Madison Square Garden was full of cheering Knicks fans waving foam fingers and the sounds of squeaky sneakers against the shiny basketball floor. I had been working on Nick, the sports reporter from the New York Times, to give up a spare ticket or two that came his way for months now. It was kind of a shame I had to take along my work experiment, but none of my other omega friends would want to come anyways and the seats were amazing! So I couldn’t complain.

Last night had been fun - almost too fun - but now I had to put my plan into action. I could tell Ben was into me. All those flowers were not just for the Knicks ticket. Now I had to slowly do all the things I could to repel him. I’d take notes on his reactions and write about it so all the Glam-O readers could save themselves from making the same mistakes.

For the first three quarters of the game I was tame. I was partly distracted by the insanely exciting basketball game that was happening in front of me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the court.

The ref called an unworthy fowl on the Knicks and Ben and I began screaming in unison. “You call that a fowl! Come on ref, get your head out of your ass!” Ben laughed; he seemed impressed by my basketball knowledge. We were actually having a pretty amazing time.

An evil smile crept across my face and a light bulb went off. I was ready to drive this alpha away.

I waited for the fourth quarter to hit before I made my move. Two minutes left on the clock and the game was practically tied, Knicks down by two points, they just needed one basket. The ball went out of bounds, the whistle blew, and the Knicks called a time out. Everyone in the stands sat down, waiting patiently on the edge of their seats for the whistle to sound again.

The moment it blew everyone rose from their seats chanting for the Knicks. I tapped Ben on the arm.

“Ben,” I tapped harder, “Benny!”

He unwillingly tore his eyes away from the game. “Yeah?”

“I’m sooo thirsty Benny,” I whined, “Can you get me a soda?”

He looked at the clock then looked back at me. I gave him a look of urgency. He looked frustrated, “But…can’t you...” He motioned towards the clock with 20 seconds remaining, but I insisted.

“I’m just so thirsty!” I looked at him with puppy dog eyes.

I saw his jaw clench, but he took a deep breath, accepting his fate as an obliging alpha and quickly pushed passed the rows of people to get to the aisle. I watched him run down the aisle and disappear in the stadium. I turned my attention back to the game with a malicious grin plastered across my face.

The clock ticked away, Knicks up by five, down by one, down by three. Ben came running back, pushing through the row again and handed me my soda. There was still seven seconds left at the free throw line.

I took a sip of my pop and passed it back to him. “Ben, it’s not diet!”

He shrugged, looking aggravated.

“I need diet.”

He looked at me with wide eyes.

“It’s okay, I’ll go,” I went to push past him, knowing he was going to give in to my manipulation.

“No, no, I’ll go.” He snatched the cup out of my hand and ran back to the concession once again.

I almost felt bad as I watched the clock count down from four seconds, Knicks now down by one with the ball in their possession. “Three!” The crowd cheered as they dribbled down to the end zone. “Two!” They passed and passed again, “One!” Going in for the lay-up and they score! Knicks win by one point! The crowd went crazy. I looked to my right seeing the empty seat beside me and drew back my lower lip, oops sorry Ben.

The fans began exiting the court excitedly. I met Ben by the concession. “Wow! I’ve never seen such an exciting game!” I gloated.

“Yeah, me neither,” he sulked.

I skipped along beside him happily. I did feel a little bad about having him miss the game. I mean, so far he had actually turned out to be very kind and charismatic. But the fact of the matter was he was still an alpha and I had worked at an omega magazine for long enough to know that he would still end up being an alphahole.

Maybe I was just cynical from all the horror stories that passed through my office. They were all turned into articles and printed onto our pages for omegas to ‘learn from’. Or maybe I was just jaded from the jealousy that came from not having an alpha to call my own and a baby. Either way, I had given up thinking that alphas could give me what I wanted. I couldn’t get too attached to Benjamin Barry - he was just an experiment for work and nothing more.

We reached the busy streets outside and I stepped into a cab. I thought about inviting him, the other night had been quite fantastic but I thought of the article I had to write. I had already dangled the bait and even let him taste a little. I was onto the next phase; driving him away. So I kissed him on the cheek and said goodnight.