Page 27 of His Problem Alpha

Devon

T he first thing I see is the open duffel bag on his unmade bed. The second is the worn leather jacket—the one he always wears, the one that smells of him, of ozone and old books and safety—folded neatly on top.

“What are you doing?”

My voice is a thin, high wire in the quiet of the room. My heart starts to hammer, a frantic fist against my ribs so hard I’m sure he can hear it.

He doesn’t look up. His hands don’t even pause as he methodically folds a dark t-shirt and places it in the bag. He moves like a machine, all his warmth and life gone, replaced by a cold, mechanical purpose.

“Alex.” I take a step into his room—our room, where just days ago we were a tangle of limbs in these sheets, his mouth on my throat, his hands branding my skin. “Alex, look at me.”

He won’t. His shoulders are rigid, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumps beneath his skin. The scent rolling off him is all wrong—sharp with distress and the sour tang of old, unearthed grief. It makes my nose itch, my chest ache.

“I know about Ethan,” I say, the words a desperate gamble, tumbling out before I can stop them.

His hands freeze over a pair of jeans. For a full second, he’s perfectly still, a statue carved from misery. Then, slowly, he turns. His eyes are hollowed out, dark pits in a face that’s gone chalk-white with shock.

“What did you say?” His voice is a ghost, a rough whisper like he’s been gargling sand.

I swallow, my throat suddenly desert-dry. “I know about your brother. The accident. I talked to Finn.”

Something shifts in his face, the shock curdling into a cold, terrible anger. “You had no right.”

“I had every right,” I fire back, my own anger a welcome shield against the fear. “You’ve been a ghost for two days. You won’t talk to me, won’t even look at me. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to leave it alone!” he roars, the sudden volume a physical force that makes me flinch. “You were supposed to take the hint and stay the fuck away from me!”

“Is that what you want?” I demand, stepping closer, crossing the invisible line he’s drawn between us. “For me to stay away? Because I don’t believe you.”

He whips back to his packing, his movements jerky and aggressive now, stuffing clothes into the bag without care. “What you believe doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”

I stagger back like he’s hit me. Leaving. He’s really leaving. The room tilts, the floorboards seeming to shift beneath my feet. I grab the doorframe to steady myself.

“Don’t do this,” I say, and I hate the way my voice breaks. “Alex, please. You didn’t kill him. It wasn’t your fault.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. I know it the second the words are out. He whirls on me, his face a twisted mask of a rage so raw it’s almost beautiful in its devastation.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he snarls, advancing on me until I’m pressed back against the doorframe.

“You weren’t there. You didn’t make the call that put him on that road.

You didn’t have to look my parents in the eye at his funeral and know you were the reason for the hole in their lives. ”

“It was an accident,” I insist, holding my ground even as he looms over me, his shadow swallowing me whole. “A horrible, tragic accident. The drunk driver—”

“Stop.” The word is a blade, sharp and final. “Just stop. You think you understand because Finn gave you some sanitized version of the story? You don’t know anything.”

“Then tell me,” I plead, my hand lifting, wanting to touch him, to anchor him. “Help me understand.”

He recoils from my almost-touch like I’m white-hot iron. “There’s nothing to understand! I destroy everything I love. I got my brother killed, and I’ll do the same to you if you don’t get the hell away from me.”

“That’s not true,” I argue, desperation clawing at my throat. “You didn’t kill him! Loving people isn’t dangerous—running away from them is!”

He actually recoils, and then he laughs. It’s a harsh, broken sound ripped from his chest, utterly devoid of humor. “That’s what Ethan did,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper that chills me to the bone. “He loved me. He ran right toward me when I called. And now he’s dead.”

The words silence me. They are a wall of his grief, his guilt, his unshakable, twisted logic. There’s no argument that can scale it.

“So that’s it?” I finally manage, hot tears burning the backs of my eyes. “You’re just going to run? Again? Like you ran from your family, from your hometown, from everyone who ever gave a damn about you?”

“Yes,” he says, the fight draining out of him, leaving him looking hollowed and exhausted. The anger is gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that ages him a decade right in front of me. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Why?” The question is small, pathetic.

“Because it’s what I do,” he says, turning back to his bag. “I run before I can break anything else.”

“That’s bullshit,” I say, but the words have no fire. “You’re not a monster. You’re just scared.”

He zips the duffel bag closed. The sound is brutally final, a door slamming shut in my face. “You’re right,” he admits, not looking at me. “I am scared. I’m terrified of what I’ll do to you if I stay.”

“Alex, please—”

He finally turns, finally meets my eyes. There’s nothing in them. Just emptiness. A complete and total void. “Find someone who deserves you, Devon,” he says, his voice flat. “Someone who won’t ruin your life.”

He shoulders the bag. He walks past me, close enough for me to feel the cold radiating from him, but he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t look at me again.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. This can’t be happening. It can’t end like this.

“Alex!” I call after him, my voice finally breaking free. “Don’t do this. We can figure it out. Together.”

He pauses at the front door, his back to me, shoulders hunched as if under an immense weight. For one heart-stopping, hope-filled second, I think he might turn around. He might change his mind.

“Goodbye, Devon,” he says.

He closes the door behind him. Just a soft click. Somehow that hurts more than if he’d slammed it.

The silence buzzes in my ears. I can’t hear anything but the frantic, useless thumping of my own heart.

And then I feel it.

A sudden, gut-wrenching cold spreads through my chest, a physical sensation of loss.

The warm, constant hum of his presence in the back of my mind—a presence I hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone—just vanishes.

Snapped off. The air in the apartment feels thin, unbreathable, like all the oxygen left with him.

His scent, which had saturated everything, is already starting to fade, leaving behind a hollow echo.

It’s the feeling of being utterly, biologically alone.

“Fuck you,” I whisper to the empty apartment. “Fuck you for making me care and then just… leaving.”

My legs buckle. I slide down the wall to the floor, my body a dead weight I can’t hold up anymore.

The apartment feels huge now, the silence a crushing presence.

His scent is everywhere—coffee, leather, that earthy smell that’s just him .

It’s on the couch. The doorknobs. My skin. I can’t escape it.

The tears come, hot and silent at first, then wracking sobs that tear through me. They burn down my cheeks, drip from my chin. I taste salt. My shirt is soaked. I curl into a ball against the wall and cry until I can’t make any more sounds.

I don’t know how long I sit there. Time dissolves. The sun sets outside, painting the room in long, lonely shadows.

Eventually, the crying stops, leaving me scraped out and hollow. My head throbs. I lick my lips and taste nothing but salt and dryness.

I have to move. Do something. Anything.

I push myself up, my legs shaky. In the kitchen, I fill a glass with water and drink it down in long, desperate gulps. It soothes my raw throat but does nothing for the gaping hole in my chest. I brace my hands on the counter, my head hanging. What now? What the hell am I supposed to do now?

My stomach lurches. A violent, undeniable wave of nausea. I clamp a hand over my mouth and run for the bathroom.

I barely make it before I’m on my knees, heaving into the toilet. My body convulses, emptying what little is in my stomach until there’s nothing left but dry, painful spasms that make my abs cramp.

Great. Perfect. Literally sick with heartbreak.

I slump back against the cold tile, boneless and exhausted. My gaze drifts to the cabinet under the sink. A memory surfaces—the second pregnancy test. The one I never used after the first was negative.

No. It’s just stress. Grief. My body rebelling against the absolute fucking train wreck of my life.

But the thought won’t leave. I’m late. So tired lately. The morning sickness I’d blamed on anxiety…

My hand trembles as I reach for the cabinet door. The box is there, shoved in the back. I stare at it, my heart starting its frantic drumming again. Do I really want to know? What if it’s positive? What if it’s negative? What’s worse?

Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab the box, my fingers fumbling to tear it open. The plastic stick feels heavy in my hand, impossibly weighted.

My mind goes blessedly blank as I follow the instructions. Pee. Wait. Three minutes. I set it on the edge of the sink and sit on the cold rim of the tub, not looking at it. One hundred and eighty seconds that feel like a lifetime.

My phone timer chimes, a cheerful, obnoxious sound in the dead quiet. I silence it. Take a breath. Force myself to look.

Two lines. Stark and pink and undeniable.

Positive.

My hearing fuzzes over, the hum of the bathroom fan fading to a distant buzz. The room seems to pulse, the white tiles of the wall warping at the edges. I drop the test. It clatters against the floor, the sound a million miles away. All I can see are those two lines.

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Alex’s baby. I’m carrying Alex’s baby.

From those nights. When we couldn’t get enough of each other. When he claimed me. When he bit my throat and whispered mine against my skin like a prayer.

And he’s gone. He left. He walked out that door convinced he destroys everything, not knowing he created something.

I laugh. A high, broken sound I barely recognize as my own. Of course. Of fucking course.

But the grief doesn’t disappear. It’s still there, a massive, gaping wound in my chest. But something else rises through it—something fierce and primal. A protective instinct, sharp and clarifying. I might be heartbroken, but I don’t have the luxury of falling apart. Not anymore.

“Hey,” I whisper, my voice raw. “Hey, little one.”

My hand moves to my stomach. Still flat. Unchanged. But everything is different now. I’m terrified. And somehow, not alone anymore.

I wait for the panic to hit—single parent, raising a child alone—but it doesn’t come. Instead, a strange, cold calm settles over me. This is real. This is happening. And I’m going to figure it out.

First, I have to get out of here. I can’t stay in this apartment, surrounded by the ghost of him. I need space.

I push myself up. Decision made. I’ll go to Raymond’s. He’ll let me crash. I’ll figure out the rest later. One hour at a time.

I move on autopilot, barely seeing what I’m packing. I grab my toothbrush. My favorite sweater. The charger for my design tablet. I stuff them into a backpack, not caring if anything gets wrinkled. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but leaving.

In the kitchen, I freeze. The blue mug—his favorite—sits on the counter where I left it this morning. Full of coffee I’d made as a peace offering. Cold now. Untouched. A lump forms in my throat.

No. I’m done crying over Alex Matthews. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I blink back fresh tears. He made his choice. Now I have to make mine.

I dump the coffee down the sink, the dark liquid swirling away. I rinse the mug and set it in the dish drainer. A stupid thing to care about now, but I do it anyway.

I’m at the door when I hesitate. I turn back, grab a piece of paper from the notepad by the fridge, and scrawl a few lines.

Alex,

If you come back, I'm gone. I'm not waiting for you to decide I'm worth the risk. I deserve better.

Devon

I leave the note on the counter, weighted down by my key.

I take one last look around. The place where I hated him, then wanted him, then loved him. The place our child was conceived. The place I have to leave behind.

“Goodbye,” I whisper to the empty rooms.

Then I shoulder my backpack and walk out.

Staring at the two pink lines that have changed everything, I slide down to the cold tile floor. My hand goes to my flat stomach, a shield against the echoing silence of the apartment. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay, baby. It's just us now.