Alex

I threw a handful of garden tools into the back of my dad’s pickup a little too hard, then kicked the tailgate shut with my steel-toed boot.

“Hey, Alexandro, you wanna break something? Go work on those rocks over there, and leave my truck in peace. What did it ever do to you?”

“Sorry, pop. I’m just tired.”

“It looks like you’re more than tired, son. What happened?”

“I don’t know. We’ve been working here all day since eight this morning—we’ve been doing it once a week for years—and the lady up there doesn’t even show us enough respect to know that were not Mexican. She asked me where the best Mexican restaurant was, because she says our family would have to know. I’ve pretty much had it with that bi—“

“Alexandro, watch your mouth. That lady up there is the one who pays us. It’s people like her that have kept food on our table your whole life. Kept you in clothes and pay for that fancy phone in your pocket. As far as I’m concerned she can ask us anything she wants, and were going to respond politely.”

“But you never stand up to any of these people, pop. You let them walk all over you. I’m not like you. I can’t stand the way they treat us. Our family has lived in this town for over thirty years and you’ve come to this woman’s house once a week and she still doesn’t know were Puerto Rican. There’s even a Puerto Rican flag on the side of your truck. How hard is it to notice something like that?”

“Alexandro, you have to learn to pick your battles. You have to know when a fight is going to get you absolutely nowhere, and this is one of those times. We’re not here in this woman’s yard to make a statement or to make friends. We’re here to do a job. When you find your people you will know. But no matter what, you still treat everyone else with kindness and respect. Nothing less. That’s what your father and I have always taught you. Now go pick up the leaf blower and the debris bags so we can go home.”

“All right,” I growled as I stomped off. I cruised around the yard for a few minutes, gathering up the rest of our tools and trying to cool off. My dad was right. Trying to change someone’s mind from a place of anger usually didn’t work. But I couldn’t help but be angry.

I was tired of being a low-level member of this community just because of the color of my skin. It didn’t matter that I grew up here and that a lot of the residents knew who I was. Whenever I went into a store or walked down the streets I could see women clutching their purses and keeping their distance, like I was some kind of criminal. I was sick of being treated like an outsider in my own town.

When we got back to my parent’s house my brother, Mateo, and his daughter were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner with my omega dad. My brother’s alpha had left him while he was pregnant with Nina and he had been living with our parents ever since.

Mateo stayed home with dad and took care of his daughter and seven-year-old son, Ralph, but now that they were getting a little older he was talking about starting to work a few days a week at our family’s landscaping business.

My parents didn’t care if he worked or not. They just loved having the whole family in the house together. I was sure they’d be perfectly happy if I moved back in too.

“How’s my little Nina,” I said, ruffling the five-year-old’s hair from behind.

“Uncle Alex!” she squealed.

“Come on, Alexandro,” my omega dad said. “We’re almost done with dinner, then were going to the movies. You’re welcome to join us. Or do you have a big date tonight?”

I sat down in front of a huge bowl of sancocho, my favorite stew, and started shoveling it into my mouth. I’d never found anyone who could cook as good as my omega dad, so I pretty much always ate dinner at my parent’s house. And lately, with the long work days, I’d been spending the entire week over at their place. “No, no date. I barely have time to do anything during the summer when we’re working eleven hour days.”

“These long days are what keep us going throughout the winter, young man,” my omega dad said as he jabbed at the air with his spoon. “I don’t want to hear you complaining anymore. Look at your poor alpha poppa. You’re going to give him indigestion.”

“Ach,” my poppa said as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink. “I had indigestion even before we got home. I’m headed straight to bed. Good night.” My alpha poppa kissed everyone, including me, on the head, then headed down the hall.

“Pop has been working too hard. He shouldn’t still be having to break his back at his age.”

“That’s why he has you with him, Alexandro. He couldn’t keep the business going without your help. Now, are you coming with us to the movies?”

“Sure, where?”

“Scary movies at the drive-in!” little Nina squealed.

“And your daddy is letting you go to see scary movies?” I said, looking up at my brother. “You don’t think she’s gonna have nightmares?”

“I never have nightmares, Uncle Alex!”

“She’s right, she can watch just about anything and it doesn’t faze her one bit. Ralph, on the other hand, is afraid of his own shadow.”

“And he’s two years older than me!” Nina exclaimed. She was at that age where everything that came out of her mouth sounded like it had an exclamation point after it.

“Besides,” Mateo continued, “they’re old movies. And everyone knows old movies aren’t scary,” he said as he tickled his daughter.

“They aren’t!” Nina squealed, then settled back into her food after she saw the stern look her grandpa was giving her.

“Where is Ralph, by the way?” I asked.

“He’s spending the night at his friend’s house,” my brother said. “That’s the main reason we decided to go. We could take Dad’s big car and put that center thing down so we can all sit in the front seat. You wanna go?”

“Sure, that sounds good. I don’t have anything better to do. I can’t believe that drive-in is still open. Weren’t they going to shut it down a few years ago?”

“Yes, but somehow they got some funding and managed to keep it going,” my dad said. “It’ll be a sad day when that place closes. It’s been a fun place for families to go to for many years. There’s not too many places like that anymore.”

We got to the theater and found our parking spot, then I got everyone situated while I stood outside the passenger window and took their orders. “Okay, hot tamales for Nina, Junior mints for dad, and red vines for Mateo.”

“And popcorn and Coke!” Nina yelled from the center of the front seat.

“Of course. Popcorn and Coke. I’ll be back before the movie starts.”

I was still kind of distracted as I made my way to the concession stand. The events of the day were still on my mind and I really hoped the movie would help me lose myself for a little while. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to work with my poppa in the family landscaping business anymore, but there was no way I could abandon him. I was his only alpha son and I had to help him take care of the family. But I didn’t want to worry about any of that right now.

I was so distracted by my thoughts about my future and my family that I almost smacked right into someone in the darkness. I watched as a waterfall of popcorn fell to the ground, then, as my eyes moved up the vague outline of a well-built man in jeans and a T-shirt, I froze.

But it wasn’t what I saw that almost made my heart stop. It was his scent. The guy was huge for an omega, almost as tall as I was, and he was in heat. I was suddenly surrounded by the most overwhelming mixture of aromas—sweet summer flowers, freshly cut grass, and a perfume that I remembered from my childhood. I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply, and when I opened them again, the guy in front of me dropped everything.

I wanted to bend down and help him pick the mess up, but neither one of us could move. As I stood there and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, more and more of the omega came into focus. He was muscular and had a bushy beard, and looked really familiar. But I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before.

My brain screamed at me as I stood there. It was telling me there was no way in hell I should be considering mating with some bearded redneck. But my cock was saying something completely different. I just couldn’t deny the fact that his scent was everything I loved rolled up into one incredibly hot, sexy, unattached package.

It wasn’t just my cock, though. This guy’s scent was affecting every single cell in my body. Within the short amount of time I’d been standing there, my body had started aching for him. I could barely breathe with the thought of tasting the salt on his skin, and that thought alone pushed me over the edge.

I grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and pushed him backward until he hit the wall of the concession stand building. It was dark along that stretch, but not that dark. I knew there was no way anything could happen there, but I had to have a taste.

I felt the omega’s pulse racing as I took one long lick from the bottom of his neck up to his ear, and when I opened my eyes again I saw the utter desperation in his. He was as hungry for me as I was for him. I heard someone laugh and turned my head to find a group of alphas gathering around us. When I saw the way they looked at the omega I knew I had to get him out of there. Soon there would be more and I could only fight off so many.

I got the omega locked inside his car, then cleaned up the food he dropped. Then I went into the concession stand and bought everything my family had asked for and ran back to my dad’s car. I shoved it all through the passenger window, then leaned down and looked in. “I can’t stay. A friend of mine is in trouble and I need to get him home.”

“Okay, Alexandro. You go help your friend. We’ll see you tomorrow, yes?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow. Night, Dad. Night, Nina. Night, Mateo.”

“Bye, Uncle Alex!” was the last thing I heard as I ran off to find the redneck’s truck again. After I’d stashed him in there and locked the door I realized why he seemed so familiar. Why I knew he drove a truck. He was the redneck I’d seen driving that lifted monstrosity with monster tires around in my neighborhood in Portville. His truck was so loud it woke the whole neighborhood just about every morning at the crack of dawn. He had no consideration for other people and I couldn’t stand assholes like that.

But I had no idea what he was doing all the way out here in Newtown. And I had no idea why he’d be at a drive-in movie all alone when he was in heat. Another inconsiderate thing to do. But even though he was only thinking of himself when he came here, I knew I had to do the right thing and get him away from the alphas who had caught his scent.

The irresistible scent of an unattached omega in heat.

When I got back to his truck that group of alphas was still hanging around, only now they were actually trying to get in. When I saw them beating on the window with their fists I flipped. Those guys were lucky that the only thing I did was pull them off the truck and toss them a few feet. What I really wanted to do was beat the hell out of each and every one of them. There was no way they were getting to my omega.

My omega? What the fuck? I thought as I pulled the keys out of my jeans and hopped in behind the steering wheel. What the hell was I thinking? This guy was definitely not my omega. I was just keeping him safe while he was in a bad way.

I felt okay when I ran to talk to my family. Maybe a little more aggro toward those other alphas than I would normally be. But who wouldn’t do that when they were protecting their omega?

Then I stopped short again. Why did I keep thinking he was mine? It didn’t make sense. I was just taking this guy home.

But, the thing was, when I jumped in the truck and shut the driver’s side door, the omega’s scent wafted over to me and my alpha hormones went completely crazy again. I could barely think straight, I wanted to mate with him so badly.

I wanted to get him somewhere far away where no one would find us. Where I could take my mate and impregnate him and—

“What’s going on?” the omega asked as he leaned closer to me. I shook my head and rolled down my window and tried to calm myself down. I could feel my blood surging through every inch of my body like molten lava.

“Stay over there,” I barked. “I need to concentrate and I can’t with you near me. Roll down your goddamned window.”

I got us out of the theater parking lot and headed out onto the highway. “Where do you live?”

The omega had his hand down his jeans and he was staring at me with a star-struck look in his eyes.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Where do you live?”

The omega continued to stroke himself while he gave me directions. I tried to keep my eyes off of him, but I didn’t know how much more of this I was going to be able to take. I stuck my head out the window and inhaled as much of the night air as I could while I followed the directions down some long country roads.

We wound up at a very old, single-wide trailer on a forested lot in the middle of nowhere. “Do you live here alone?” I asked. Part of me wanted to make sure that he was going to be okay getting into his house by himself, but the other part of me had ulterior motives. I wanted to be inside this omega, and at this point I didn’t give a damn where it happened. Even in a creepy old trailer that looked like it had been dropped on this property in the nineteen-fifties.

“Yeah. I live here alone. But I don’t want to go in there by myself. You’re going to come in, aren’t you?” The omega’s eyes pleaded with me and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something else, but instead he closed his eyes and shuddered, curling up into a ball on the seat next to me. Then he let out a long, deep moan that sent shivers down my spine.

I got out of the truck and walked around the passenger side. Being out in the air and away from his scent for a moment allowed my me to clear my head a bit. This was ridiculous. I was not going to fuck this redneck omega. I was going to take him inside, then I was going to get an Uber or cab to come out here and pick me up, and I was going back to my parent’s house.

I didn’t know anything about this guy. All I really knew was he had no problem blocking driveways with his big, stupid truck or breaking the sound barrier with his modified muffler as he peeled out at the crack of dawn every morning. And he had no problem putting himself in jeopardy by being in heat in a public place. Everything about him was wrong for me. He was a dick, and he was self-centered, and he was not my type at all.

I was going to take this omega into his trashy trailer and make sure he was safe, then I was going to get the hell out of there. I told myself that I would not touch him. No matter how amazing he smelled or how hot his ass looked in those sexy, worn-in jeans, I was not going to fuck this omega and risk getting him pregnant.

I told myself that right up until the moment when he dropped to his knees in front of me and unzipped my jeans. Even as I watched my hard cock pop out I told myself everything was cool—that I could leave at any moment. And I believed it too, right up until the very second he wrapped his warm, wet lips around the head of my cock.