Rumors
Garret Rice stepped out of his car with his backpack slung over his shoulder and softly closed the door. The passenger door slammed, and he grimaced.
“What have I told you about slammin’ the door, Evan?” he growled at his younger brother. He loved that car. When he was fourteen, he started saving to buy that car from his Uncle Roger. He didn’t want his brother messing it up. “I’m gonna make you start riding the bus like Bobbi does.”
“Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to slam it. Door’s just heavy.” Evan walked over, running a hand through his fluffy brown hair. “And Bobbi rides the bus because she’s gotta get here before us for her Student Council stuff.”
Garret sighed and started toward the school building. ’Student Council. What a load,’ he thought. “Whatever. Just be nice to my Beretta. That Chevy is older than both of us combined.”
As soon as Garret opened the door to the building, his friend Richie approached. He looked between the brothers before looking up at Garret.
“Where’s your hot sister this morning? Wasn’t on the bus. I expected her to catch a ride with you.”
Garret rolled his eyes. He was more than a little tired of Richie trying to get Bobbi’s attention, just like he was tired of reinforcing that she was adopted.
“Fuck if I know, man. She’s sick or something. Mom told Evan and me to go without her.”
“Sick, huh?” Richie asked, with a tone of suggestion. “She ain’t pregnant, is she?”
Garret scoffed. “Be real hard for her to be pregnant, ’less it’s the second coming of Christ. She’s a virgin.”
“You sure? ’Cause word around the locker room is-“
“You finish that sentence and I’m gonna rip your fuckin’ lungs out,” Garret snapped in a moment of alpha rage. Even knowing it wasn’t true, the idea of some guy touching Bobbi like that made his alpha show itself. “That is my sister you’re talking about, and she has no business bein’ your locker room rumor.”
Richie’s eyes went wide; the beta was unused to being on the receiving end of that energy. “No, no, man! Not me! I would never disrespect you and yours like that, but…um, Mike, Jimmy’s big brother…he was sayin’…”
All anger left Garret as fast as it had erupted. “They went to one movie, and I escorted them. Nothing happened. He’s a lying piece of shit.”
“Yeah, maybe, but he’s telling everybody he nailed her, so…” Richie trailed off.
“I’ll deal with it,” Garret promised. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew he would. There was no way he would allow the whole school to think his perfect little sister was a ho.
“Well, don’t hurt the class President too much,” Richie joked.
“I’m not gonna hurt him,” Garret said, before chuckling. “Well, I might, but if I say that, then that’s premeditation and I don’t have the ‘Crime of Passion’ thing to fall back on.”
The first bell rang through the PA system, and Garret sighed. “See you in English.” Richie rushed down the hall.
“She wouldn’t want you to fight with him. She likes him,” Evan said, walking over to his brother as Richie disappeared down the hallway toward his homeroom period.
“Well, she doesn’t like liars and doesn’t deserve him spreading rumors about her.”
“Then let her deal with it.”
“She’s not here today, is she?”
“And it’s gotta be dealt with today?”
Garret turned on his little brother and let out a low growl. “The longer he’s spreading that shit with no pushback and no one defending her, the longer it has to take hold and the more people are gonna believe it. I can’t let that happen.”
Evan sighed, his hair swinging as he shook his head. “When she gets upset at you and cries about you beating up her boyfriend, I’m not gonna hold back on the ‘I told you so’.”
“He ain’t her boyfriend!” Garret growled before going into his homeroom. He flopped into his desk chair and ran his hand through his light brown hair.
He never thought he would end up so protective of Bobbi. He hated her when he met her. When his parents decided to foster the six-year-old girl, he was seven and had never had a sister. She was almost his age, so he had to see her at school and at home. She was annoying, bubbly, overachieving, and perfect. He hated her. Their parents should have seen it coming, but they didn’t realize how petty their eldest son could be. She lived in the room beside his for almost a year before he called her anything besides ‘Foster’. He remembered making every single thing a fight for years, even after they went through with adopting her. He was an unbelievable ass to her their entire childhood and, sometimes, he slipped back into it.
Despite the genetics and the rocky start, Bobbi was his sister. She was his baby sister, and Garret was not about to let the Student Council president get away with telling everyone that she gave her virginity up to a piece of shit like him. Fuck Michael Kovack.
Four other students asked Garret about ‘the rumors’ by the time lunch came around. Garret was seething before his eyes landed on the green-eyed teen across the cafeteria. He was laughing and talking with wealthy and popular friends like Mike. Garret wanted to punch the smile off of his stupid face. At least it wouldn’t be an unfair fight. Mike was the same age, height, and build; they were alphas. In many ways, Michael Kovack was like Garret, so much so that people mistook them in the halls when he wasn’t wearing his black leather jacket.
“So tell me, how’d you manage to get some from my sister when I was with you the whole damn night?” Garret asked without preface and with absolutely no tact as he walked up to the group.
Everyone tensed momentarily before turning to the gruff, grumpy boy. Michael’s dull green eyes found Garret’s rage-filled green eyes. “What are you going on about?”
“You been tellin’ everybody that you had sex with my sister and I’m wondering exactly how that coulda happened when I was with you the whole night,” Garret snapped, stepping closer. “I picked up your lame, Abercrombie & Fitch-wearing ass. I drove you to the theater. I sat next to her during the movie. I drove your lame, Abercrombie & Fitch-wearing ass home. When did you put her ankles behind her ears and make her see God?”
Michael looked caught momentarily, obviously trying to think of a response. “You weren’t around the whole night,” he said, eventually. “She and I were alone when you went into the anime store at the mall.”
Garret scoffed angrily. There was a short gap where he let them out of his sight, but… “I was gone for ten minutes, long enough to grab the new Legend of Zelda manga. My car didn’t smell like sex when I got back and…come on, you expect anybody to believe you talked Bobbi out of her virginity in the backseat of my car in ten minutes? Also, dude, if you’re only giving chicks ten minutes of time, you’re doing sex wrong. You ever even have sex at all?”
Michael obviously took offense to that question, his eyes going wide. “More than you, I’m sure, you… white trash, thrift store-shopping, piece of-“
“Joke’s on you, dickbag. I steal my clothes, and if that’s what you think about me, what do you think about Bobbi?”
“I think she’s been trying to get me to knot her for months, and she would have been easy if you hadn’t been a constant presence during the date,” Michael snapped.
“Did you just call my sister ‘easy’? And no way in Hell has she been trying to get your dinky little dick!” Garret’s fist clenched, and he stepped closer, intending to start the fight, but his phone buzzing in his pocket stopped him. He growled in annoyance as he pulled it out, his expression softening as he saw his mom’s contact picture on the screen. “Yeah, Mom?” he answered.
“Hey, I need you to take Evan to Roger’s after school. You boys and your father are gonna be staying over there for a few days.”
“Wha- Wait, why? What’s goin’ on?”
“Because Bobbi’s becoming a woman and having two alphas in the house with an omega going through her first heat is asking for trouble. And you know your brother will want to be wherever you are, so…meet your dad at Roger and Ellen’s. We’ll see you in a few days, okay?”
“Y-yeah.” Garret turned away from Michael and his friends, cell phone pressed to his ear. His cheeks went hot as he heard Bobbi moan in the background. “Is she…okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” his mom assured. “First one is always the worst. You remember your first rut, how you wanted to fight everyone and went through half a bottle of lotion?”
“Com’on, Mom,” he groaned.
Martha laughed. “I’ll take care of her. We’ll see you once she’s on the other side.”
“Yes, ma’am. See ya then.” He sighed before pushing his phone back into his pocket. “Stop telling lies about my sister, asshole…and delete her number. No way in Hell is she going out with you again.”
Garret walked away, fuming and confused about the blush still painting his cheeks. His sister had enough to deal with; she didn’t need to return to school to find out that Garret got into a fight with the guy she liked.
“You didn’t lay him out? I expected you to-“ Richie started. He seemed flabbergasted that he witnessed the livid alpha walk away from an opportunity to defend Bobbi’s honor. “Who the fuck was on that call, man?”
“My mom. I’m not gonna hurt him. I called out his bullshit. His friends know he lied, and I’m never gonna let Bobbi go out with him again, so…” He shrugged and sat on the table, boots resting on the round plastic seat. “He actually had the nerve to say that Bobbi’d be easy if I hadn’t been blocking him all night. He obviously doesn’t know anything about her.”
“You let that slide? ’Cause your mommy called?”
“Richie,” Garret started, licking his lips. He had a dozen things to say to his friend, but his mind wouldn’t stop replaying the sound of Bobbi’s moan. He’d seen enough porn that his mind was able to perfectly create a picture around that sound. He had to adjust how he was sitting as she started to get hard. “Shut up.”
