Tristan sat in a dusty cantina just east of Juárez city limits, scanning the crowd. Several weeks had passed since he’d left his army base, a whole continent away, and secured safe passage to Mexico, and he was preparing to make the crossing from Juárez into El Paso, Texas. The two border cities were neighbors, bleeding into each other with only the the national borders of the two countries to keep them apart. That border was also the only thing keeping him from Josh.

Watching the condensation drip down the neck of his beer bottle, Tristan thought of his best friend’s beautiful face. Josh’s golden freckles and hazel eyes, that warm Texan drawl in his ear. He missed home, and he was almost there.

The smell of beer, the crowd in a bar, all of those things reminded him of Josh. What would his omega think of him, if he told him his story?

The last time Tristan had left, Josh had told him not to come back. Now, his best friend’s threats had never meant much, but what if this time, it had? What if, instead of welcoming him back with open arms, Josh was still angry with him? He could turn him in.

It was worth the risk, Tristan decided. It was all worth the risk, to get back to him, to have one last chance at freedom before the military caught up with him. He’d been away too long.

He ran his fingers through his hair. In the weeks since he’d left basecamp, he’d been growing it out. He was hoping once it got long enough, he would be unrecognizable from his military mugshot. Before his military days, he had always worn his hair long. It would be good to get back to himself. The way Josh used to know him.

Tristan kept his eyes on the entrance to the bar. He was waiting for somebody, somebody who would get him across the border. He hadn’t ended up finding passports at all. Instead, like human cargo, he had been smuggled first to Morocco, then across the Atlantic ocean on a ship, hitchhiking for labor. In Cuba, he had caught a boat that would take him across the Gulf of Mexico, and a truck full of oranges had brought him here, to this city, this cantina.

He hadn’t been told what the Coyote he was meeting would look like, only to have a stack of seven pesos on his table, and that the Coyote would take only two of the pesos and leave the rest.

That wasn’t the payment, of course. Tristan had paid a lot more than that to get back home. It was code, some way for them to know each other, and although he was skeptical, this wasn’t his home. He didn’t make the rules. He was on foreign ground and foreign time. He glanced at the seven pesos, stacked in as neat a tower as twenty-five minutes could get him, and was tempted to play with them again, but he reminded himself to be patient. To wait. Drink his beer. The more nervous he looked, the more suspicious he would seem.

No one in the cantina even looked at him. They were focused on a couple of loud tourists who had found their way in, and were loudly demanding Corona with lime and ‘crunchy tack-ohs.’

This wasn’t the place for them, Tristan realized. There were plenty of tourist bars in Juárez, but this cantina was full of people like him—outlaws, vagrants, deserters. The tourists stuck out like a sore thumb, but one filthy white guy with shaggy hair and a face covered in stubble must have seemed normal to the cantina’s usual crowd.

Just when he’d begun to relax, a beautiful brunette, seemingly out of nowhere, sat down at his table. She took two pesos from the stack and played with them between her fingers, her deep brown eyes fixed on him. She reminded him of a hungry carnivore.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

* * *

“Are you ready?” Josh asked, perched on his bike at the top of the tallest hill in the neighbourhood.

Tristan looked over at him from his own bike. Although Josh was fourteen and Tristan only ten, he had grown gangly and long, and they were almost the same size. That summer, they had each bought the exact same bike, and they had spent the last week searching out places like this, places perfect for a race.

Tristan was afraid of heights, so the hill was the ultimate test. He braced himself, one foot still on the ground. He wasn’t ready. But for Josh, he had to be brave. He wanted to seem grown up. He wanted to impress the older boy.

“Ready,” he said.

“Set.”

“Go!”

Tristan kicked off, and he was immediately terrified by the amount of speed he gained. The hill was even steeper than it had seemed, and he barely had to pedal, in fact, his pedals whipped around so fast that it was a struggle just to keep his feet on them.

He felt Josh whizz past him, and then the pedals shot out from under his feet and he panicked, tilting his bike toward the curb, only halfway down the hill.

His bike skidded and toppled over, and he went flying, and then tumbling, the road burning and ripping at his skin. His limbs twisted as he rolled and tried to stop himself, and heard his helmet crack against the ground, saving his skull.

He toppled almost all the way down the hill, and finally caught himself on his palms, tearing them open.

Panting from pain, he stood up and brushed pebbles out of his torn up skin. He would heal on his own, faster than a human, but it still hurt, and the shock of it had him trembling. He glanced up at the hill, and saw his bike had flown into someone’s yard, just about halfway up the hill.

Josh came running over to him, wheeling his bike next to him.

“Dude, are you okay?” he asked, trying to help brush the dirt and rocks off of Tristan’s sore, roadburned skin.

Tristan hissed and pulled away, humiliated.

“I’m fine,” he said, and reached up under his chin to unclip his helmet. He pulled it angrily off of his head, shaking out his shaggy brown hair.

Josh didn’t seem convinced, so Tristan avoided his gaze. He turned and looked at the hill, the sunlight glaring into his eyes.

“Damn it,” he sighed.

With sore knees buckling, he made his way up the hill. He tried to act brave again in front of his best friend. Josh might be older than him, and annoying, but they had stuck together through a lot. Recently, Tristan had found himself caring more and more what Josh thought of him. If Josh told him his outfit looked stupid, he wouldn’t wear it. If Josh told him he thought long hair was cool, he’d grow it out. If Josh wanted him to ride a motorcycle off a fifteen-foot cliff, well… He’d seriously consider it.

Being only ten, Tristan wasn’t all that aware of what he was doing. But as he stomped up that hill, he felt stupid. Why had he done that just to impress Josh? It had backfired anyway, and now he was going to go into some stranger’s yard, to get a bike he didn’t even like, to impress Josh. Again.

It didn’t quite occur to him that he might be gay. Instead, it occurred to him that the kids at school would totally call him gay if they could read his mind.

The yard that the bike had fallen into was fenced, but the gate wasn’t locked. Josh figured he could be in and out fairly quick. He took a deep breath, his heart pounding still from his fall, and with a sore hand he unlatched the gate and stepped into the yard as quietly and respectfully as he could.

His bike was nearly at the steps of the house, halfway embedded in their garden bed. He reached down and carefully untwined a petunia from his wheel before lifting the bike up, over his head, and pulling it straight away from the plants.

Behind him, he heard a low, warning growl.

He froze. He expected dogs to bark, but this one had the sort of growl that made all of his own canine instincts on sharp alert. He turned slowly to face the large Rottweiler.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, swallowing. He had no instinct to back down, but he didn’t particularly want to fight the neighbour’s dog, either. The Rottweiler came closer, growling, pushing Tristan, with his bike in his hands, backwards, forcing him into a corner. Tristan was, after all, an intruder, and that was his job.

Behind the Rottweiler, he saw Josh, who had made his way up the hill after him. Josh, to Tristan’s horror, saw the situation and grinned.

“This is really funny,” he decided.

“No, it’s not!” Tristan growled. “But I’ve got a handle on it.”

“Oh, really?” Josh laughed. Suddenly, he gave a friendly whistle to the dog, who turned his head, and then trotted over, curious, to sniff Josh’s hand.

Tristan was stunned. He slowly lowered the bike, stepping off the neighbour’s lawn to their path.

“Hey, buddy,” Josh said, kneeling down. He rubbed the underside of the dog’s chin, and then his sides, checking out his collar. “Angelo. The dog’s name is Angelo, Tristan, how did you manage to piss him off?”

Tristan rolled his eyes, sneaking past the dog at the fence and out of the yard.

“Let’s just close the gate and get out of here.”

Josh shook his head, petting the dog one last time before the latched the fence, and then waving at the beautiful animal as they left.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

Tristan felt his ego bruised more than ever, and he straightened his shoulders proudly. “For what?”

“Uh, for saving you? Jerk,” Josh accused.

Tristan shook his head. “You didn’t save me. I was fine.”

Josh shook his head. “I totally saved you,” he murmured.

“You’re the whole reason I got hurt in the first place,” Tristan finally admitted. He shouldn’t have, but Josh was getting on his nerves.

“What?” Josh asked. “You mean the hill? You didn’t have to…”

Tristan gave Josh a look. Of course he had to. What would Josh have said if he refused? He’d have teased him for being a coward, probably. Tristan’s young ego couldn’t take that, not from Josh, who seemed so cool and mature.

Josh frowned, looking at Tristan sadly.

“I’m your friend, dude. You don’t have to hurt yourself for me to like you.”

“I just wanted you to think I was brave,” Tristan admitted softly, wheeling his bike toward his house. “But now you probably think I’m stupid.”

“I do think you’re stupid, Tristan,” Josh admitted, stopping by Tristan’s fence to look into his eyes.

Tristan rolled his eyes. “Oh, thanks.”

“I think you’re stupid for trying to impress me,” Josh clarified, and gave him a smile. “I already think you’re brave.”

Tristan felt his heart do flips. He grinned at the older boy, shrugging a bit.

“Whatever. I gotta go inside and wash off this dirt,” he said, hoping Josh couldn’t see how hot and red his face felt.

“See you later, Tristan.”

Tristan got inside his house and shut the door, pressing himself against it. He’d been so humiliated, but the way Josh had looked at him, smiled at him… his heart felt like it would thump out of his chest.

Confused by his budding feelings, Tristan went into the bathroom to clean off. His wounds were already starting to heal, but he sat on the edge of the tub, dirty pants rolled up above his knees, watching the dirt run into the water and looking at his wounds.

This was what he got for trying to impress Josh. Josh said he already thought he was brave. Was that possible? Would the older boy still like him, even if he didn’t try? That didn’t seem right. Josh was in high school now, and he had cool teenage friends. If Tristan just seemed like a little kid…

Someone entered the bathroom behind him, and he jumped.

“Mom,” he said.

“Tristan, what are you doing?” she asked, looking down at him in kind confusion. “Did you get hurt?”

Tristan shrugged. “I rode my bike down the big hill, but the pedals spun too fast and I…”

His mom sat next to him on the edge of the tub, her legs opposite to his, and looked at him thoughtfully.

“I thought you were afraid of the big hill.”

“I am,” Tristan admitted. Now more than ever, actually.

“So who were you trying to impress? Was it Josh?”

Tristan gave his mother a suspicious look. “How did you know that?” he asked

She smiled. “Call it a hunch. Listen, maybe it’s time we talked about alphas and omegas.”

“Like you and dad?” Tristan asked, confused. “What does that have to do with Josh?”

“Tristan...your father and I have felt for a long time that you’re likely growing up to be an alpha wolf. You’ll find a partner, a mate, to support you. Part of being an alpha is wanting your partner, your omega, to look up to you, and be proud of you. In other words, you want to impress them.”

Tristan wasn’t sure he liked where his mom was going with this.

“Wait, don’t omegas have babies, Mom?”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Even the boys.”

Tristan shook his head. “I don’t think Josh is an omega. He’s too bossy. And he’s older than me. And he’d never want a baby.”

“You’d be surprised,” his mom said, with a smile he didn’t quite understand. “But even if Josh isn’t your omega, right now, you’re practicing your roles within the pack. This urge you feel to impress Josh, it’s natural, but don’t let it get you into trouble. That’s what I’m saying. One day, you’ll impress him by being a strong leader. Someone he can count on.”

Tristan smiled a little bit, imagining himself a strong, tall alpha like his father, proud, but in a mature, quiet way that didn’t involve road rash. It sounded good to him.

“How are you sure that I’m going to be an alpha?”

His mom shook her head. “I’m not,” she admitted, and touched his hair, comforting him. “Just another hunch.”

As that sank in, Tristan realized, more than ever, that he was going to have to be a lot stronger to be Josh’s alpha. He had to toughen up, and stop being afraid of everything. Someday, he’d be an alpha.