Alphas Like Us (Like Us 3)

I lift my gaze to his. “You said that I need to do what I love, but I love security, wolf scout. That hasn’t changed. So why do you think that I want medicine more?”

He sees the path that I can’t see yet.

Maximoff clasps my hand tighter. “Medicine is a part of you, and unlike security, that’ll never change. Christ, I know you hate believing that medicine is who you are, but I don’t think it ever left you even when you left it.”

He lists off all that I’ve done just while I’ve been on his security detail.

Including treating his sister’s infected tongue piercing to setting his dislocated shoulder and triaging an entire car crash. I could do more if I were a concierge doctor.

I’d have a license to prescribe medicine. I’d be on-call for all emergencies.

But I waver.

Maximoff sees. “If you’re only fighting yourself on this because you love me,” he says, “I’m telling you to go. It’ll eat at you for the rest of your life if you don’t. So I need you to go.” His voice almost breaks. “Fucking Christ.” He knocks his head back to the rock wall. He’s conditioned himself to bottle up a certain kind of emotion.

He could marbleize his face. But he’s actually wrestling to let go and be more vulnerable.

Quickly, I pull my hand out of his. Only so I can hold his face between my palms. “You don’t need to pretend that it won’t be hard. Not being your bodyguard will be just as hard on me.” I keep swallowing a lump lodged in my throat.

His eyes redden, and he clutches the back of my neck. “You know, the hardest things are usually the right things.”

I nod a couple times, my thumb stroking his cheek. “A philosopher talking to you again?”

Maximoff starts to smile, and it’s drop-dead gorgeous. “If you want to call my dad and uncle philosophers, then yeah. A couple philosopher kings told me that.”

I wrack my brain. Should’ve known. I’ve heard Lo and Ryke say that phrase before.

“Farrow.” Maximoff captures my gaze. “You better choose medicine. Because if you don’t, I’m going to kick your ass.”

I almost let out a laugh, but I breathe deeper with him. And in the tender quiet, my fingers skate through his hair, down the angles of his cheekbone and jaw. To his neck that aches to unwind, and up again. Maximoff closes his eyes, relaxing into my touch.

I pull him closer, a breath apart, and when his eyes melt into me, he whispers, “You know what’s strange? I have zero job options, and you suddenly have two.”

I push back his hair, my fingers trailing down the back of his head. “Can’t be that strange, wolf scout,” I breathe. “I am better than you at everything.”

His grip strengthens on my neck like he’s hanging onto what hasn’t changed. That. In years of time, that back-and-forth has never changed.

He breathes easier. “Tell me the plan for medicine.”

I’ve tried to explain what I’ve done in terms of medicine, but it’s confused him a little bit. I’ve graduated from medical school, and I’ve completed a month of my residency.

“I need to finish my three-year residency at Philadelphia General. I also need to pass my USMLE exam and boards.”

He nods, confident. “You’ll do it.”

There’s something else. I haven’t thought about what returning to medicine means in terms of my family.

I didn’t want it to influence my choice.

But now it slings back at me.

“And I need to talk to my father.”

15

FARROW KEENE

Today marks my last week on security, but SFO doesn’t know that yet. Clock strikes 4 a.m., and quietly, I slip out of Maximoff’s bed and find a pair of my boxer-briefs in his drawer. I search for pants.

Almost all of my shit is in his room: clothes, toiletries, a few medical texts that I dug out recently, and my electronics. I prefer it this way. Not only because security’s townhouse contains Thatcher, and the less time I spend around him, the better. But because Maximoff will sometimes scrutinize all of my belongings in his room and start to unknowingly smile.

It’s cute as hell.

I pull my black pants to my waist, and Maximoff blinks awake beneath his comforter. He extends his left arm to reach for the bedside light.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper, fishing my belt through the loops. “It’s mail day.” The Omega lead schedules a specific day and time to examine our client’s mail. It’s usually at 4 a.m.—when all the famous ones should theoretically be asleep.

Maximoff collapses back and pinches his tired eyes. “Have fun with that.” His brain must start waking up because he quickly asks, “Are you telling them tonight?”

I pull a black V-neck over my head. “Technically, it’s morning.”

He growls into an uncontrollable yawn. “I don’t think you realize how annoying your technicalities are.”

“Trust me, I do.” I smile as irritation scrunches his brows. “Man, that’s partially why I keep them up, just for you.”

“I’m partially honored.”

I grin and hook my radio on my waistband. Before I go, I return to the bed. And I hang my hand on the headboard and dip down towards him. Close enough to kiss him, and as much as I want my lips against his lips, teasing the hell out of him is too good to pass.

“I’m going to tell SFO,” I confirm.

“Need help or any backup?” he asks. We’ve discussed Omega’s possible reactions, and the only one that I can’t predict is Thatcher Moretti. The rest should be fine. My friendship with Oscar and Donnelly is easy for a reason. We roll with the punches and almost never hound each other.

“I’ll be okay.” I linger for a second.

Maximoff is staring at my mouth.

I smile wider. “You think I’m going to kiss you?”

“Who said I wanted you to?” He’s only looking at my eyes now. Trying to beat me at the whole teasing thing. It’s not going to work.

I lower closer, planning on pulling away at the last second, but he clasps the crook of my neck. Our breaths meld, and our mouths meet like a fucking magnet. I rest my knee on the bed, my hand dropping to his jaw—fuck, Maximoff…his tongue parts my lips. Driving the kiss deeper, a coarse noise scratches my throat.

His left hand sneaks up my shirt.

Shit.

I’m almost about to climb on top of him. I tear our mouths apart. “Damn,” I breathe hard and step back before I end up in bed with him.

Maximoff smiles like he won something. “Looks like you wanted to kiss me.”

I walk backwards. “Never said I didn’t, wolf scout.”

My words and smooth tone must relax him. He oozes into the pillow, as much as he can for being in a sling and without heavy pain medication.

It’s alway

s hard to leave when I love being around him. But this’ll be our regular routine when I restart my residency. And to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Exiting the attic, I skip rapidly down the narrow staircase. Cats dart out from under the Victorian loveseat, and then I scare Walrus with my foot. He scurries beneath the iron café table.

“Stay there, you little bastard,” I warn, slipping through the adjoining door. Shutting out the calico cat behind me.

As soon as I’m inside security’s townhouse, I’m met with a stench that I can’t pinpoint.

Let’s just say it smells worse than Ben Cobalt’s rank B.O.

Akara looks up from the leather couch. “I know,” he says, clutching a Lucky’s Diner paper coffee cup, “I can’t figure out which one it is.” He motions with his index finger to the mound of boxes and envelopes. Packages are scattered across the coffee table and the hardwood floors.

Wicker laundry baskets, that aren’t used for laundry, line the brick wall. A name written on a travel tag is attached to each one. And a heavy-duty trash bag hangs off the fireplace mantel.

The smell stings my nose. “I’d say it’s rancid, but I’m not sure that’s the right word.” I step over Quinn’s spread of packages that pile up at the door.

“It’s probably food,” Quinn says, slicing through a cardboard box with a utility knife.

“Even spoiled food doesn’t smell like that, little bro,” Oscar replies, ripping open a manila envelope. He’s seated on a leather barstool at our high-top table. Security’s furniture is more comfortable and less pastel than everything in the neighboring townhouse.

And it’s not a surprise that Oscar is in Philly. Or Donnelly, who straddles the armrest and flips through a few letters. All of SFO spent the night since Charlie and Beckett are crashing in Jane’s room, and Sullivan is asleep in Luna’s bedroom next door.

We all stayed out late for trivia night at Saturn Bridges. Maximoff said most of his cousins would normally pass on those invites. But Charlie showed. Beckett showed, and so did Sulli and Luna.