Mother of Alpha - Burgov Series III

2. Diana

"Ugh!" - I screeched, pushing the car door closed with all my might and stomping angrily around the hood.

How dare he?! It's enough that I had to endure three hours of listening to his nasal voice telling countless praises to his apparently wonderful career. Working in your Dad's Car Wash isn't an achievement!

And what kind of an asshole is entitled enough to think that a twelve-buck burger and a soda is enough to buy himself permission to fill me up?! I swear, if I had a utility knife Chelsea insisted I take, that guy would already be looking for his sad little pickle somewhere in the grass.

"Don't slam the door, b***h! That car costs more than you can afford!" - the scumbag had the audacity to shout after me, and somehow the red in front of my eyes took the better of me and made me answer.

"It's a f*****g Honda Civic! Some of the bicycles are more pricey than THAT!" - I said, pointing with my hand to a car in the color of an infant's poop.

I swear if he talks back to me, I'm gonna shout for Chelsea to come outside. My Cousin is many things, but she's definitely not a pushover, and once she's done with Chip, he would know exactly how much his car costs, because he would have to buy a whole new one. Chelsea can be a true fan of European football, but her fondness for baseball bats is legendary and… a bit disturbing to be honest. I swear, most of the time I don't even know where she's taking them from. She can't possibly fit one into her purse, can she?

"Goddammit! It's a Civic Sport!" - shouted Chip, matching my irritation and obviously the volume.

But his came from my lack of cooperation, while mine came from three hours of watching him picking suspicious stuff from between his teeth, in a not too discreet manner. However, let's face the facts, what have I expected from a guy who willingly calls himself Chip, while he has a perfectly good name, such as Charles?! It's obviously my fault! Or maybe Chelsea's, because she's been nagging me to go out with some guy and have fun. But when 'some guy' turns into yet another creep who should have been locked up away from society, I start losing my faith in humanity.

Are there no decent guys out there at all?! Are all of them exactly the same? s****l predators for whom the internet turned into a hunting ground. Gha! In moments like this, I wish that experiment with Angelica DeMarco back in high school actually worked for me, because men are simply blah!

"Whatever! If you put the leather on the s**t it will still stink!" - I screamed, climbing up the three steps to my building, making a spectacle out of myself. Mrs Newman would finally have something to talk about, at least.

I glanced to the left at the dark window on the first floor, behind which I saw a slight movement. Yup, there she is. And tomorrow all of my neighbors will look at me as if I were a w***e. Perfect. Just f*****g perfect. I knew I should never listen to Chelsea!

Then why did I?

Oh, right! Because I'm desperate and my life has reached the level where I can only meet guys online.

Pathetic.

I entered the building's lobby hearing only my heels clicking furiously on the marble pavement. And I hugged myself, thinking how have I degraded myself to this?

I checked the guy! He was perfectly nice when we texted. Okay, the Chip thing should have been my first red flag, but aside from this, he acted perfectly normal. He was polite, occasionally funny, and his pictures weren't all bad, which now I know was thanks to either extensive gallery from the past years, or exceptional skills with Photoshop. Gha! He even wrote in full sentences, not like quarter-brained Neanderthals whose main pick-up line is 'You f**k?'.

The world is officially coming to an end. With men like this, protecting our country and freedom, we are doomed. Unless all of our enemies die from laughter.

I started climbing the left staircase, still fuming and swearing at the end of the gentlemen's era, all the way to the second floor deck. I always hated those deck-accessed flats, but now I kind of appreciate that to enter the shoe box, I call my home, I need to do so from the outside. The crisp evening air is doing miracles for my sanity right now. Besides, I can't scream at home, the walls are way too thin. So I stood outside my goddamn door taking a few deep breaths when the shout 'RUN, FUCKER, RUN!' came from the inside.

I sighed, knowing that my sitter probably had once again a few drinks on her shift. And she's the one to wonder why I am so reluctant to leave home.

I opened the door and, sure enough, Chelsea was sprawled on the old couch in the living room watching once again some soccer game she only cares about. Sometimes I don't get this fascination, especially since she took it from her estranged Father, but she doesn't judge me, so I should probably repay her with the same.

"Hey Chels." - I said in a fairly quiet, but completely acceptable tone at this late hour. Not to mention I was hoping to steer our conversation to a certain volume, which Chelsea rarely obeys.

"Dee-Dee!" - Of course she would shout my name. - "You made it just in time for overtime." - she said with a grin and, just as I suspected a bottle of beer in her hand.

But then she frowned, realizing I probably shouldn't be home now, and she looked to the side at the clock.

"Why the hell are you home so soon?" - she asked suspiciously, narrowing her green, almost glowing at this point, eyes at me.

I knew fooling her was as easy as avoiding roaches in the laundry room downstairs, which is practically unheard of, so I had no other choice than to admit my defeat.

"Chip the creep, turned out to be big on touchy-feely." - I admitted with a sigh and at impressive speed my cousin put down her bottle and from behind the armrest of the couch took a baseball bat. Again, where is she taking them from? I know we don't live in the safest neighborhood, but that seems like too much. One time she even jumped with one from the shower on the day when I cut my shift short. With a bat in her hand, she jumped over the couch headrest and started heading for the door like a hooligan in a showdown.

When she's acting like that, it's like watching something transform. In a split second, she changes from my always laughing Chelsea into a cold-blooded murderer, and that's actually one of the reasons I like to tell her stuff not while they last, but after they're done. I'm fairly certain she might have ended up in jail if I had done otherwise.

"Chels, he's gone." - I said to calm her down. - "He drove me back and left, you won't catch him now."

She stopped in her tracks, gripping a bat so hard that all of her knuckles became freakishly white and she looked at me as if she barely heard me and needed to make sure I actually spoke.

"Are you sure? Have you seen him drive off?"

Her voice had already changed and that small, ticking vein on her forehead appeared again. Her blonde messy bun got even messier and all the strands that freed themselves created a sort of halo around her head, and for some reason, I can't be sure what exactly, she looked like a villain ready to strike, or maybe the Goddess of revenge? Yeah, that's the one! It's a good thing we're close, because I would most likely end up being more afraid of her rather than not.

"I'm sure." - I assured her.

"But…"

I put both hands on her shoulders to keep her in place.

"I'm sure. Just drop it."

Yikes, it's like calming a raging bull sometimes. Especially with that vein basically making eye contact with me.

"Okay." - Chelsea released a breath and lowered her bat. - "So what happened?"

"Nothing much." - I shrugged, releasing my hold on her and walked towards the kitchen for the soda. - "It turned out all people lie on the internet. He was not funny, his pictures were probably from ten years ago, and he clearly came with an agenda, which was not to get to know me." - I ended the tale of my horrific evening by accenting it with a tsk from the opening can.

"I'm sorry, Honey. You know how it is, most guys lie on the internet. It's an unspoken rule that you have to go through the field of horse s**t before finding your very own unpolished diamond."

I watched her move around the room, first to put down the bat, then to take her beer and I couldn't help the distasteful scowl that I had to put at her not so very subtle metaphor.

"I don't think I want to go through the field of horse shit."

"I'm afraid it's inevitable, love. You have better chances at winning the lottery than finding a good guy on your first try." - Chels announced, as if she was delivering the world's most treasured secret and then theatrically took a long swing from her bottle.

"Suddenly spinsterhood looks very appealing." - I mumbled, crossing my arms.

"Ha! That's a good one, Dee! But with an ass like yours, I see great things in your future." - she grinned and took another swing, but then her brows furrowed as if she remembered something. - "But maybe we should get you a taser. Just in case. I saw really cute, pink ones on Amazon."

I snorted and turned around to throw an empty can into the trash.

"I'm not going to walk around the town with a taser in my purse."

"You wouldn't be the first one." - Chelsea said under her nose and I whipped her way.

"Are you?"

She shrugged but her mischievous smirk said it all.

"I'm a safe girl."

"Have you ever..."

"I'm not the one to stun and tell, but at least I know it works." - she shrugged with a grin.

I smiled at my cousin, because there was no other like her. Chelsea is the type of person who doesn't give two shits about what others might think of her. She's loud, wild, has the strangest hobbies and always sees the glass half full, and even when it's not, she would move the earth and skies to fill it to the brim. She's been my shield when I needed her the most, and boy, have I needed her over the last couple of years. Sometimes I even wish I was more like her, the master of my own sea. But the sad truth is, I'm not. Instead of creating my own fate, I take what's being thrown my way and deal with it.

"You know what, Chels? I think I'm done. I'm swearing off the men for good. Besides, when have they ever brought something other than disappointment into my life?"

She c****d her head to the side and watched me with an indulgent smile.

"Oh you're so going to meet someone soon." - she announced.

"What? I just told you, I'm done dating, for at least the next six to seven years." - I said more sternly.

"Nope." - she popped her lips and shook her head in the most infuriating way only Chelsea can pull off. - "That's a well-known rule, that when you swear to not do something the universe would do everything to mess with you. I'm giving you a month… six tops to meet the guy of your dreams."

"Yeah right." - I snorted - "I'm not interested in men who think that the phrase ' You f**k?' is acceptable, so if you cross out those, it's rather slim pickings left to choose from."

"Well, it's not exactly Mr Garcy's type of gallantry, but you have to admit you do f**k, or you had at least once before." - she pointed out with a cheeky grin.

"You need help." - I said, shaking my head, but despite my awful evening I still smiled.

"No, it's you who needs help. Come over here." - she said, grabbing me by my shoulders and dragging me somewhere.

Chelsea stopped in front of the mirror, hugging me from behind as we looked at our reflection.

"What do you see?" - she asked.

Hmm, trick question. Right now, I see a woman, who, against all her habits and self-preservation instincts, put on stilettos, even though she normally wears flats. A woman who spent two hours curling her reddish strands, hoping to impress a guy she thought she knew after a few weeks of texting. A woman who put on more makeup than she normally does, trying to look her best for someone she didn't even see before. Yes, my green eyes popped quite nicely, but this woman wasn't me, at least not a real me.

"Imposter." - I finally said.

Chelsea whistled, rolling her eyes.

"You sure know how to make things grim." - she deadpanned - "You wanna know what I see?"

I gave her a noncommittal shrug, knowing that she would tell me no matter what.

"I see one hot chica. A sexy Mama who's life shouldn't consist only of work and Sean."

"But…"

"I know he's your entire world, but we need to make sure you have something left once he flies off the nest. You have so much to offer. You're strong, funny and disturbingly accepting, and I say that one with as much gratitude as I can muster." - she beamed.

"So what would my favorite Cousin in the whole wide world do? Will she give up on herself and just be? Or will she create the life she always dreamed of?" - Chelsea kept asking as if she was a true talent coach and I hate to admit that her enthusiasm has always been infectious.

"I suppose the latter." - I said with a little smile creeping on my lips.

"That's what I wanted to hear! So we're not going to give up after just one date, now will we?"

"I suppose not." - I mumbled.

"That's the spirit! And then you're gonna find yourself Mr tall, dark and handsome, you're gonna climb on him like a jockey on a stallion, right?"

The smallest smile I was sporting fell from my lips at her choice of words, and I finally remembered why I waited so long to even consider going on a date. I've been there, and got burned. Bad. And I'm not making the same mistakes again.

"I already did a tall, dark and handsome one, remember?" - I asked in a cold tone. - "It didn't end well. And I'm not going through this again."

I stepped away from the mirror feeling that whatever Chelsea was trying to achieve would no longer work.

"I'll check on Sean and then I'm off to bed. Goodnight, Chels." - and just like that I started walking, hearing distant cursing and 'So f*****g close' behind my back.

I tiptoed to the last bedroom down the hall and quietly opened the door. The reason why I wake up every morning was still sound asleep and his ruffled brown hair and innocent face reminded me that he's the only man I need in my life. And if something works, why change it?