Cleo, instead of answering me, glanced around the Quad before a devilish smirk broke out across her face.

“Justin!” She called, holding her arm high above her head, and waving wildly.

A group of alpha football jocks across the quad looked up at my best friend’s shout and I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Wherever Justin was, that also meant that Kyle wasn’t far behind.

Cleo was also pretty popular. Being the extrovert that she was, she easily pulled people into her orbit, and people loved being around her. Justin Hargrove included.

“Hey baby,” Justin greeted Cleo by sweeping her off of her feet and plastering her face with kisses. “How was class?”

“So long without you,” Cleo simpered, and I had to resist the urge to audibly gag.

They had just seen each other this morning at breakfast, so they really didn’t have a reason to be like this. Every time I teased Cleo about it, she just told me that I would understand when I found my own alpha.

I had never understood the urge to plaster myself to someone so completely that I didn’t know where I ended and they began. At least, I hadn’t until Kyle Dormer transferred in last semester.

He was a six-foot-four football God who had transferred into the university. Apparently, he had been a late bloomer and had only presented as an alpha after he turned twenty. Being newly presented at an almost entirely beta university was a recipe for disaster, and so he’d transferred here.

He’d been filling my dirtiest thoughts ever since.

“Hey, Eden,” he greeted me before turning his attention to the couple that was currently busy sucking face. “Ugh, could you two please get a room?”

Cleo detached herself from Justin’s lips and turned to grin at him. “You know what? I think we’ll do exactly that. Eden, the sock will be on the door!” She called as Justin took off across the quad with her still securely in his arms, and she grinned and waved at me over his shoulder.

“Dammit,” I said more to myself than any of the football jocks that were still surrounding me. “Now our room is going to smell like sex.”

“Sorry about that,” Kyle apologized with a sheepish grin and I found my mouth drying out at the realization that we were having a one-on-one conversation without Cleo here to be our buffer.

God, he was handsome. He had curly brown hair that was cut close to his head and a chiseled jaw that I wanted to lick. Not to mention the fact that he smelled so much like caramel that my teeth ached anytime that he came close. His brown eyes were also fixed on my face and they were filled with concern. “Are you all right, Eden?”

I blinked once, and then twice before realizing that he was waiting for me to answer him. “Oh! Y-yeah, totally. Sorry, I gotta go and...” I searched my brain for something, anything, to say.

“...Paint something,” I finally offered meekly, before turning and hurrying away from him as fast as my feet could take me.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 2

Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill blasted in my ear buds as I stood barefoot in front of a large, blank canvas. It was supposed to be my midterm for my advanced painting class, but so far it was just turning out to be a massive headache.

After my cowardly retreat away from Kyle, I had spent most of October throwing myself into my work. An art degree wasn’t all hands-on, I still had several midterm papers for my Art Business class and my Art History class that I needed to work on. But even though I had all of those things to do... I was still sitting in front of this giant blank canvas, stumped.

Clinch’s theme for our midterm was ‘Desire.’ Whatever the hell that meant. She was still purposefully vague with her prompts and I was at a complete loss of where to even start.

What even was desire? I could give you the dictionary definition, and I knew that I had desires. That had been proven this morning when I had stared so hard at Kyle’s broad shoulders that I was sure that I’d gone cross-eyed for a moment.

But how to put that on a canvas?

Every time I dabbed my brush into the paint and lifted it to the canvas, I just... froze.

Yanking my earbuds out of my ears, I glared balefully at the blank canvas. It was mocking me now and I needed to walk away before I decided to chuck it at the wall of the small studio that I had reserved for the semester.

“Just take a day, Eden,” I muttered to myself as I covered my paint palette with saran wrap and rinsed out my brushes.

Ten minutes later I was stepping into the dorm room that I shared with Cleo. “Wakey wakey,” I sang to her. “You better get up or else you’ll be late for your sculpting class... again.”

Cleo didn’t even stir. Instead, she continued to snore lightly with her mouth hanging open and an arm tossed over her head. She definitely wasn’t a pretty sleeper, and I couldn’t help but pull out my phone and snap a picture of her before shaking her awake.

“Ugh, Eden, why?” Cleo whined as I pulled her into a sitting position.

“Because you asked me to, remember? Last night?” I said as I put her coffee mug underneath the little Keurig that we kept in our room. “You said: Eden, make sure that I get up in time for class because I need to finish my midterm. Under no circumstances should you let me sleep in, slap me if you have to.” I mimicked her words in the same tone that she had said them the night before.

Cleo continued to grumble under her breath until I held a steaming cup of coffee under her nose. With every sip she became less surly and soon the angry sleep goblin was gone and my bright and happy best friend had arrived for the day.

“Are you going to go to the party with us tonight?” she asked as she started to dress for the day.

I shook my head. “No, I’ve got to finish my painting.” Or, rather, start my painting. I had until after Halloween to get it in, but the fact that it had been sitting blank for almost a week was really starting to bug me. I never had issues when it came to art. I could usually sketch or paint something, even if it didn’t quite align with whatever arbitrary theme that Clinch had decided on.

Cleo frowned at me, “Eden, you’ve been saying that all semester. If you want an invite to the Halloween Bash you’re going to have to show your face every once in a while, you know.”

Cleo was talking about the Annual Kappa Sigma Psi Halloween Bash. It happened every year and was completely exclusive. Cleo had been trying to get an invite for the past two years and, so far, hadn’t been successful. The fraternity brothers from Kappa Sigma Psi were all alphas, and all on the football team.

“You’ll probably get an invite this year anyway, Cleo, especially since you’re dating Justin this year.”

I had never been a fan of parties. The lights and sounds were too much for my nerves, and it exposed just how invisible I sometimes felt.

Glancing over at the mirror, I looked my body up and down. I was objectively pretty, I knew that. My hair was such a light blonde that it was nearly white, and my eyes were a bright shade of blue. But I couldn’t help but look at my arms in the t-shirt that I was wearing and how my thighs looked encased in my jeans.

Ugh. I hate being like this. I was the first person to preach body positivity, but when it came to myself I was much more critical.

“Eden, babes.” Cleo tapped my shoulder. I turned away from the mirror and smiled at her sheepishly. Judging by the look in her green eyes, she knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.

Despite her propensity to kick me out of our dorm room so that she and her alpha could have sex, Cleo was the best friend a girl could ask for.