Free Fated: An Alpha Male Romance by K. Alex Walker Page B

that.”
    He squeezed his forehead. “Do not sass me and for God’s sake, whatever you do, please do not turn into your sister. I do not have room for two disappointments.”
    I jumped to my feet. “What is this thing that you and Mother have against Gia? How do you think it makes her feel when you two continuously call her a disappointment because she’s not, I don’t know, a robot?”
    “Watch your tone, young lady.”
    “Daddy, you’re about twenty-three years too late if you think you’re talking to a five-year old.”
    His lips parted as though I’d just told him I’d been secretly plotting, for years, to kill him in his sleep, then his jaw clenched as he poised his towering height over me. Again, I wanted to recoil, but a small fire in me refused to be extinguished.
    “Don’t let it happen again,” he threatened. “And, heaven help me, if I find out that there’s another man involved, I promise you that you both will regret it.”
    Then, he was gone.
    Grandma Evelyn appeared from the direction of the kitchen. Our eyes met and she opened her arms. I walked right into them.
    “It’s all noise right now,” she said, squeezing me. “Give it time. It will all make sense. You will be happy. The seed has been planted, my dear.”
     
    -----
     
    Ethan
     
    Christmas for me consisted of stopping by to hang out with my grandfather at his assisted living facility, and then heading over to spend the holiday with the same group of friends that I’ve been celebrating with over the years. Over time, the group had grown and shrank accordingly as people married and had children, but we’d all somehow still managed to remain close. 
    This year, we were celebrating both the Christmas holiday as well as the departure of one of my best friends, Kellen Edwards. He was joining the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta network as the Associate Director of Pediatrics at Piedmont Hospital. It was an amazing opportunity and we were all happy for him, but we also knew that the tumultuous end of his last relationship was forcing him out of Louisiana.
    I walked through the door and a series of cheers went up. Someone took my coat and scarf while simultaneously placing a champagne flute in my hand. The man of the hour pulled away from a conversation and made his way over to me.
    “Took you long enough,” Kellen said, smiling from his hazel eyes as we slapped hands. “On behalf of everyone here, Merry Christmas, and we appreciate you taking a break from diving in a sea of pussy to come and celebrate with us.”
    An image of Alexandra flashed behind my eyes and I forced it out before I spent the rest of the evening consumed by thoughts of her. I’d already picked up my phone several times to call her but was able to effectively talk myself out of it each time. I didn’t want to turn into one of those men who had a hard time remaining behind the boundaries of a sexual relationship. However, I usually didn’t have to try so hard not to be.
    “Well, it’s low tide,” I replied. “I’ll be back in it soon enough.”
    He laughed, one of the first genuine ones I’d seen in the few months since he and his ex-girlfriend Trisha split.
    Kellen wore his heart on his sleeve and was attracted to broken women, a combination that was almost always certain to end in disappointment. He was the Donald Trump of emotional foundations. His M.O. was that he would spend an enormous amount of time and waste an egregious amount of money trying to “repair” women who usually had no clue that they were broken in the first place, no matter how obvious the problem was. Trisha, however, had taken the cake.
    She’d been a habitual cheater, recreational drug user, and had a personality that rewrote the definition of the word “selfish,” but Kellen had somehow still come to the conclusion that her promiscuity was a result of growing up with an absentee father. So, he’d worked with her despite the relationship being so bad in private that its