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By the time I convince Destiny to come back in tomorrow afternoon for a keratin treatment, it’s nearly nine at night. I am never here this late, because it always makes me feel panicked.
It isn’t just that the sun is gone, and it isn’t even the fact that Newbury Street is terrifying. It’s the thought of being in a public place and someone scenting me that terrifies me.
All right, it’s also because of the dark alleyways where a deranged alpha could lurk, lying in wait to attack me and rut me on the street.
I read that it happened to someone on the internet, so I’m pretty sure it’s a possibility. No lie. The omega went into hiding, like the witness protection agency or something.
The bell jingles as I shut and lock the door, the metallic click of the lock echoing in the empty salon. I arm the security system, my fingers trembling slightly as I punch in the code. When the light blinks from red to green, I take a deep breath and turn around, hoping like hell I smell like perm solution and bleach and not like a delicious, snackable omega. The cool night air hits my face as I step outside, the distant hum of traffic and occasional car horn punctuating the relative quiet. My shoes click against the pavement as I begin the hike to the bus stop, shadows stretching long under the streetlights.
Nerves tickle my belly, and I know there is no freaking way I’m getting through this walk without calling someone. Tugging my phone out of my jacket pocket, I dial the world’s most incredible bestie.
“Talk to me,” Cayenne answers after one ring, because she’s amazing like that. It might be nine here, but on the west coast, it is only six. Yes, her real name is actually Cayenne, and yes, her hair is a natural bright red. She looks just like Jessica Rabbit.
I’m jealous of her sunlight and curves. “Heading home, and I just wanted to look busy.”
“Noted,” she murmurs, and I hear clacking in the background. “Late night?”
I snort as I round the corner, heading toward the bus stop. The lights flicker overhead, casting long shadows across the busy street. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks, and another person screams at someone to press the gas pedal.
“Client wanted to go from box dye black to Elsa blonde.” I’ll never forgive Pinterest for giving people false hair perceptions.
“Impossible.” She gets it. “So you gave in and worked late.”
“I tried so hard to be mean too,” I tell her as I get closer to the stop. Luckily, no one is there when I get to the bench seat, and I toss my ass onto it while I stretch out my aching feet.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I swear I did.”
“Let me guess, you told her no when you hit your limit,” she accuses. “Bus is at the light two blocks away.”
I sigh in relief. “Thanks.”
Cayenne is a hacker, which isn’t politically correct. She’s a digital specialist. By day, she’s an IT lady, and everything is above board and legit. Don’t ask me who she works for because she literally has corporations bidding for her. She recently told me she works for some medical conglomerate.
By night though, she’s like a female Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. At least I see her as this vigilante queen. Once she told me she hacked one of the biggest banking companies in the United States for a solid year, and every time a bank charged a fee, she reimbursed it.
They still haven’t caught her.
The fact that she is tracking me as I head home makes me feel relief, especially after my ex-mistake.
We don’t call him by his name, just the mistake.
“I did,” I admit, because she isn’t wrong and lying isn’t my thing. Okay, at least I’d never lie to Cayenne.
“Baby, what did I tell you about boundaries?” she asks. “Bus.”
I turn and see the thirty-two chugging down the street just in time for it to backfire and stall as it rolls to the stop, a giant cloud of smog following in its wake.
“Who did I piss off in a past life?” I mumble to myself.
“What’s happening?” Cayenne questions in her no-nonsense voice.
“Hold up.” I press the phone to my chest as the driver opens the door, and a gentleman in his late fifties sighs at me.
“Hey, doll, you’re going to have to find another way to get to where you’re going,” he yells down to me. “Big Bertha just gave out.”
His face disappears behind the few passengers on the bus.
