Page 10 of Targeted By Love

I’d been through three or four colognes since then but had recently stopped wearing any altogether. He, however, still used the same sexy scent. He might not’ve looked the same as he did all those years ago, but when we danced and my eyes fluttered shut, it was as if I were back there. Funny how a strong scent unlocked memories.

If I had a bottle of it, I’d have sprayed my sheets with it every night. I should’ve asked him what it was. No, that was messedup. Finding out someone’s signature scent just to spray it on your pillow or clothes? That was an entirely new level of clinger unlocked.

All I wanted to do was go to him. Hold him close. Tell him that I missed him. Tell him I wanted him back. Ask him not to leave me.

There was nothing rational about any of that. For all I knew, we’d had some nice dancing and wedding fun, but that was it. Wasn’t there some sort of saying about weddings making you more susceptible to crushes or one-night stands? That was probably all it was for him.

I got out of the shower, dried off, and grabbed my phone. I was officially giving up. I needed to see him.

If I got there and he rejected me, then he rejected me. But if I got there and he felt the same? Wouldn’t it be worth it?

I tapped away, trying to find him. Finding his last name was easy, but there were multiple people in his family. I didn’t know any of them, but I found an address that was my best guess. It might’ve not been his, but it was a start.

It wasn’t like there were a thousand families with that name in town. If I got there and it didn’t work out, at least I’d tried. I wouldn’t regret finding out it was one-sided, but I’d always regret a life of what-ifs.

What if I’d been brave enough to find him? What if I’d told him how I felt all those years ago? What if we didn’t go our separate ways after school? And now… what if?

I tried to talk myself out of it, I did. But I failed miserably and found myself taking a bus and then walking down the streettoward the address I found. About three quarters of the way there, I got a weird sense of being followed. I wasn’t normally the type of guy who worried about others. I focused on myself, minded my own business, and assumed everybody else was doing the same.

But this was creepy.

I felt like someone was there, but I didn’t see anyone, even after making a pretense to look around by dropping my wallet. By all accounts, I was alone. Still, I stepped a little faster.

And as I reached the address I was in search of, I came face to face with a wolf.

Not someone’s large pet dog, like perhaps a husky, who could resemble a wolf in the dark. Not something that could possibly be a wolf. This was a full-on, freaking wolf.

I had half a memory of a documentary about wild animals. They said you shouldn’t run from bears. You just stand there, hope they go away, or make noise and look big. One of the two. Either way, it didn’t matter.

This wasn’t a bear.

No one ever taught me what to do when faced with a wolf. So I did what any scared person in the middle of the night would do.

I screamed and then I ran straight through the not fully closed door and into the building without knocking.

7

MAYNARD

I’d called a family meeting but hadn’t let on what it was about.

My five siblings were in my apartment. Six tall, dark-haired alphas in one room.

Three were splayed on various couches and armchairs, one was channel surfing and admiring my new TV, and another was raiding my pantry and complaining he expected salt-and-vinegar chips and I only had spicy and barbecue.

“I’ll send a list next time and you can check off what you’d like.”

But my youngest brother, Lake, didn’t pick up on my sarcasm and replied, “Cool. Thanks, big bro.”

I strode in front of the TV, arms folded, waiting for Thiago to turn it off. Instead, he bobbed his head one way and the other, trying to see the screen. But I could control the new-fangled devices from my phone, and he yelled when the screen went dark.

“I was enjoying that.”

“Watch TV at home. I need your advice.”

A collective, “Whoa!” echoed around the room. That got their attention.

As the eldest, my brothers had looked up to me. I was the first to leave home for boarding school and then to college. No one in my family had ever attended university before me. My folks’ and brothers’ lives were deeply embedded in the mafia. And while I was my own boss, I was technically part of the family business, and when I received a call from the mafia Alpha, I answered it and did as asked. He considered me a freelancer.