Page 17 of Alpha Varsity (Wolf Ridge High #5)

Chapter Seventeen

L otta

Wednesday after school, I meet Olive at 603, an upscale bar down in Cave Hills. Wolf Ridge has nothing upscale. I can’t afford the fifteen dollar drinks here, but it’s better than hitting a local bar and being surrounded by pack members who are all up in your business.

I also need the liquid courage, not that the buzz will last the way it does for humans.

“Are you ready for this?” Olive asks, sliding into the seat next to mine.

“Not even remotely.” I give her a weak smile. “Thank you so much for doing this with me.”

“Of course! Your art is amazing. You deserve to be in the best galleries in the country.”

I laugh. “You haven’t even seen what I’m painting these days.”

“Well, I remember from high school! You’ve always been an amazing artist.”

I’m not sure I can trust her opinion since she’s basing it on my very undeveloped raw talent before I went to college, but it’s nice to have someone in my corner. This is the kind of blind support I always craved from my parents.

The kind my spoiled roommate Andy had—the entitled ass who seems to want to hook up with me when he comes to Arizona but ghosted me about the introduction to the gallery he’s visiting.

That’s part of what made me follow up with Olive about her offer to help. I need to get out there and market myself. I can’t get stuck in Wolf Ridge teaching art for the rest of my life.

An unexpected shifting in my chest accompanies that thought, though.

I may want to escape Wolf Ridge, but what about Asher?

Up until this week, until our picnic date, I had refused to even consider continuing anything with Asher beyond this teaching stint.

But honestly–I knew that was delusional. I can barely make it through twenty-four hours without having sex with him. Do I really think I’m going to roll out of town at the end of the school year?

Beyond biology, I’m catching feelings. Not that I didn’t always have feelings for Asher. I cared deeply about him back when I was tutoring him, before I even knew he was my mate. But now…I’m addicted to his presence. I want more time with him than he gives me. I want conversation and laughter and communion. I want all of Asher. Not just the physical piece he’s willing to give me.

Most of all, I want his forgiveness. But how can I get it when I don’t want him to know what really happened, and he doesn’t want to hear my explanation anyway ?

Olive orders a shot of tequila and downs it quickly. “Let’s do this.” She grins at me.

“Cheers.” I swig the rest of my espresso martini and pay for both of our drinks then slide off the barstool and head to my car.

I brought three of the medium-sized canvases along with me because I don’t feel like photos accurately represent what I do. I brought an abstract wolf painting that I created in college, a super realistic painting of my white wolf standing in the meadow Asher brought me to, and a whimsical pop-art style wolf painted in bright orange, pink and blue.

Olive carries one, and we enter the first gallery and ask to speak to a manager.

“No unsolicited art,” a blonde woman in a boxy suit snaps from where she was hovering mid-gallery.

I freeze.

Olive lifts her chin. “What is your preferred method of contact for artists?”

“Nothing unsolicited,” the woman repeats firmly.

Some customers turn and look down their noses at us.

Ugh. This is awful. I’m already walking out the door, my face burning.

Olive mutters, “Don’t let that bitch get to you.”

“Maybe this wasn’t the right way to do it,” I say, already defeated. “My roommate from college has a contact at one of the galleries here. I will ask him again if he can introduce me.”

“Well, let’s just see if someone will be nice enough to tell us how it works.” Olive marches on to the next gallery, a few doors down.

This guy practically barricades us from entering. He jumps in front of me as I walk through the door. “You can’t bring that in here.” He looks alarmed, like my paintings carry an infectious disease that will spread to the art in his gallery.

“Can you help us out? We’re just trying to figure out the proper protocol for reaching out to the owner.” I have to give Olive credit for not tucking tail at his tone.

The guy’s upper lip curls in a sneer. “I’m the owner. Everything here is highly curated . We’re booked eighteen months in advance with art from all over the world. We’re not currently accepting submissions.

“Got it,” I mumble, backing out the way I entered and jostling Olive as I do.

“Here’s the thing.” Olive snatches the two paintings from my sagging arms, stacking them on top of each other. “You can’t sell art for exorbitant prices unless you’re snobby, so they’re all going to be assholes.”

I sigh and start back toward the car. This clearly wasn’t the right way to make connections.

“We just need to figure out a way to make them think you’re the next big thing. Have someone who impresses them give them a call or something. Would one of your professors?”

I deflate even more. “I don’t know. My program was full of amazing artists. There’s nothing to make me special over any of them. I never had a champion or anything.”

“There must be a way.”

“Olive, thank you.” I wrap my arms around her neck in a hug she can’t reciprocate since she’s holding all three paintings. “I’m grateful for your confidence in me, but I think I need to go home and regroup. I’ll try my college roommate to see if he can make the introduction I need to get into one of these places.”

Olive shrugs. “Okay. Fair enough. ”

We reach the car, and I open the trunk for Olive to put the paintings away.

“Come on,” Olive says. “This round is on me, girl.”

Asher

I hate schoolwork. I shouldn’t have left this essay until the last minute, but time is always tight with school, football practice, and working weekends at the bakery. Now that I’m ducking out for at least an hour a night to see Lotta, it feels like I’ll never catch up on my schoolwork.

It’s 8:30 pm, and I’m sitting in front of the school-issued laptop at our kitchen table, staring at a blinking cursor. I have this paper on the Odyssey due tomorrow, and I’m barely past the second paragraph. I’ve spent the week working on the self-portrait Lotta assigned. I guess that’s on me–I could be using classtime, like everyone else, but instead I’m still pretending to hate her, fucking around with my friends all hour, and patently refusing to do any work under her watch.

But the truth is, at some point after I stole that little painting of us, I started caring about the idea of making art.

Art that represents us.

Art that tells a story or conveys a meaning. Art that will show Lotta how much she destroyed me. Maybe also give her a glimpse of what she meant to me–means to me.

I’ve been cutting out tiny pictures from magazines and collecting small mementos, like the logo torn from a Wolf Ridge Sweet Treats bag, and the corner of the first math test I got an A on after she started tutoring me.

Now that I know she’s my mate, I don’t feel as demented for saving this shit. For keeping that pendant of hers in my dresser all these years.

My phone buzzes with a text, and I glance down, expecting it to be Abe or Seb or Markley.

It’s Lotta.

Please say you’re coming soon.

My lips quirk, and my dick gets chubby. It’s the first time Lotta’s texted me. For some reason, it feels like a small victory. There’s a level of comfort we crossed after the picnic.

Feeling needy?

I text back.

Yeah. Need to drown my sorrows with something better than a cocktail.

This cock is definitely better.

I pause, digesting what she said.

What sorrows?

Meh. Olive and I visited a couple of galleries in Scottsdale but they wouldn’t even look at my art. It’s fine.

It’s not fine. I want to slay dragons for her now, but I don’t imagine me charging down to art galleries in Scottsdale is going to do much good.

I was trying to finish an essay but fuck it. I’ll be right there.

I slap the laptop shut. My mom looks over from the counter where she’s meal-prepping for the next few days. “Are you finished, hon?”

“Uh, not quite. But I’m taking a break.”

“Do you have a girlfriend, Asher?” my mom asks.

Crap. I guess I haven’t been too slick about hiding where I’ve been going.

I’m not one to lie to my mom. Shifters can smell lies, so she would know, and it would only be hurtful.

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“Does sort of mean you’re slipping out to see her every night?”

I let out a chagrined chuff. “Yeah.”

My mom folds her arms over her chest. “I thought so.” She seems pleased. There’s a twinkle in her eye. It definitely wouldn't be there if she knew who I was sneaking out to see.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t need to have a discussion with you about protection, do I?”

“Definitely not,” I say quickly. “We’re good.”

“So, when do I get to meet this girl?

Never.

The only thing worse than my mom finding out I’m dating Carlotta James would be her mom finding out. Both of them would be horrified, I’m sure.

I never told my mom that I was the one responsible for my dad’s banishment–that I had told Carlotta about him stealing from the brewery. It was in a moment of anger. My dad had kicked me around before she arrived at our place, and then he embarrassed me in front of her, mocking me for needing a tutor. He called me slow, as I recall.

Carlotta defended me, correcting him. She told him I was perfectly bright, and my grades had improved greatly over the past few months.

Realizing my dad was going to be a dick to her for correcting him, I tugged her out the door, pretending that we needed a book from the library for that night’s homework.

She bought me a hamburger at the New Moon diner. I was grumpy, wanting to act out. So I threw my dad under the bus and told her about him stealing from the pack by pocketing money from parking lot fees at the brewery.

“Asher?” my mom prompts when I hesitate.

My mom and I never talked about it, but she knows Carlotta’s mom is on the council. She probably put it together who ratted my dad out.

“I don’t know, Mom. I’m not sure it’s gonna work out with this girl.”

My mom’s forehead wrinkles. “You’re spending every night with this girl,” mom points out. “It seems serious to me. Do her parents know?”

Do her parents know that she’s screwing one of her students? Uh, that would be a big no.

“No. Not yet. Like I say, mom, I don’t know if it’s gonna work out. It’s all kind of new.”

My mom throws me a skeptical look but doesn’t say anything else.

My phone buzzes with another text from Lotta.

Bring your homework, and I will help you with it.

Damn. That offer should not be so hot to me, but it rekindles that prepubescent obsession I had with her when she was my tutor. Something in my body responds as if I’m still thirteen.

I unplug the laptop and tuck it under my arm before I head out the back door. Outside, I pause, realizing my mom might be brainstorming all the houses within walking distance to our place with she-wolves my age.

Oh well. Considering she just made it clear she’s been tracking my behavior, she probably already noted that I’m leaving by the back door on foot every night.

I drop into the shadows and follow the wash up to Lotta’s casita. I find the door open. Inside, Lotta’s lit candles and has two glasses of lemon water sitting at the breakfast bar that serves as her table.

Something weird happens to my heart–a double thud, or a bounce. Something unnerving.

“Wow. Hey.” I clear my throat because it’s suddenly constricted. I walk over to where she’s sitting and cradle her face, bending down to kiss her softly.

Her lips move against mine.

I’m not sure what happens for her, but I’m suddenly awake. Alive. Back on this planet. I’m not sure where I’ve been until now, but it wasn’t here. I wasn’t this present. I wasn’t standing looking at the most beautiful she-wolf on the planet, drinking in her scent, reveling in the fact that she was waiting for me, with candles lit and drinks poured, ready to help me with the most mundane but necessary work.

And that…feels like love.

Which nearly drops me to the floor.

To think that Lotta might care for me makes my heart thud like I’m in the middle of a football game.

When I break the kiss, her gaze is soft. She pulls out the bar stool beside her and pats it. “Let’s get that paper done. What’s the assignment?”

I slide into the seat beside her. It feels both as natural as breathing and like an out-of-body experience at the same time. Like I’ve always belonged beside this beautiful female. Like things have always been this easy between us. Like our destiny is assured.

I pluck her from her seat and lift her onto my lap. Her laugh is low and husky as I pull her hair to the side to kiss the side of her neck.

“Homework first.” She attempts to use her teacher voice on me.

My dick lengthens against her soft ass. I find her classroom authority so fucking hot right now. In fact, now that I’m over hating her, I can admit what a brilliant teacher she is. Her enthusiasm for her subject shines through every lecture. Every assignment. She loves art, and she wants her students to love it as deeply and madly as she does.

The weird thing is that it’s working. Art never meant anything to me before, but now I see the beauty of it. It evokes something in me. Especially now that I’ve witnessed the magic of Lotta’s muse.

How she foretold our future through her art.

I slide my hand up the inside of her thigh.

She opens my laptop. “You heard me, baller.” She slides off my lap to stand between my legs and turns around to face me. Her arms slip behind my neck. “But if you’re a good student, there will be a reward.” Her voice is sex-kitten sultry, and she flicks her tongue against my earlobe.

I palm her ass and let out a low growl. I’m not sure I can make it through homework without fucking her, but for some reason I want to try. I’ve been the polar opposite of a good student since the day she showed up at Wolf Ridge High. I was punishing her for showing her face in my school.

Now it feels wrong.

Reluctantly, I release my grip on her soft curves and turn her back around to face the laptop.

“It’s an essay on the Odyssey. I’m supposed to write the story from the perspective of another character.”

“Okay, who did you choose?”

“The cyclops.”

Lotta’s soft laugh wraps around me like a blanket, snuffing any last embers of anger I had toward her.

I stare at her lovely profile as she reads the couple of paragraphs I wrote, and I realize this is it.

I am hopelessly lost for this female.

What happened with my dad will somehow have to coexist with the fact that Lotta is my mate.

I love her. Always have, always will.