Page 146 of Alphas Like Us

He whispered, “I’d hear my mom saying my name at random times. I wasn’t thinking of the memory, but it’d surface involuntarily. It’s more of a sensory thing, and my father had his colleague speak to me. I was a kid, so I was confused.” Farrow held my gaze. “But he told me to focus on whether there could be a trigger. A time of day, a feeling, asound.”

“Was there one?” Iasked.

“Yeah.” His eyes trailed over my cheekbones. “Abed.”

Farrow explained that every time he’d crawl into his single-bed as a kid and pull the covers up to his chin, he’d hear his mom say his name. And instead of avoiding the bed, he returned to it every night. “I tried to ground myself to something else. Another sound, another feeling, and after a while, the memory fellback.”

It made more sense why he immediately told me,“it’s the rain,”on the roof. He was identifying the trigger, and he wasn’t panicked. He’s been mostly angry that it’s happening atall.

So recently, my aim is to take more stress off him. Make his days lighter and better. In anyway.

Now that I have my backpack in front of me, I unzip the main section. Farrow is watching from the yellow beanbag with escalatinginterest.

He scrutinizes the tower of flashcards I put on the coffee table. “Quitting early isn’t going to win you high marks,” he tells me, ditching the comic and reaching backwards for a hacky sack from abin.

“This is called a fucking break,” I tellhim.

“A break,” he repeats. “That doesn’t sound like the Wolf Scout way.” He tosses the blue hacky sack, and I watch his fingers wrap around the crocheted ball. He stares into me. “I must’ve really loosened those laces…” he trails off as I pull out a gallon-sized baggie from mybackpack.

Farrow crunches up to me, shoulder-level, and he takes the baggie from my hands. Inspecting the contents through the clear plastic. His brows keep rising and rising at me likewhat did youdo?

“This is for the first day,” I explain, my elbow on his knee and hand on his thigh. “I have another one for the secondday.”

Step 3 is a two-day exam. The first day is seven hours, and the second day is nine hours. Only a forty-five minute break during eachday.

It’s brutal—or so I’ve read—even if it’s the easiest of all the stepexams.

Each baggie contains two protein bars, crackers, mixed nuts, grapes, a whole apple, and two turkeysandwiches.

“It’s important you’re not hungry during the exam since it’s long,” I tell him. “At least that’s what people say on the sdnforums.”

His smile slowly expands wider and wider, overtaking the whole damn room. He’s not saying anything, and I don’t know. It makes me fuckingnervous.

My neck heats, but I double-down on confidence and gesture to his chest. “Preparing for stuff is my thing,” I tellhim.

He laughs, and before I interject, he tells me, “I love your thing.” His smile is a million watts of power and fucking beauty. He waves the baggie. “Thanks for these; they’re perfect. And now you’ve successfully earned your ninety-fourthpreparednessmeritbadge.”

I feign confusion. “Thatmany?”

He almost rolls his eyes and leans in, cupping my jaw. My hand slides down his thigh towards his ass, and our eyes rake each other for a boiling minute. And our mouths meet—I pull back, our lips separating before they even sting orswell.

Farrow frowns. “What’swrong?”

“I’m not distracting you before your exam, man.” My broad shoulder brushes his hard chest when I reach forward and collect theflashcards.

He tips his head. “You do realize I’m going to pass this exam even if I kiss the fuck out of you? Hell, I could fuck you all night, and I’d still aceit.”

I swelter, my muscles blazing with a hundred-degree desire. I try not to look at Farrow. Because if I look at my childhood crush who just said he could fuck me all night—I’m going to flashfuck me all nighteyes.

“You can’t be that sure,” Iretort.

“I kind of can. I know my shit, and this is shit Iknow.”

I force a grimace. “Looks like we know who has the better vocabularynow.”

“Always me, Harvard Dropout.” He reclines back on the beanbag, realizing that I’m not letting up, and he watches me flip through theflashcards.

I read off another one. “What are the drugs that lead tohypercalcemia?”