Page 31 of Fourth Base with the Alpha

I push my shoulder against the door and step us through into the balmy night. I can hear the hum of traffic in the distance, and litter blows across the scuffed red carpet.

“I feel like Cinderella,” Isabella murmurs. “Only I’m leaving with both my slippers, unfortunately, and the prince.”

“Are you going to turn into a pumpkin any second?”

“Cinderella wasn’t a pumpkin,” she giggles. “That was her coach. Nope, I’m just going to turn back into plain old Isabella from LA.”

I like plain Isabella.

I hope she always stays this way.

At the bottom of the steps, I lift her into the back of the cab, shoving a handful of notes in the driver’s hand.

“I’ll see you on Monday, Cupcake,” I tell her, fighting every instinct I have not to climb in that cab with her.

“Good night Prince Charming,” she says, waving and blowing me a kiss.

1 Join us

8

Isabella

In the olddays it would be Maria waking me up this morning, bouncing on the end of my bed, yanking the sheets off my body and pinching my toes. She wouldn’t be happy until we snuggled up in bed together and relived every single detail and analyzed to death every thing that happened.

But Maria’s not here. It’s the sound of my mom rapping at the door that wakes me this morning. Although, as I squint out from under the cover, I realize it’s barely morning. It’s almost eleven o’clock.

“Isabella! Isabella! Are you alive in there?”

“Si, Mami,” I groan. Does she have to talk so loud? “I’m awake.”

“You have flowers.”

“What?”

“That man sent you flowers.”

“Huh?” I repeat. It may be late morning already but my brain hasn’t woken up yet and I don’t know what on earth she’s talking about.

She twists the door handle and opens the door, pausing in the doorway and tutting when she finds me lying in bed.

“A bunch of flowers just arrived for you. From that man.” She smiles like this is the best thing to have happened all year.

“How do you know who they’re from?” I ask her with suspicion. “Did you read the card?”

She rolls her eyes and tuts again. “Who else would be sending you flowers?”

“Anyone. Anyone could be sending me flowers. I might have a whole fleet of admirers.”

My mom laughs. “You are funny,'' she says, turning to walk down the hallway.

“I was being serious,” I call after her.

“They’re in the kitchen, come look.”

I roll out of bed and pull on my robe, tying it around my middle and slipping my feet into my chancletas. They clack against the soles of my sore feet as I stomp into the kitchen.

If I was expecting some fancy-mancy, over-the-top-bouquet of flowers that would assault my sensitive omega orifices and set my allergies into overdrive, I was wrong. The flowers that sit on the kitchen counter in a candy-striped box with a matching ribbon are daisies.