know what to say. He’s standing before me, touching me, my hand the center of the universe, his eyes a distant sun. A million questions race through my mind but I can’t capture any of them long enough to read them and translate into coherent speech.
A man’s shout from near the front door cuts through the air.
“Jesus Christ! Get it out of here!” It’s Andrew, backing away toward the elevator.
“It” turns out to be what looks like a fly, but I know it’s not.
It’s so much more.
Declan’s face goes slack again.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wish this could be different, but my father is right.”
And with that, he grips my hand hard, his face
filled with regret, then lets go, the hard clap of his shoes on marble like gunshots.
Chapter Twelve
Limping up the steps to my Soviet-bloc business building makes me feel like one of those over-muscled women on the weightlifting team for Belarus. Except I’m limping and whimpering, and I feel like my pectoral and gluteal muscles have been sent to Siberia for re-education.
For the past three weeks—since right after I saw Declan—my life has been a series of gym shops. Forty-seven of them in twenty days, to be exact. That is more than two per day, which equates to screaming quads and exposing more cellulite per hour than you see on a Cape Cod beach in August.
Rumors of ongoing and persistent underperformance by personal trainers at a particular chain of gyms in the area mean I have to pretend to be a new customer who wants to try the “first hour free” promotion. The gyms generally send the least-senior personal trainer to do these jobs, though the one I just left was quite different. I got a seventy-eight-year-old professional female body builder who had more muscle than my dad, Steve, and possibly Declan combined, and whose skin was the color of the old leather armchair in dad’s Man Cave.
Smelled like it, too.
Her teeth had gleamed like polished Chiclets gum and her eyes were remarkably alert and bright for someone born before WWII. No loose skin under the eyes, no bags at all. Her jaw was so muscled she looked like an aging bulldog.
That woman worked me like Jillian Michaels with a group of mouthy teens sent to some Christian re-education camp in Utah. I haven’t had my inner thighs quiver like this since…
Declan.
Damn it. I was trying so hard not to think about him, but leave it to my overactive adductor muscles to make him float into my mind. Three weeks have passed without seeing him, hearing from him—and yet he’s in my mind, embedded in my skin, deep in my heart.
Still.
I use both hands to physically lift my right leg up the first cement stair. There are nine of them. Nine. As in my legs are screaming “nein!” Pain makes me bilingual.
I’m on stair number four when Josh appears next to me. His legs function. He can hop up those stairs like Richard Simmons after drinking five Red Bulls.
