I suppose it’sbetterthan getting tossed out on the street.
Bowie had told himself that repeatedly. It didn’t always help, but with the door locked behind him, he could see how it made things safer for him. There was the money he’d earned doing odd jobs for the neighbors in the evenings and on weekends, and a chunk of cash from Phil in his bank account to use to payutility bills and buy food. If he were sensible, it would last until he finished school and had a job. That was what Phil said. He understood that he just hadn’t had to manage all these things himself before. And doing it alone terrified him when he could get a little muddled about such things.
Shivers wracked his body, the icy chill of loneliness coming in a tremendous gust as he glanced around once more, seeing the emptiness in his new home in Hazardville. The place his parents—folks who’d been temporary caregivers, it turned out—had found him originally. Hundreds of miles from them, they’d assured him that this was better for him. He wasn’t stupid, it also ensured there was no connection left to them, and they’d not have to see each other on the street when they had their new baby.
The sob escaped past his trembling lips, his eyes blurring, forcing him to place down the box he held and scrub at his damp cheeks. The one-bedroom apartment, though small, felt huge to Bowie with no one else there to make a noise to block out his sobs.
Nose running, temples throbbing, his tears flowed freely at how Phil had driven off without a backward glance and squashed his last bit of hope they’d change their minds. They’d see he was lovable.
“What makes me so hard to love?” he asked the empty room, his voice echoing off the bare walls. They reminded him—as if he could forget—that he had no family portraits to decorate them with. Only nothingness to show the world that he was a reject.
“What?” he sobbed harder. “If I don’t know the answer, then how can I fix it?” he cried mournfully, dropping to the floor to curl into a ball, burying his head in his knees. Hiding from the feeling growing inside him, one that felt like sticky fingers creeping over his skin, leaving no part untouched from the sorrow of abandonment. From his new reality.
Chapter One
Alphaholes
Booker:So, who wants to talk about the damn hit and run that Hollis just did to us? Tay? Anything to say about your assigned PA?
Silas:As if he’s gonna complain ‘bout his good fortune.
Kodi:Good fortune… yeah ‘bout that…
Kari:Lennon is sweet.
Laken:If not a little quiet.
Rue:Anyone want to swap? Monty, he sometimes smells of fish… my rhino doesn’t like fish.
Booker:I never got a whiff of fish from him and my bear loves fish. Are you sure it’s not for another reason?
Rue:What reason would that be? Are you trying to piss me off?
Jupiter:Little brother on a stampede, that’ll be fun. Remember the last time you did that, you spent a week without any privileges. LOLOLOLOL
Rue:Fuck you! It was your damn fault.
Jupiter:Is it my fault you can’t resist a dare?
Silas:Jup, it’s always your fault…
Jupiter:That’s right, pick on me. You did see who I ended up with? Wilder! I mean, have you seen how often the guy shifts into his raccoon?
Kari:He’s cute as fuck.
Jupiter:Then you take him, and I’ll have Bowie.
Booker:You think it’s gonna be that simple? That Hollis will just allow us to swap about when he’s listed the damn reasons why we have the assigned PAs?
Silas:Tay… your silence is fucking telling. I bet he’s dancing naked around whatever effigy he has of Hollis.
Booker:Honestly Silas, if I never read this again in any lifetime, it would be too soon and I’m out before you give me anything else to fucking think about.
Kari shut the brothers’ group chat, which Jupiter had aptly named Alphaholes because he had a sense of the ridiculous. Kari counted in his head as he opened his computer and waited for Kodi to appear in his office doorway. His twin was nothing if not predictable, and his comment in the group chat said he was going to have plenty to say about this new turn of events.
What Kari thought about his assigned PA, Bowie, he kept to himself. If he mouthed off in the group chat, his brothers would be on him like flies on shit, and until he figured out how things would work with Bowie, his thoughts were his own. Also, Kodi, who had no filter, would say whatever he thought about the PAs regardless of who could overhear. Kari had learned his lesson long ago. He kept his thoughts to himself unless he wanted Kodi to tell the whole world.
Kodi didn’t mean to be offensive to anyone, it was just that he had no brain to mouth filter, resulting in Kari spending most of their teens—and most of his adulthood—apologizing for his brother. Mostly having to protect—talk folks around—Kodi from getting his ass kicked for being the way he was.
