Page 7 of Alphas Like Us

She tucks a flyaway piece of hair behind her ear. “Boy,it was just sex. I don’t care if a one-night stand is creepily obsessed with a gas station or not—and don’t act like this was anything more for you. You don’t know my nameeither.”

“You’ve gotta be a Betty,” he says. “Betty sounds like the name of someone who’d trashWawa.”

She struts past the bed with her high heels in hand. “My name isSylvia.”

I turn a fraction of an inch to let her pass through the door. She eyes my trauma bag and then disappears to the kitchen.Three minutesleft.

I unpocket a stick of Winterfresh and peel thefoil.

“See ya never, Betty!” Donnelly calls, and the front door slams shut. He jumps into his ripped jeans. “Can’t believe I stuck my dick in a Wawahater.”

I pop my gum in my mouth. “You’ve stuck your dick in worse.” I straighten off thedoorframe.

Donnelly buttons his jeans. “Nothin’ worse than a girl who hatesWawa.”

I whistle. “And your fucked-up standardspersist.”

He grins and tugs his ragged shirt from last night over his head. He notices my trauma bag, and his mouthdownturns.

I don’t unearth this thing from the closet everyday.

Twominutes.

“Bike keys are on the bed,” I explain, chewing my gum. “I’ll be out for a while. You can use it if you needto.”

Donnelly doesn’t own a vehicle of any kind, and if he’s not borrowing my Yamaha, then he’s stuck on foot or with publictransportation.

I veer into the kitchen, not loitering around anylonger.

Donnelly follows close behind. “You tell your old man about being a bodyguardyet?”

I steal Cory’s apple out of a fruit bowl, and I glance back at Donnelly. “Notyet.”

A while back, Akara Kitsuwon suggested I try security training. He owns the Studio 9 Boxing & MMA gym, which became a hub for the famous families’ securityteam.

Donnelly and I were sparring on the mats, like we sometimes do, and in a break, I offhandedly mentioned being burnt-out from medicine toAkara.

Next thing I know, I’m in security training and Donnelly joins the ride. Now we’re both in the final course of training, and I’m one foot in medicine, one footout.

Donnelly takes a jug of milk out of the fridge. “Been thinking about when you’ll tellhim?”

I bite into the apple and hold Donnelly’s gaze for a shortbeat.

Once I tell my father that I’m quitting medicine to become a 24/7 bodyguard, I’ll lose him, and Donnelly knowsthis.

My relationship with my father is built on the notion that I’d become a doctor. That’s my worth. My life’s purpose. Remove it, and nothing isleft.

Let’s put it this way: I was his student first, son last. Small talk was typical; anything deeper almost never happened, and sure, he was always busy like most fathers are. But I didn’t have a mother, and he didn’t hire a nanny or babysitter to look afterme.

Instead, he put me in dozens of extracurricular activities. Made me fend for myself more than half thetime.

And one of those activities was martial arts. I started at five-years-old and never stopped. It’s ironic that my love of MMA is what eventually led me to the Studio 9 gym, and ultimately, what opened the door to securitytraining.

I can’t even be upset that I’ll lose my father with this career change. Because I don’t feel like I ever had a good one to beginwith.

When will I finally tell the old man that I quit? I don’t make regimented plans likethat.

I spit out my gum into a trash bin. “It’ll happen when it happens,” I tell Donnelly and eye the oven clock.One minuteleft.