Alpha Consumed (The Dixon Brothers 2)

I laugh when I spot him leaning against a column. He’s holding a sign that says “Bailey! Welcome home from jail!”

He grins. I rush over and let him swallow me up in his big arms. It feels good to be home.

“I want to hear all about it,” he says as he grabs my bag and throws it over his big shoulder. “Every country.”

“You know you could leave Belgrade Springs for once and see them yourself,” I say with a playful grin.

He shakes his head. “Not my style. I don’t think my grizzly bear would react well to being locked up in a metal tube thirty thousand feet in the air.”

“Good point,” I say with a laugh. I guess I forgot that things are always different for my brother. My father passed his bear shifter gene onto him, but it skipped over me. I was bitter about that for a long time, but I guess being human has its perks too.

We chat as we head into the parking lot. I smile when I see his big blue pickup truck. It’s weird what’s comforting after traveling so long—the dried mud on my brother’s car, the sound of English as people walk by, even the shape of the toilets.

I had a great trip, but I’m glad it’s over. I went with a friend I met online from Sweden. She was so much fun to travel with and I was so sad to say goodbye.

I spent another two weeks traveling after she returned home to Karlstad. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t found what I had set out to find.

It was like there was a piece of my life missing and I had hoped that traveling around Europe would have filled it, but it didn’t. It feels worse than ever—empty and lacking, like there’s a chunk of my soul missing.

“You can stay with me as long as you want,” my brother says as he tosses my bag into the back of his truck. “I bought a bed for you off Craigslist and set it up in the spare bedroom.”

I don’t know why, but it brings tears to my eyes. My brother has always been the best. I was picked on a lot growing up, but he always came to my rescue, straightening out anyone who tried to mess with me.

“Really?” I ask as I wipe the wetness from my eyes. “You don’t mind? It might be a while, I’m kind of broke.”

He laughs. “Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you take a shower as soon as you get home. You stink.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say as I swat him. He ducks under my hand and heads to his door.

“But seriously,” I say. “Thank you so much, Enzo."

After a warm shower, a hot meal, and a long nap, I’m feeling pretty good.

It’s about four o’clock and Enzo has gone to work at the fire station.

“Yes,” I whisper when I see his note on the table. He got a ride with Brees so that he could leave me the truck.

I haven’t had my favorite conditioner since I ran out in Mykonos, Greece about seven months ago. I’ve been dreaming about this conditioner. I’ve written love poems about this conditioner.

I grab the keys and hop into the truck. My brother lives in a nice house on the outskirts of town. It’s about a ten-minute drive to the general store, but it takes me about twenty. I haven’t driven in a long time and I’m a little rusty.

“Sorry!” I shout through the closed window at no one in particular as I drive over the curb while I’m turning into the parking lot. My heart is pounding when I finally turn the engine off and sit there in silence.

The tantalizing thought of my conditioner carries me forward and I hop out of the truck and head inside the store. I’ve lived in Belgrade Springs for my entire life and I must have been in this store thousands of times, but it looks so different. Everything looks so different.

This town that was my whole world growing up, that always seemed to be larger than life, looks so small and quaint after roaming through the bustling streets of Paris and standing in front of the Colosseum in Rome. My whole perspective has changed. I guess that’s what traveling does to you.

But still, once I’m standing in the shampoo aisle and staring at my favorite coconut scented volumizing conditioner, I realize I’m still the same old person as before.

I load up on three bottles, promising myself that I won’t skimp out when I’m using it, and I head to the cash.

A huge masculine body comes out of nowhere and bumps into me. One of the big bottles slips from my arms and slams onto the ground. Conditioner sprays up all over our legs.