Happily Ever Alpha_Until Falco Read online

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  ______________________

  PROLOGUE

  ______________________

  September 15, 1998

  Manny Silverstein trotted down the hallway as quickly as his pudgy legs would allow, nearly tripping over his own pants legs, which were three inches too long, hand-me-downs from his brother.

  He caught up to a second ninth grader, who was just closing his locker.

  “Hey Jackie,” he whispered.

  “No time to talk, Manny. Fifth period bell is about to ring,” Jackie responded. The handsome boy slipped on his back pack and began walking down the hall, his round friend following close behind.

  “Stop, you gotta listen. After school, the new girl, the Russian one . . . what’s her name?”

  “Irina?”

  “Yeah, her. Dude, she is going to follow Billy and me up to the old abandoned railroad station,” Manny said. “She said she would show us her cooch. You gotta come.”

  Jackie stopped and looked around him to see who else might be listening. He turned to Manny.

  “Irina said that? The redhead with the freckles and the accent? She said she would show you her cooch? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what she said,” Manny replied.

  “She’s really cute,” Jackie said, “but you’re full of shit. Why would she show you her cooch?”

  He grinned mischievously and looked around the hall.

  “Well, I kinda told her you’d be there,” Manny said. “I think she wants to jump your bones, man.”

  Jackie had certainly noticed the new girl looking his way and smiling at him a lot. She was beyond super cute, actually, but he was horribly shy around girls and she was a social pariah. Everyone in school knew she had been shuttled around, fostered from one family to the next and her English was barely intelligible. Everyone made fun of her thick accent and her odd clothes. There were rumors that she was violent at home. He found those rumors hard to believe. She seemed quiet and very lonely to him. He felt bad for her, not enough to sit with her at the lunch table, of course, but still, he felt bad.

  While Jackie was not the most popular boy in school, his looks still got him lots of attention from the girls. He had the type of movie star face that you might find on the cover of a teen magazine. His gorgeous brown locks, dark eyes and infectious smile made all the girls giggle, except for Cheyenne Stanton of course. ‘Chi,’ as she was called, was the hottest and most popular girl in ninth grade. A year ago, she had gone out on a limb and asked Jackie to the eighth grade Sadie Hawkins dance. Jackie turned her away and humiliated her in front of her friends, not because he didn’t want to go, just because he was embarrassed and shy and everyone was looking.

  Chi and her A-list followers in school had shunned him because of it. It had taken a full year for him to even begin making a comeback from that big mistake and he wasn’t about to disrupt his progress by being seen with Irina. Still, the Russian girl was gorgeous, and for the opportunity to see her cooch . . . well, it was tempting.

  “And she said that, exactly?” Jackie asked again, suspiciously. “She said she was going to show us her cooch?”

  “Yeah, she said it, I swear,” Manny said. “Billy was right there. You can ask him. He wants to come too. After school, man—at the old railroad station.”

  Jackie smiled and shrugged, “Sure, I’m in.”

  The Russian girl was in his fifth period history class. She sat, as normal, alone in the back corner of the classroom, with several empty desks separating her from the rest of the students.

  Jackie kept stealing glances her way. Each time he looked, she would see him and smile. When he saw her making eye contact, however, he would quickly turn his gaze forward.

  Manny and Billy were waiting at Jackie’s locker when the final bell rang ending the school day. Manny was grinning from ear to ear. Billy wore his normal ‘I don’t give a shit about anything’ expression, sticking an unlit cigarette behind his ear, as he always did right after school. Certain girls found his bad boy attitude to be hot, though Jackie never understood it.

  “I saw her heading up the hill,” Manny said. “This is really gonna happen.”

  “She’s hot, man, let’s go. I’m gonna break off a piece of that shit,” Billy said, gyrating his hips and flicking his tongue at his friends. Manny laughed. Jackie did not.

  “She never told Manny she’d bone us, you idiot,” Jackie barked. “She told him that she’d show us her cooch.”

  Billy shrugged and glowered, “Bullshit. You know she wants it. Why else would she show us the goods? Don’t worry, pretty boy. I know she’s hot for you. You can have first dibs. I don’t mind sloppy seconds.”

  Billy Harkness was a hardened kid who lived in a tough situation. His mom was a late-thirties biker babe who hung out with the local chapter of the Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club. She was a chain-smoker and was tatted out from tits to toes. She had ratty jet-black hair that was a throwback to the eighties and always wore leather clothes that left little to the imagination. She was an endless source of embarrassment to Billy on the rare occasions he had his friends over to his house.

  Billy had no idea who his dad was and wasn’t sure his mom did, either. She had been passed around by so many of the bikers there would have been no way to tell. The house he lived in was a run-down rambler on the outskirts of town, next to the trailer park. It was willed to his mother by his grandfather. The home served as a flop house and party house for many of the Grim Reapers. On any given day there were six to ten Harleys parked in the lawn. The Reapers came and went as they pleased.

  Billy often studied the features of the men who slipped into his mother’s bedroom, wondering if one of them could be his dad. It was quite common to see Billy coming to school with bruises on his body or black eyes, the result of the rebel youngster shooting his mouth off at one of the men who got a little too rough with his mom during sex.

  Jackie and Billy had been friends the longest, though the two were nothing alike. Billy had a bad boy persona. He already had a tattoo; a bloody dagger impaling a skull. He had no problem approaching girls. He also genuinely seemed to not care when he got rejected. If he got shut down, he’d just move on to the next girl.

  Manny came along later. The hefty youngster came from an entirely different environment, albeit nearly as sad as Billy’s. His dad died of cancer, black lung, having worked for over twenty-two years in coal mines. He lived with his mother in a trailer park just outside of Franklin. His mom was a sweet woman who worked three menial jobs to earn enough money to pay the rent, put food on the table and buy the occasional new set of sneakers for Manny and his older brother.

  Of the three friends, Jackie was the one with the most conventional family. He was an only child. His mom and dad both worked outside the home. They were considered to be lower-middle class though Jackie never understood what that meant, not really. He always had food on the table, clothes on his back and presents under the Christmas tree.

  “Dude, no one is breaking off a piece of anything,” Jackie said. “If she wants to show us her cooch, we’ll let her show us. Come on, let’s go.”

  The day was overcast, with some sun filtering through. There was a little chill in the air, but not
bad. The boys had seen Irina walking toward the station. They hung back, choosing to follow her from a distance rather than to catch up to her. None of them knew what they’d say to her, and even if they did, her English was so bad and her accent so thick, she was often difficult to understand.

  Irina was waiting inside, sitting on the dusty bench of the ticket lobby in the long-abandoned railroad station. She was smoking a cigarette, looking very uncomfortable doing so, Jackie thought. She was undoubtedly trying to look cool and thought this was the way fifteen-year-old girls did it in Franklin.

  She was tall and thin but her body was just beginning to take blossom. Her clothes were strictly Goodwill, but she made the most of them. Her tight top and tighter jeans clung to her still-forming breasts, small, round butt and long, lean legs. Her light auburn hair was long and shaggy, hanging just over her eyes, looking somewhat dry and brittle. She wore no makeup, exposing hundreds of freckles on her face, primarily high on her cheeks. Her blue eyes looked like ice, reflecting sadness and loneliness.

  He saw his two friends grinning wickedly, but all Jackie felt was pity. He was ashamed to be there. Standing before him was a beautiful girl who was not like the others in school. She was a girl who was desperate for friends, any friends, desperate to fit in, and obviously willing to go to extreme measures to gain acceptance.

  “Give me a drag off that, will ya?” Billy asked her, pointing at the cigarette.

  Irina said nothing, just tapped the ash off the end and held it forward to him. Although it was Billy who addressed her, she kept stealing glances at Jackie. Billy took the cigarette and took a long drag from it and handed it back to her. Manny walked over to the bench and sat beside her.

  “Well, are you gonna show us your cooch or what?” the bad boy asked, plainly, as if he was asking for directions to the nearest ATM.

  She looked up at Billy quizzically, then toward Jackie.

  “Sure,” she said, allowing the ‘r’ to roll off her tongue in a thick accent. “Jackie, dis is vat you vant too?”

  Jackie looked at her awkwardly, feeling nervous. The truth was, despite his good looks and friendly demeanor, he had never gotten past second base with a girl. He’d never even seen a real vagina before, only the shaved ones on the internet. Everyone, however, including his best friends, thought Jackie was much more experienced than he was.

  “Well, uh . . . yeah, but only if you want to show us,” Jackie replied.

  “Sure, she wants to show us,” Manny said. “She told me so, earlier.”

  “Maybe she changed her mind,” Jackie offered.

  “Don’t be a pussy,” Billy said. “You didn’t change your mind, did you, Irina?”

  Irina took a short drag of her cigarette, careful not to inhale it.

  “No, I deen’t change mah mind,” she said. “I show you my cooch then we are friends, no?”

  “What do you mean . . . friends?” Billy asked.

  “You will like me,” she pleaded. “Maybe you even seet wid me at lunch and recess, ok?”

  Billy chuckled, “Hell no, I’m not gonna sit with you at lunch. You’re weird.”

  Her face formed disappointment. She looked at Jackie, “How about you? You seet wid me at lunch?”

  Jackie swallowed hard, feeling horrible. Irina’s desperation had bottomed to a level even he did not suspect.

  “I . . .” Jackie began.

  “Quit fucking around. Just show us your cooch,” Billy insisted. “I didn’t walk all the way up here for nothing.”

  “Billy,” Jackie said. “Don’t scare her. Leave her alone. You know what, let’s just go.”

  “Fuck you, Jackie,” Billy snapped. “I came up here to see cooch and I’m gonna see cooch.”

  “Yeah, Jackie,” Manny chimed in. “We’re not all pretty boys like you who can see it anytime he wants to.”

  Irina looked stunned at the outburst from the two boys. She sat there with her face frozen in fear.

  “Well?” Billy said, clapping his hands together several times, “Hop to it. I don’t have all day.”

  Irina looked at Jackie for support. Jackie looked down, avoiding eye contact.

  She dropped the cigarette to the floor and stood. She slowly unbuckled her belt and pants. She unzipped her fly. Her hands began to shake but she managed to pull her jeans down to her knees, exposing her white underwear, which looked like something Jackie’s grandma might wear. She left her pants around her ankles and stood. Her face reddened in embarrassment and she put her hands over her eyes. She peeked between her fingers at Jackie, who again would not make eye contact.

  “Well?” Billy said.

  “Vell vat?” she replied.

  “Let’s see the rest. Let’s see the cooch.”

  Irina’s twisted in confusion, “I daun’t understand,” she said. “Dees ees eet. Dees is my cooch.”

  “No, bitch, that is your Goodwill underwear,” he snapped back. “Show us your pussy.”

  Jackie saw her face turn red with shock as she began to understand what Billy was asking.

  “No no,” she insisted. “Dees ees eet.”

  Billy guffawed, “Bullll-shit! You ain’t getting away with that you little skank. You promised us cooch. You’re gonna give up some cooch. Now get naked.”

  He moved toward her; she shrank away, extending her arms toward him in a defensive position.

  “No, no!” Irina insisted, beginning to cry. “No naked.”

  “Billy!” Jackie barked. “She’s Russian. She doesn’t understand English well. She doesn’t know what cooch is, it’s obvious. She misspoke.”

  “That is bullshit, Billy,” Manny jumped in. “She knew what she was saying.”

  “How would you know what she understood?” Jackie snapped back.

  Billy glared at Irina, “So, Russian girl, are you gonna pull them panties down or am I going to do it for you.”

  Irina looked at Jackie again, her eyes pleading, “No, please, I no do. I go home now, ok?”

  “Fuck that,” Billy growled and lunged at her, yanking at her underwear, tearing at them, exposing her sparse pubic hair.

  The Russian girl began sobbing, covering her face again with her hands.

  “Billy, stop now! I mean it,” Jackie barked, springing forward, grabbing Billy by the shoulders.

  Irina shrieked. Billy turned and punched Jackie on the chin with his fist, sending the fifteen-year-old boy reeling backwards. He was unable to maintain his balance and fell squarely on his ass.

  “Billy, this is not cool,” Manny said. “I didn’t come up here to rip her clothes.”

  “Shut up, you fat fuck,” Billy screamed, ripping at the young Russian girl’s underwear again. She screamed.

  “Stop, goddammit!” Jackie howled.

  Billy stopped, blinking and breathing heavy. What was left Irina’s underwear hung at her knees. She stood there, sobbing.

  “You sit there and shut the fuck up, Jackie,” Billy snarled. “Manny, you’re the one that got us into this,” Billy continued. “Now get over here and hold her.”

  Jackie stood up and let out a war hoop at the top of his lungs, bounding toward Billy, knocking him over the bench and onto the floor.

  Manny was frozen in shock.

  “Ow!” Billy yelled out, holding his shoulder. “That hurt, you asshole. I think I sprained something.”

  “Let’s just get out of here guys,” Manny said, beginning to tear up himself. “I just wanna go home now.”

  “You’re a pussy, Jackie, you’ve always been a pussy,” Billy howled, standing, rubbing his shoulder. “C’mon Manny, let’s leave Jackie with his girlfriend.”

  Manny looked at Jackie, “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  Manny and Billy left the station. Billy was holding his shoulder. Neither of them looked back. Irina stood there, hands over her eyes, her underwear in shreds, her pants still at her knees . . . crying her eyes out. Jackie approached her slowly, careful to not come too close to her.
<
br />   She finally looked up and made eye contact with him. Jackie swallowed when her eyes met his. Her eyes were beautiful, magnetic, nearly mesmerizing.

  Jackie touched her shoulder lightly. Her body stiffened but she didn’t back away. He slowly and cautiously bent down and pulled her pants up to her waist.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She shook her head, no, but looked away.

  “Can you make it home, ok?”

  She nodded, zipping and buttoning her jeans.

  Jackie stood, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He turned to leave.

  “Maybe you walk me home, yes?” she asked.

  “You want me to walk you home? Really?”

  She nodded.

  He offered his hand, “Ok. Lead the way.”

  She took his hand cautiously and stood. Jackie looked at her; she was so scared, so vulnerable. At that moment the young boy thought Irina Petroski was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He smiled at her. She smiled back, her cheeks still wet with tears.

  Jackie unzipped his backpack and pulled a clean red bandanna from it. It was the one he used as a headband when he played basketball. He offered it to her. She did not take it. He balled it up and cautiously moved it to her cheek, gently wiping at the tears.

  She touched his hand gently, never moving her eyes away from his. He leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. She kissed him back, cautiously. The kiss lasted only a few seconds but for Jackie, it seemed like an eternity. Never had he shared a moment as intimate with a girl. He backed away and smiled again, his face reddening a little.

  “How far away do you live?” he asked.

  “Ees fifteen-minutes walk,” she told him.

  He held her hand and they began to walk. Her soft smile turned into a wide grin when he interlocked his fingers with hers, though her face reddened a little. For Jackie, it was awkward, but he wanted to continue to hold her hand.

  “How long have you lived in the US?” Jackie asked.

  “Two years,” she said.

  “And you live with foster parents?”

  She nodded, “I move here wid my parents two years ago. My fahder finds new job. He dig for coal.”