Her Real Alpha Read online

  It was my own procrastination and need to rush at the last minute that took the fun out of it for me. I walked down the hall and stepped into the kitchen for a glass of water when my cell phone went off on the counter. I had stashed it away so I could be without distractions and when I picked it up, I saw there were five unopened text messages and three missed calls.

  One was from my mom, another from my twin brother, Joe, and a third from our best friend Peter. They had texted me, too, wondering if I wanted to meet them at the Pub for dinner and beer.

  I sent my brother a text back saying that I’d be there in about twenty minutes and then went to wash the paint off of me and change.

  My apartment in SoHo wasn’t too big but it wasn’t super small, thankfully.

  Of course rent was a bit on the high side, but I was still getting it at a steal compared to other places in the city. As long as I had a bedroom, painting room, eat-in kitchen, living room, and a bathroom, I was set. My apartment also had a pretty view of the well-manicured street below that was lined with trees, brown stones, and a couple of other apartment buildings.

  I showered and dressed quickly. The cooler weather of fall was in full swing so I made sure to wear a pair of skinny jeans and a light sweater that always made my boobs look good. I glanced in the mirror before I left and wondered if I should add some makeup, I decided to put on a little lip gloss as my eye lashes were thick and long enough that it always seemed like I wore eye liner and mascara.

  My lashes framed aquamarine eyes that always caught attention because they were the oddest combination of blue and green. I was thankful, though, because it meant that guys weren’t staring at my boobs when I spoke to them. Not that I didn’t have great boobs or a nice body. My face was pretty enough with my high cheekbones, full lips, and gentle slope of a nose, so my body wasn’t the first thing that drew attention.

  After double checking myself in the mirror, I ran my hands through my dark brown curls and then was on my way.

  Joe, Peter, and I had discovered this small place on Howard Street called Pub that had great craft beers and great food ranging from burgers to specialty hot dogs. I took a cab and was at Pub in exactly twenty minutes. When I stepped inside the cozy tavern-like space, I spotted Joe and Peter seated at our usual table in the back.

  “Hey, sister!” Both Joe and Peter greeted me at the same time as I neared the table and I gave them hugs.

  Joe and I were twins, but we hardly even looked like we were related. We had largely the same personality, though. Where I was an almost exact copy of my mom, Joe looked like our grandpa on our dad’s side. He was tall and lean with shaggy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He was handsome in a surfer guy kind of way and very easy going.

  Peter had been our friend since elementary school. We had grown up in Long Island and Peter and his family had lived next door to us for forever. He was tall and lean muscled with black curly hair and brown eyes. Peter had a pretty boy face that always got him into trouble when it came to girls.

  “What’s up, guys, did you order for me yet?” I asked and Peter nodded sagely.

  “Yep, they’re bringing us the beer of the day and we got you your favorite L.A. dog with curly fries, which if you ask me, the N.Y. dog is the best,” Peter said and I rolled my eyes.

  He was as much of a New Yorker as they came, I doubted Peter would ever leave the city, he never had so far, even if he was on vacation.

  “So how was your weekend, Mel? We hardly heard from you,” Joe asked and I shrugged.

  “Same old, same old, I guess. Oh, I crashed another fancy party, then I was painting all day today,” I said and both Peter and Joe gave me that look that said they’d much rather hear about my party crashing endeavor than anything else.

  “The party was alright, the band was good, booze was free, but there wasn’t any food. It was pretty much fizzling out around eleven so I left before it could get completely boring.”

  “Did you meet anyone famous?” Peter asked excitedly.

  Ever since I said I saw his favorite actress, Emily Cross, at a fundraiser event, he’d been more and more interested in my party stories.

  “No, but two guys figured out that I was a party crasher last night and I almost blew my cover to one of them,” I said and Joe laughed.

  “Seriously? Your secret identity was nearly ousted?” he said and I threw a napkin at him.

  “Yes it was, but I got away, so no harm done,”

  “Well, I have a few other parties you can crash if you want. Two are fund raisers, one is a fashion industry cocktail party, I think that one will be the hardest to get into.”

  I grinned; I did love a challenge. Joe was a successful corporate lawyer for his age and he represented or helped represent quite a few companies. He was always invited to different events and hardly ever went to any of them.

  “You should go to the fashion one, though, it sounds like there will be a lot of models there,” I said and Joe nodded.

  “I am, and Peter is making me take him as my plus one,” he said.

  Peter grinned, so I pursed my lips and then looked at the guys as if I were hurt.

  “See? I told you she’d want to go,” Joe looked at Peter who looked at me pleadingly.

  “Please let me be his guest, Melanie, I haven’t had a date in like two months I won’t get another chance like this. Plus, I’m not good at crashing parties like you are,” Peter pleaded with me and I rolled my eyes and then laughed.

  “Fine, whatever, but you owe me. I’ll try and crash that one, but if I get arrested or something you’re bailing me out.”

  Peter smiled as if I had given him my winning lottery ticket.

  He knew that Joe would do anything for me in a heartbeat, so if I had pushed the issue of going with Joe he would have changed plans on Peter flat out.

  “Hey, we’ll be your accomplices, we’ll make up a whole plan and everything,” Peter said and I thought about that for a moment.

  “You know, you’re right, we should come up with a plan. I don’t think my usual showing up late and walking right in routine will work at that party,” I said just as the waiter came with our food and drinks. He apologized for the long wait and we gave him a break since the dinner crowd made the place busy and so we could get back to our conversation.

  “How about this, you show up late and I walk outside for a smoke right? When I go to walk back inside, if they are still checking names at the door then I’ll say you are my guest from before and we both walk right in,” Joe said with a smile.

  “It’s fool-proof!” Peter said as he bit into his burger.

  I picked up my beer and took a sip. It tasted like a cold winter night and drinking hot chocolate by the fire.

  “Oh my goodness this is amazing,” I said and both Peter and Joe took a drink of their beers.

  “You always like the sweeter ones,” Joe said as he pulled a face.

  Peter looked like he didn’t think it was half bad and took another drink.

  “Oh hey, my parents are having dinner at their place tomorrow night and they’ve invited your parents, I said I’d invite you guys, too,” Peter informed us and I groaned.

  Joe gave me a look and I sighed in return.

  “Do I really have to go?” I asked and Peter nodded.

  “My mom’s complaining that you hardly call her anymore and that she hasn’t seen you in ‘ages’. You have to go for my sanity alone,” Peter said and Joe nodded.

  “Just because you don’t get along with Mom and Dad doesn’t mean you should ignore them and cut them out of your life either, Mel,” he said and I rolled my eyes.

  My parents and I stopped seeing eye to eye on a lot of things once I graduated college and was all set to go to the same law school at Columbia as Joe was, then decided to instead ‘paint pictures’ for a living.

  It didn’t matter that I worked with a lot of large and well known publishing companies in the city and was doing well for myself, all that mattered is that I didn’t cho
ose the safe lifestyle they envisioned for me.

  “Fine, fine, I’ll go. But I’ll apologize to you in advance, Peter, family dinner may be ruined tomorrow night,” I said and both Peter and Joe rolled their eyes at me.

  “You have issues, Mel, all you have to do it get over it and move on,” Peter said and I shook my head.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said and the guys reluctantly changed the topic to football.

  I took the opportunity to eat my huge hot dog and enjoy the beer until a less male topic of conversation was brought up.

  “Mel, you know that girl I’ve been dating, Christy?” Joe asked me and I nodded slowly.

  I remembered he had met Christy by chance at Rockefeller Center one day; it turned out they had been good friends in middle school but fell out of touch after that.

  I’d met her once and thought she was pretty in a svelte, delicate featured type of way, I had only met her briefly so didn’t really know what she was like.

  “I really like her,” he said and I wondered why he was telling me that.

  Joe wore his heart on his sleeve and fell in love a lot. I eventually told him to stop telling me about women unless they told him they loved him first.

  “What does that mean?” I asked and Joe glanced at Peter who simply shrugged.

  “Well, it means I think things can go far with us and I want to introduce her to the family soon, so I was thinking maybe during the week or next weekend we four could hang out together.”

  I had to admit, for as often as Joe fell in love, he hardly ever introduced us to his girlfriends unless it was serious on both ends.

  “She wants to meet us?” I asked and Joe rolled his eyes at me.

  “Of course she does, we’ve been dating for a few months now, Melanie, I’ve met all her friends and I’m meeting her parents this week. She thinks I’m hiding her from you guys so I think it’s time you meet her for real,” he said and both Peter and I glanced at each other.

  “Well, okay then, I guess,” Peter said and I nodded in agreement.

  “Anything you want to tell us about her before we met her?” I asked and Joe actually thought about it for a moment.

  “No, she’s pretty normal, nothing you have to not stare at or be sure not to say around her,” Joe said and I laughed.

  “So, she’s not like the last girl you introduced us to, the one with the lisp?” I asked and Peter cracked up.

  Joe just sighed and shook his head. None of us could take his last girlfriend seriously because her lisp was so bad that it made every other word she said sound hilarious. I think that was ultimately why Joe broke up with her.

  “Hey, you can’t deny that she was fun to talk to, riveting at conversation,” Peter said through his laughter.

  Joe reluctantly cracked a smile and soon we were all laughing and things were like they always were between Joe, Peter and I.

  After dinner, both Joe and Peter came over to my place to play video games; as usual, I whooped both of their asses at Smash Brothers and didn’t even try to play when it came to FIFA. They left late and I went into my bedroom to watch some TV and fall asleep.

  Come morning I had to gather all of my paintings to take them down to the publishing house to be scanned and scaled down so that they would fit in their book. I was done with “work” by about noon and went to grab some lunch at my favorite deli on Wall Street. The place was packed, but I had nowhere to be so I simply waited for my number to be called. After I got my sub, I went back home to get a head start on the next project I picked up.

  I was sort of dreading going to dinner that night at Peter’s house. I didn’t want my dad asking me “how business was going” like I was a stripper or something.

  When the time came for me get ready and go for dinner I dragged my feet. Joe was picking me up since he had a car and he was due at my place in about thirty minutes. I took my time changing into a sweater dress appropriate for dinner and a pair of thigh high fall boots. I also took my time combing through my curls so they fell in waves down to my back.

  I wanted as little of a margin for criticism from my parents as possible. My brother called me to let me know he was downstairs and I grabbed my purse and then met him outside of the building.

  “Hey, sis, you’re looking gorgeous as usual,” he said as I got in.

  I stretched over to give him a kiss on the cheek in greeting and then settled into my seat and fastened my seatbelt. My brother splurged on an Audi R8 Spider and he drove it “exactly as it was meant to be driven by those who created it,” according to him, of course.

  “Thank you, please don’t kill your gorgeous sister on the road though,” I said and Joe laughed.

  “I haven’t so far, I won’t do it now, I’d be lost without you, twin,” he said and I rolled my eyes.

  Joe was wearing dark jeans and a light blue turtleneck sweater that matched his eyes, his hair was even combed back and I had to say, whenever Joe cleaned up, he did it well.

  It’s why he was always falling in love with the female population of New York City. We got to Bellport much sooner than any speed limit abiding citizen would have under normal conditions. Joe parked in Peter’s driveway instead of ours next door and I was thankful, that meant we were leaving right after dinner or dessert if my parents didn’t pick any fights.

  “I don’t have to give you like a pep talk, do I? Be nice to Mom and Dad, just ignore them if they try to start anything…”

  “I’ll behave if they do, Joe,” I said and he sighed as we got out of the car and made our way down Peter’s drive.

  We stepped onto the porch and before we could ring the doorbell Peter’s mom, Mary-Ann, opened the door with a wide smile.

  “Melanie, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” I smiled and met Miss Ann in a tight hug. “You’re more gorgeous every time I see you, Mel, when are you going to settle down with a nice man?” she asked and thankfully Peter saved me.

  “Mom, she hasn’t even come through the door yet, let her breathe,” Peter said and he pulled me away from his mom, I kissed him on the cheek as hello and Miss Ann went to hug Joe and ask him about settling down.

  “Your folks are already here,” Peter said in a low voice as he slung his arms around my shoulder and walked with me from the front room into the family room.

  There they sat, Michael and Joan Rowland. My parents. They got up from the couch and put their drinks down on the coffee table to come and greet Joe and I. My dad smiled at me as if he missed me and he actually took me into a hug rather than awkwardly giving me a one armed hug.

  “Long time no see Mel, how are you?” he asked me and then pulled back from the hug.

  “I’m—good, Dad,” I said and he smiled at me. He was about to say something else when my mom spoke up.

  “It has been a long time since we’ve heard from you, Melanie, how are you?” she asked before she gave me a light peck on the cheek. I held in my sigh and forced a smile at her.

  “I know, Mom, I’ve been good, though,” I said and she nodded as if she thought otherwise.

  “You know, I was at the library the other day outside of campus and I had walked in on a reading before the one I intended to go to. It was a woman reading a children’s book to a class of first graders and you know what? After she read the book she read her acknowledgments page and you were the illustrator.” My dad smiled at me and a small smile touched my lips.

  “That’s really cool, I’ve never actually been to any of the readings for the books I draw for,” I said and my dad looked at me as if he were proud, and he hadn’t given me that look in so long.

  “It was, I spoke to the author afterwards and she was saying how it was such a small world that I’d just happened to be there,” he said and I grinned.

  “So what I do isn’t so bad after all, huh?” I said and he chuckled.

  “No, it is not, it was amazing seeing all the kids given books and trying to read it all on their own,” he said and I smiled.
r />   The look in his light blue eyes, so much like my brother’s, was why I did what I did. I liked the thought of bringing happiness to kids and opening their minds to new worlds, I knew my dad witnessed that first hand. I hoped like hell he would give me a break from then on when it came to what I did for a living.

  My mom, on the other hand, was a different story; she was looking at Dad as if she had no idea he even went to the library. He was a college professor so the idea couldn’t be that outlandish.

  “You never told me that, Mike,” she said and he shrugged, then grunted like a typical guy.

  Well at least dinner wouldn’t be so bad, only half as bad as it could’ve been.