Alphas Like Us (Like Us, #3)

by Krista Ritchie

“He’s going to throw a punch,” Oscar Oliveira says, observing my hot-blooded, twenty-two-year-old boyfriend.

I want to be beside him. To ease him back, to hold him. Cool him off. Even if his fuse has been justifiably cut short tonight.

To keep our jobs in security, we all agreed to a big change: no working large scale events.

I catch his fist in my palm and walk him backwards. Come on, wolf scout.

“Maximoff Hale, will you marry me?” He flinches, eyes widening and brows knotting with a thousand questions, and even more philosophical queries.

But I notice them more now, and I worry a bit that they’re bothering Farrow. He just lost his fucking privacy, and this is only the beginning.

More confidently, he says, “This is nothing but an innocent, aristocratic, stuck-up gala”—our eyes dive deeper in each other, our mouths closer—“because if it were anything that threatens your body, your life, I’d break the neck of the motherfucker who bids on you.”

Really, though, I’m glad I know why he hates being around me. Even if it’s painful knowing that who I am hurts Charlie.

“You chose to go off-duty? In what universe?” He winds his earpiece cord around the radio. “The universe where my boyfriend was grabbed.”

“I think this is the part where I’m supposed to choose between my company and the guy I love.”

This auction is a pseudo-fake thing, wolf scout, and what you and I have is real. Whoever bids on you isn’t a threat to me.” His brows arch. “Bluntly, you’re not cheating on me by going up there,

He’s mine.

I love him because he’s so pure it hurts, so moral it aches, and so strong-willed it kills me not to speak to him, not to be near him, not to look at him or to protect him.

“Farrow sold his bike,” Donnelly answers, sliding an unlit cigarette behind his ear. Quinn gestures to me. “Bro, I would’ve bought it. I’ve been looking for one.”

Donnelly digs in the chips. “You know Akara’s bike would’ve sold for more.” Oscar slaps Donnelly’s hand away. “This is snack-sized. For one person. Me. Get your own.” Donnelly gives him a middle finger.

“You’re right,” I tell her. “He needs you.” I want his best friend to be in sight if I can’t be, but it’s not easy to swallow the fact that money is what’s obstructing me.

“You’ll pay me back.” Her blue eyes flit up to me as she scrawls her name. “You don’t have time to argue, and if you have another plan, please let me know.” I don’t. “Okay.” I nod.

“Thanks, Cobalt,” I say as she rips the pink check out of the book. Jane offers a small smile, and then passes the check to the woman.

“He can be abnormally private,” she says as though being left out doesn’t hurt. “We should find Beckett—though, Beckett will only spill Charlie’s secrets if it’s life-threatening.”

“You have to win him.” I shelter the urge to ask why. “I don’t have thirty grand—” “I’ll wire you the money,” Charlie cuts me off, not removing his intense yellow-green eyes from my face. “Farrow.” Urgency is on my name, but I can’t tell if fear, worry, or something else accompanies it.

“Fuck the board,” Charlie says beneath his breath, and to me, he says, “Continue.” I comb a hand through my hair. “If this is serious, Charlie, security has the ability to shut down the entire auction—” “Maximoff wouldn’t want to end an event early,” Charlie cuts me off.

My dad, with amber eyes that can cut the soul into jagged pieces, stared right…right into me. Where most would fear him, I bathed in warmth—those sharp-edged eyes, with their bitter history and raw truths, comforted me. And he said, “Before I had you and your siblings, your mom was the one good thing in my life. And I know I’m supposed to tell you how love conquers all. How we could move mountains together. But the love we had almost destroyed us both. Love is like having a mortal wound and you’re bleeding out and no matter how hard you look, you can never find the goddamn cut.” He never broke eye contact.

“It’s its own special brand of pain,” he told me. “Because no matter how much you love, you’re still a passenger to their life. You have to watch all their bad decisions. You can’t think for

them or change them. Just be there for them. And sometimes, it’s not going to be good enough. Sometimes things happen out of your control.” He paused. “Love is pain, and you know what…I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t met it yet.”

But I keep picturing Farrow Redford Keene…I keep imagining him running down the aisle. Coming towards me. Because if our positions were reversed, I’d want to pull him off this damn stage. And I’d know I can’t, he can’t.

Farrow slips through the chatty masses with a determined stride. His shoulder bumps into a woman, and champagne almost spills on her emerald necklace—wait, why is Charlie behind him?

Charlie runs his hand through his hair and pulls at the strands. Not anxiously. He does it when he’s bored, too, and it always makes his hair stick up in odd places—and Jesus, I don’t know why I’m fixating on this.

Charlie shakes his head once. “Not this time. And I know what pornography companies do to our families, so I warned your boyfriend. He failed at winning you, and that’s not on me.”

“Straight porn,” Farrow says matter-of-factly. That’s why the name didn’t ring a bell for him. Farrow only watches gay porn. A straight porn actor just purchased me.

“Go,” he nods towards the door. “I can deal with this guy.” I hesitate. “Maximoff,” he urges. “Go.” Farrow sends me a single look that says, I’ll catch up with you later, wolf scout.

I know her as Nona, my cousin who could practically be my little sister. Who I used to carry on my shoulders through the Costa Rican forest while she snapped photos of every damn thing: the leaves, the dirt, the ants and the trees. She would bloody her hands, run off a cliff, and split open her heart for any living thing, and it’s terrifying. Fair Warning: I will decapitate you with a rusted blade if you fuck with this one, and she’ll probably try to stop me.

Ben drove us to the Philly Orchestra Hall. We ditched paparazzi, and we’re parked in this dead-end alley thing on the side. We’re waiting here for you. Please come to talk. It’s very very important. – Winona

And maybe he still will, maybe he’ll hate that Winona called me first, but I don’t want to chisel him out of my world anymore.

“Oui, oui.” Yes, yes. “Vous deux, allez-y. Je vais rester avec Beckett au cas où il serait bientôt appelé. Je ne veux pas qu’il soit seul.” You two go. I’m going to stay here with Beckett in case he’s called soon. I don’t want him to be alone.

Farrow locks eyes with me, and I know, in this second, that I want him with me. So I text Winona: me, Charlie, and Farrow are coming in a sec. Don’t drive away.

Farrow explains as he quickly fits in his earpiece and hooks a radio to his belt. “They really let you back on duty?” I ask, and we step into the rain together, our boots meeting the slick road. Farrow jogs around to the other door. “I’m the best at what I do, wolf scout. Everyone needs me. Case in point.” He puts a hand on the car’s wet roof.

“I don’t just need you though.” I want you. I want you. God, I want you.

I know him as Ben, sometimes Pippy, the youngest and most free-spirited Cobalt boy and my little cousin. A guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, who hurts over sad, broken things, and I know he wishes more people paid attention to important causes than the beauty mark on his cheek. Fair Warning: I will hold you beneath a frozen lake and drown you if you fuck with him.

“I don’t understand,” I say to Ben. “I know you and my brother had a falling out, but I thought you still liked him.” “Something’s changed,” Ben replies. “But it’s my fault. It’s really all my fault.” I don’t know what to take from that.

To be in Xander’s life, you have to wedge yourself in there, and Ben always snuck in. Up until about a year ago. Their “falling out” happened.

Charlie glares back at Farrow with a look that says you’re wrong. Farrow combats him with a harder stare that says I’m right.

Uncle Ryke and Aunt Daisy, Winona’s parents, are concerned since she’s past her curfew. When it hits 1:00 a.m., I expect the same onslaught of messages from Uncle Connor and Aunt Rose about Ben.

and I should’ve looked out for your brother, Moffy. It’s my fault.”

“After a while, we stopped talking, and he just…” Retreated. My brother retreated and barely leaves the house.

He extends his arm backwards to pass me his phone, and the one gesture causes Charlie to stare out the window. He must feel like Ben just chose me over him. My ribs shrink my lungs. I could hand the phone back to Charlie, but with my little brother at the centerfold of this, I have an aching need to be in control.

But it’s too loosened, and I don’t need to ask. Farrow already pulls the strap to her belt, tightening her in.

Xander needs his meds, and he’s just giving them away so that he can make friends. Hurt claws at me, wanting to just grab him and hug him and tell him this isn’t right. Somewhere inside, I almost can’t fucking believe this. Somewhere inside, I think I’m screaming at the top of my lungs for this to reverse.

“Be gentle, okay,” Ben breathes. “I can’t…I mean, Xander just…he lost his door again, right? He’s not in a good place.”

We spin out the second he pushes eighty-five, no traction to the wheels on the wet road—my arm extends over Winona’s

chest to protect my cousin, and I feel Farrow doing the exact same for her.