THE ALPHA’S FATED ENCOUNTER
1
MADDY
Abi was on the other side of the bar, pulling chairs down from table tops. It was Friday, so I was thankful for the help in getting the place ready for the evening rush. It would have taken me an hour if I had to do it on my own.
“Hey, Maddy? Do you want these tables moved farther apart?” Abi asked.
I stopped wiping the bar top and glanced over. “No, you can leave them where they are. It should be fine.”
“Okay, cool.” She flipped the last chair over, set it on its legs, and then slid it under the table. I’d moved behind the bar to start polishing the wine glasses when she came over and slapped her hands on the bar. “Holy shit, did I tell you I got my results back?” she asked.
I stopped mid-polish and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Results? What kind? STD? Pregnancy? SAT? What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an asshole. No, the DNA ancestry thing I sent off a few weeks ago. Remember?”
I did remember. The main thing I remembered was her hyperventilating before swabbing her cheek. We’d done it at herhouse, and I thought she was actually going to pass out when she saw the blood.
“I do. What did it say?”
“Well, I know you’ll be shocked, but I’m seventy percent Irish.”
I glanced up at the bright red hair braided down her back and the bright green eyes twinkling with excitement and shrugged. “No way. I was sure you’d be Argentinian or maybe Japanese.”
“Very funny. Though, I did get a fun little surprise. I’m one percent West African.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “I really hope that doesn’t mean you had some shitty slave-owning ancestor who liked to take advantage of the people he’d enslaved.”
Abi’s face fell and she tilted her head. “Well, damn. I hadn’t thought of that. I kinda hoped my great-great-great grandma fell in love with some handsome mysterious man while on a sailing trip or something.”
“Let’s go with that. Much less depressing.”
“You should do it, too,” Abi said.
“What? Sail around the world and fall in love with a mysterious man? Deal.”
“No, dummy, the ancestry thing. We can order a kit today. It’ll be here in no time. It doesn’t just tell you about your lineage, it also tells you if there are any diseases you’re susceptible to. It’s pretty interesting. I’m apparently twenty percent more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than the average person. Yay, me. Plus, I found three cousins I didn’t know I had. I already friended one on social media.”
The idea gave me a little flutter of anxiety. Finding out about genetic things did intrigue me. Being adopted, it would be nice to know if I had a higher risk of diabetes or heart disease, and would give me a head start on preventing things like that.But finding out about my birth family? That was more nerve-wracking.
When my parents had finally told me I was adopted, I’d gone through a full-on identity crisis. Who was I? Was my entire life a lie? Why did my biological parents give me away? All the things a young teenager would flip out about. It took about a year for me to come to terms with it. My mom and dad were the people who’d raised me from birth, and that was all I needed to know. I’d given up thinking about my birth parents a long time ago. The thought of stirring all that up again was mildly disturbing.
“I honestly don’t care much about my heritage,” I said.
“Okay, sure, but what about knowing if…I don’t know…if whatever kids you someday have might have cystic fibrosis or if you’re more likely to get breast cancer? Doesn’t that interest you?”
It did, I had to admit that. I thought about it for several seconds as I finished polishing the last wine glass and started on the beer steins. I already had chronic anemia, for which I had to take supplements. What else could be lurking in my DNA? I didn’t plan on having kids anytime soon, but knowing they might have some genetic anomaly before I ever got pregnant was always better than finding out last minute.
“Okay, if I did do this thing,” I said, “how would I get a kit?”
Abi clapped her hands. “Yes! I’m so excited. Oh, what if we find outwe’recousins or something?”
“The kit, Abi? How do I get one?” I asked, ignoring her comment.
“Hang on.” She pulled her cell phone out. “I’ll send you the link.”
My phone pinged a few seconds later, but I left the text unopened. There was too much to do to get ready for the night. We finished prepping the bar before the first customers started to roll in—mostly regulars who’d just gotten off work. The nightwas way busier than I’d anticipated, but it was all good. People had made fun of me for getting a business degree only to turn right around and open a bar instead of going into corporate America, but I was pretty sure I made more than a lot of people my age. Twenty-eight and making over six figures a year? I’d take the busy and late nights. It was a pretty damned good trade-off.
