My Two Alphas, page 1
part #1 of Alphas Series
First published 2018
Copyright © Teagan Amici 2018
No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
One
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
“No, it isn’t, sorry – let me just move my bags, I was just organising myself and I’ve spread my stuff out everywhere”.
“That’s no problem, no rush. I was going to sit over there”, the tall man indicated a seat across the aisle from where he stood, “but there’s been something spilled on the seat and I didn’t want to sit in whatever it was”.
“I can understand that”, I said as I shifted my bags to the floor between my feet, “that’s a nice suit you’re wearing and you wouldn’t want to spoil it”.
We smiled at each other for a moment, then I looked down at my phone and started scrolling. I didn’t mean to be rude, but had noticed that the tall man was incredibly handsome, and a few women in the carriage were glancing surreptitiously in his direction. I had noticed his light tan, his shaggy blond hair that was just a little longer than I would have been expected to see on someone dressed for business the way he was. He also had the most compelling sparkling grey eyes, and as he had stood over me, I had also noticed that he seemed very trim, with a hint of muscles rippling under his business shirt. While I was very aware of him sitting directly in front of me, I was trying my best to pretend that I wasn’t. I just hoped that he would take out his own phone, or a newspaper or something, and stop watching me. Because my head was down, I couldn’t see him, but was aware that he was just sitting still, and I felt that he was looking straight ahead, rather than out of the window. I nearly jumped when he spoke.
“My name is Bram. I hope you don’t think I’m too forward, but I generally don’t read on trains, motion sickness you know. I’d much rather talk anyway, I love finding out people’s stories. Do you work in the city?”
I looked up, stunned that the man seemed to be talking to me. Gathering my wits, I put my phone in my lap and smiled. I had been travelling on this train line for three weeks now, and hadn’t seen him once. Of course, he could have been in a different carriage, but I would surely have noticed him on the platform, there was no way I could have not noticed a man that looked like this. Maybe he normally caught a train at a different time, that’s the only way I could have missed noticing him. Once I would have been even too shy to talk to him, and still felt a little uncomfortable about his questions. Ordinarily shy and a little timid, I had recently had to do a lot more things for myself, and felt that I was coming out of my shell a little. I decided that I was in a public space, and it couldn’t hurt to pass the time speaking to the man who was even now smiling at me. The trip took almost fifty minutes from my local station at Donnybrook to Southern Cross Station in the city, and talking to this smiling man would be more fun than playing with my phone. The little voice in my head was speaking shrilly, the one that told me that good girls did not speak to strange men. I decided that particular little voice hadn’t done me a lot of good so far. I had always listened to it, had always been a good girl, and where had it got me? I ignored the little voice and smiled back.
“It’s Diane, and yes, I work in the city. If you don’t travel in very often, do you have something special happening today?”
The man grimaced.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that. I’ve got a meeting I’d rather not go to, but we don’t always get what we want, do we? So, do you do this trip every day? It must be a bit of a drag”.
“Well, actually it’s not so bad. I know we’re a bit far out from the city here, but since it’s a V-line train, and doesn’t stop at every station like the suburban network trains do, the trip is quicker than if I lived in the outer suburbs and had to use the regular trains. Plus, these are more comfortable, not as crowded, and I can buy my morning coffee on the train. I suppose eventually as the area gets built up, if they change to a suburban network, it won’t be as good, but for now it works for me”.
“Have you lived here long?”
“No, actually I just moved to the area a month ago. I bought a new house and, well, here I am. Do you live around here yourself?”
“No, I live further out, but this is the easiest station to get to. I’m rather glad I caught the train from this station today”, he said with a lopsided smile that was quite endearing.
I thought for a moment, then realised what Bram was implying, and a blush rose up and warmed my face. Surely he couldn’t mean that he was glad he had met me? I stared into his eyes for a few seconds, then realised that I was glad as well. I caught myself, thinking that it was time to pull back a little. I had no intention of throwing myself at a stranger on the train, no matter how handsome he was, or how much I liked looking at him. Maybe I should pay a bit of attention to that little voice, just a little.
“Oh, ok, that’s good then. It’s usually quite a good trip”. I stuttered to a stop then, unable to think of anything else to say. I stared into Bram’s eyes, unable to look away. There was something different about this man, something compelling. Of course I had seen handsome men before, although they had never seemed to be interested in me. I thought maybe he was just bored, but that didn’t seem to explain his interest. I smiled, not knowing what to say next. Bram waited a while, then seemed to realise that I wasn’t going to keep speaking.
“I’ve made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry”.
“No, no, you haven’t. It’s just that I don’t normally talk to strangers, so I’m a bit at a loss what to say”.
“But we aren’t strangers. I’m Bram, you’re Diane. What more do we need to know about each other?”
I laughed.
“Well, there’s a lot actually, but I don’t know if this is appropriate. We just met after all”.
“Ask me whatever you want. If I can answer it, I will”.
I knew what I wanted to ask, but couldn’t bring myself to. I really wanted to know if he was married, or engaged, or even if he was in a relationship with someone. But to ask such a question would make it clear that the answer mattered to me, and it shouldn’t. I held my breath as I realised that the answer really did matter. Bram had piqued my interest far more than I would have expected, and although I would love the opportunity to get to know him better, the one thing I wouldn’t do, was be ‘the other woman’. I knew how it felt to be deceived, and there was no way I would be a party to that. I decided to start with something less direct.
“So, what do you do for a living then, if you don’t work in the city but have to travel there for meetings?”
Bram looked at me for a moment, giving me the feeling that he knew what I really wanted to ask. He looked down for a moment, seeming to smile to himself, then looked up.
“I run a family business. Sometimes I have to travel to the city for business, but I really prefer to stay on the land, but someone has to go I’m afraid, so it’s me. So, what do you do?”
“I work in a call centre for an insurance company. It’s not exactly riveting work, but it pays the bills”.
Bram looked at my hand where it rested on my lap, on top of my phone. He lifted a brow.
“Feel free to tell me if I’m being nosy, but are you recently divorced or something? “
I started, looking down at my hand and frowning.
“How can you tell?”
“I have very good vision. I can just see a faint tan line on your hand where a ring used to be. You’ve only recently taken it off, haven’t you?”
I sighed. With my right thumb, I rubbed the finger of my left hand where up until recently my engagement, wedding, and eternity rings had been. I internally laughed – eternity. That was the biggest joke of all. My marriage had only lasted five years, although sometimes it had seemed like an eternity, it had in actuality only been a short time. I realised what I was doing and looked up, to see Bram looking at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes. I sighed and smiled weakly.
“My marriage broke down almost a year ago, but I wasn’t ready to take my rings off until recently. I didn’t realise it was so obvious”.
“Well, only to someone like me, who has good eyesight, and of course, someone who make a point of looking”.
I raised my eyes to Bram’s in shock. After a statement like that, I could no longer convince myself that he was just passing the time by talking to me. I stared into his eyes for a while, unable to frame a sentence, and finally stammered out a question.
“Wh- why were you looking at my ring finger?”
Bram gave me that lopsided smile again.
“Busted. I was checking to see if you had a partner, and hoping you didn’t. I’m sorry that your marriage broke down, that must have been a tough time for you, but you’re single again now, so that’s good, right?”
“Well, technically I’m still married.
Bram smiled more broadly at that and after a few moments shook his head slightly at me, making me smile despite myself.
“Fair enough. I’ve encroached on your personal space, so if it makes you feel better, you can do the same to me. Do you want to ask me if I’m single?” he asked with a hopeful expression on his face.
I burst out laughing. As Bram had started talking, I had expected him to suggest that I ask a question, and had been quickly thinking whether I would have the cheek to ask him what I really wanted to know, but he had made it easy for me. Probably deliberately, I thought, but Bram’s easygoing nature had me eager to know the answer. I leaned forward a little.
“Ok, then. Are you single?”
“Well, how interesting that you asked! Actually as it happens, I am”.
“So, no girlfriend, fiancé, wife, or other partner?”
“No, no, no and no”.
“Hmmm. What about a boyfriend?”
“Really? You get that vibe from me?”
“Hmmm, no, probably not. There’s something about you that’s a little different though, I just thought I’d check. You didn’t answer my question though”.
“No, no boyfriend. Absolutely no-one I could count as a significant other. What about you though? If you’ve been separated for a year, surely you’ve moved on by now?”
I sighed and sat back. Why hadn’t I moved on? Embarrassingly, even if I had been interested in doing so, I hadn’t had any offers.
“No, I’ve been busy rebuilding my life. It was a bit of a mess after the break-up”.
Bram surprised me by leaning forward. He rested his elbows on his thighs, allowing his forearms to dangle between his knees, but his face was suddenly much closer to mine, and I became aware of the heat radiating from him.
“I know we’ve just met, but I’m a good listener. We’ve got lots of time until we get to the city, if you want to talk, I’ve got the time to listen”.
Without knowing why, I found myself confiding in Bram. I told him things I had never told anyone else. I had told my divorce attorney just the bare facts, sparing him my feelings, after all, he didn’t need to know. He knew that I had found my husband of five years in bed with our neighbour. He didn’t need to know how inadequate I had felt, not only that John was having an affair with a woman that I thought a friend, but that I had not realised that it was happening until I came home from work unexpectedly feeling sick one day. If it hadn’t been for a dodgy stomach, would I ever had known that the man who promised to love me until the day he died was grunting over the thrashing body of our neighbour, in the bed he shared with me? I also didn’t tell my divorce lawyer that from the little I saw before I screamed in shock and outrage, that my husband seemed to be having more fun with her than he ever had with me, and that unless she was a good actress, she was enjoying herself way more than I ever had. I didn’t tell my divorce lawyer how my confidence had hit rock bottom when I thought over all the times that Elly, my neighbour, had come over to my house on some pretext or another. At the time, I had thought she was seeking out my company, but later I realised she just wanted an excuse to be near John. Had she ever liked me at all? I understood now, why people whose partners cheated on them with a friend felt so betrayed. They were lied to by two people that they cared for, and that caused a lot of self doubt. How long had it been since John loved me? Had Elly ever liked me, or had it been about John all along? When they weren’t having steamy, illicit sex, were they laughing about how stupid I was?
I hadn’t realised that I had said the last bit out loud, until Bram got up from the seat opposite mine, and sat next to me, taking my hand. I started as I felt something from the contact – it was like a tingle, and I stared up at him, realising he was speaking.
“You weren’t stupid, there’s nothing wrong with trusting people. You just chose the wrong people to trust, that’s all. It’s not your fault that your husband was a liar and a cheat, and stupid to boot”.
I stared at him after that last remark, noting that I was having to look up to look into his eyes. I hadn’t realised just how much bigger he was than me until he was sitting next to me.
“Why would you say he was stupid?”
Bram lifted his hand to my cheek and wiped away the tear that was tracking its way down. He smiled gently at me.
“Any man that would throw you away like that must be stupid. The fool obviously didn’t know what a treasure he had in you. Don’t beat yourself up because you picked an idiot. Just move on and choose better next time”.
I barked out a short, self deprecating laugh at that.
“Oh, you’re really sweet, Bram, but so far off the mark. The chances of there being a next time are pretty low, but thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m a realist. Even if I had suitors swarming out of the woodwork, which I don’t, I don’t think I’ll be putting my head back in that noose again”.
“No suitors? Are the men around here blind or something? I would have thought you’d be beating them off with a stick”.
I giggled a little at the visual image conjured up by Bram’s words, but shook my head. Before I knew it, Bram had snatched my phone up from my lap and was pushing keys. I should have stopped him, but I was still reeling from the shock of the fleeting sensation of his fingers brushing my lap as he picked up the phone. While Bram didn’t appear to have noticed, his fingers had brushed very close to my sex, and now my brain was conjuring up all kinds of thoughts about what would have happened if we were alone, instead of on a train with other people close by. I clenched my thighs a little tighter together, trying to suppress the heat that had suddenly built there. Bram’s head turned to look at me quickly, and his pupils widened a little more before he handed me back my phone with a broad smile.
“Let me take you to lunch. My number is programmed in and I’ve just pranked my phone so I will know your number when you call. I’m not sure how long my meeting will go for, but I hope it’s brief. I’ll hang around the city for a while if it is, I’ve got a bit of shopping to do, and I hope you’ll call me. I really do. I don’t want this train ride to be the end of our conversation, just the beginning”.
A sudden thought occurred to me, and before I got too scared to say anything, I spoke up.
“Was there really something spilled on that seat over there?”
Bram gave me that lopsided smile again, then hung his head a little, pretending shame that obviously wasn’t there.
“No, I can see I’m going to have to keep on my toes around you. I made that up so I had an excuse to sit and talk to you. I hope you didn’t mind, but I’m really glad that I did. But unfortunately”, and he paused and looked up and out of the window then, “this unexpectedly interesting train ride is over now, we’ve arrived”.
I sat up and looked around in surprise, and looked at Bram in wonder as I realised that we were about to pull in to the station. We had been talking the whole time and it seemed like we had only been talking for a couple of minutes. My face flamed as I remembered that it had been me doing most of the talking, and even though I had told Bram a lot about myself, he had told me very little about himself.
I gathered my things as we stopped at the station, and Bram and I made our way up to the concourse. Normally the hustle and bustle of the station packed with early morning commuters involved a bit of good natured pushing and shoving, but this morning was different. Bram shielded me with his body, and stood behind me on the escalator, providing a shield so that all the people who liked to walk up it had to scrunch over to the side to avoid his larger body, and so when they passed me, immediately in front of Bram, they were still leaning to the side and didn’t nudge me at all. I appreciated the thoughtful gesture, but more than that, I was completely aware that Bram was standing just one step below me, instead of the two steps that most people spaced themselves at, in order to provide a bit of space between themselves and the person in front. Because Bram was so close, it almost felt like his front was hard up against my back, and again I could feel the heat radiating from him. I stepped off the escalator at the top, and moved out of everyone’s way, standing next to a foodstall, out of the way of the hurrying commuters. Bram followed me, and stood, towering over me, and before I got a chance to say anything, he bent so that his face was level with mine. It seemed as if he hesitated for a moment, and I could have sworn he smelled my hair, but then he lightly brushed his lips over my forehead.
