His father turned away and headed off into town. The last thing he wanted right now was to be surrounded by people who actually felt sorry for him. Taking off in the opposite direction, he ended up on a rundown basketball court on the edge of town. He and his friends hid a ball so they could come out here to think. In recent months, he’d been following in his father’s footsteps, learning the ropes of taking over as leader, as Alpha.

Lucas was throwing the ball into the basket when he saw his two friends, Ben and Rupert.

“We figured this is where you’d be,” Ben said, climbing the fence and landing gracefully.

Rupert opted to use the entrance right next to where Ben scaled the fence.

“How did it go?” Rupert asked.

“It fucking sucked.” He grabbed the ball, and for the first time, missed his shot.

“Damn, that bad?” Ben asked, grabbing the ball and taking his own shot at the hoop.

“Sitting through another biology test would have been easier.”

His friends winced. He’d struggled through several lessons through school, biology being one of them. “Whatever.”

“There’s no way to convince her?” Ben asked.

“Nope. She sat in my company for maybe three minutes before she told my dad there was no way she wanted to be near me. I think that’s what she said.” He’d been too busy taking all of her in. Her long, brown hair, her beautiful, intense brown eyes. Every single thing about her, he’d been drawn to it. Even her body, and much to his shame, he used to call her chubby and fat, and a cow. Now, he was fucking mortified. His eyes had been truly open, and now he saw curves. Nice big tits, a small waist, flaring hips that he had spent many nights thinking about as he’d worked his cock, trying to gain control of his thoughts. He thought about her shapely legs wrapped around him. Every inch of softness against his hardness. He wanted her so badly.

There were times like now where he got hard just by thinking about her. Mabel thought she was the only one to suffer, but so did he. Years of hurting her constantly flooded his mind. All the times he could have been nice to her, offered her a hand when she needed it. Instead, he’d made her life miserable, and now, well, she got to make his miserable.

“What’s the plan now?” Rupert asked.

In the beginning, his two friends had thought it was hilarious that he’d fallen for the girl he used to bully. As the weeks wore on and they saw the consequences of his actions, the humor had soon died. Especially as a lot of the time, he missed her. Pretending to be happy or to even care was hard work.