Alpha Bully (Wolf Ridge High 1)

“Bailey!”

I look over at the group. Cheerleaders and a gaggle of other girls I vaguely recognize.

Rayne grabs my arm, like she’s worried.

“Bailey!” It’s Casey at the center of the throng. She’s holding Adriana’s upper arm in a bruising grip and drags her through the group of girls toward us.

“Tell her,” Casey snarls, shaking Adriana. She’s tall, bigger than Adriana even though she’s two years younger. And she definitely shares Cole’s gift of intimidation.

“Tell me what?” I ask. Chills run down my legs. What does this have to do with me? I really can’t take any more of the Wolf Ridge drama.

Adriana bares her teeth in a distinctly wolf-like gesture and tosses her hair. “I’m not telling her anything.”

“Fine, I’ll tell her. Adriana’s not pregnant. She never was. She made it up to cause trouble.”

I fight to swallow, force my clammy hands to uncurl. Why does Casey think I’ll care? Why does she even care? And the biggest why of all—why is she bringing this out in a public place when she knows her brother never claimed to have a relationship with me? That he denied and hid his relationship with me?

“It doesn’t matter,” I croak. “I don’t care.”

Casey’s chest falls. She stares at me for a moment. “Well, I do.” She spins Adriana around to face her. “You cause trouble for my brother or his girlfriend again and I will personally kick your ass.” She releases Adriana with a push.

“Yeah,” some of the volleyball girls agree.

Adriana’s friends catch her. She pales. Casey definitely appears capable of fulfilling the threat.

“I’m not his girlfriend,” I mutter, but no one hears me. The girls are starting to yell at each other again and Rayne tugs me away, eyes wide. “Someone’s trying to fix what’s broken,” she says when we’re at my car.

“Yeah, what do you think that’s about?”

“I think she doesn’t like seeing her brother go down so hard.”

Goosebumps run down my arms. “Over me?” I whisper, even though I know that’s the only answer.

“Um, yeah?” Rayne uses the duh tone of voice. “He just got kicked out of the game down there. He’s definitely having a hard time with your breakup.”

I shake my head and start my car. “You can’t break up what never was.”

“Oh don’t give me that. You may not have had a label, but you two were definitely something. Something big and important to both of you.”

Her words make me wince from pain. He was something big and important to me.

Is still.

I pull out into the line of game traffic. “Not important enough for him to go public with. Even his sister is more willing to admit we were a couple than he is.”

Rayne rubs her forehead. “Right.”

I wend my way through the packed streets until I get to our neighborhood where I drop Rayne off.

The lights are all off and there’s no cars in the driveway at Cole’s house when I get home, which is a relief. I don’t need to wonder what he’s doing. Whether he’s thinking about me. If his chest hurts as badly as mine.

But I guess after tonight I know the answer.

He’s hurting.

Wish that made me feel even one scrap better, but it doesn’t.

Cole

It’s 10:45 p.m. when I pull up in front of Rayne’s house. Her mom will probably kill me for ringing the doorbell at this hour, but I don’t give a shit. Coach Jamison pretty much kicked my ass after the game. He threw me up against the lockers and told me if I was going to act like a punk, I was off his team.

“I’m off, then,” I hurled back at him, but he slammed me up again.

“Don’t you dare quit on me, Muchmore,” he growled. “Stop acting like a child who has no control over his life.”

“I don’t have control!” I yelled.

“Then take it,” Jamison said quietly. “No one’s in charge of you, but you, Cole. Not me. Not your dad. Not the alpha. Are you going to let them take your girlfriend away from you?”

I stared at him in shock. But of course he would know what’s going on with me. My friends would’ve spilled when I almost ruined the game. They would do anything for me, but Jamison is alpha and like a father to all of us.

And that’s when total calm settled over me. Calm and determination. “No,” I vowed. “No, I’m not.”

So I’m here. To figure out how to fix this mess I made. Finding out from Casey what Adriana did only makes me more determined. I march up the steps and ring.

Her mom, a production floor worker at the brewery, answers the door and squints at me, like she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. “Cole Muchmore?” she asks in disbelief.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Rayne’s voice carries from wherever she was and she appears a moment later in the doorway.