The locker room smelled like sweat, cheap deodorant, and the faint but undeniable scent of despair—my despair, specifically. Normally, the field was my happy place, where I could leave anything that made me feel bad behind. But practice had only served to make me angry—every throw I’d watched Justin make had triggered a deep, simmering rage inside me and my mood had gotten blacker and blacker.
Justin didn’t even know how to read a defense. Last practice, he’d audibled into the wrong play and nearly got Zach sacked. And now he was going to lead my team? Over my dead body.
The shower was supposed to cool me down—literally and figuratively—but as I stepped out and grabbed a towel, the terrible mood hadn’t budged. The rivalry game was this weekend, and I was benched. Benched. I clenched my jaw as I toweled off. The idea of Justin stepping into my cleats, leading my team, throwing my passes—it made my blood boil.
The locker room was a cacophony of noise as usual, and my teammates weren’t exactly helping.
“Whistler, I still can’t believe Coach benched you,” Zach said, shaking his head as he adjusted his knee brace. “The rivalry game, of all things. That’s ice cold.”
Zach was the closest thing I had to a functional best friend on and off the field. He was a goofball, sure, but at least he wasn’t completely brainless like the others. Most of the time, he helped me keep the chaos in check, and between the two of us, we were successful—sort of.
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled, fishing a shirt from my bag and throwing my dirty one in the general direction of the laundry bin. I missed. I told myself I didn’t care.
“You’ve been benched before,” Brody chimed in, his voice way too loud as usual. He was the loudest human being I’d ever met. He didn’t have an indoor voice, let alone a volume knob. He was all muscle and bluster, always yelling about something—plays, weights, the temperature of his protein shakes. His idea of comforting me about being benched? Making everything worse.
“Yeah,” I shot back, “for, like, five minutes. Not for the biggest game of the year.”
“Wait,” Kyle cut in, his brow furrowing. “I thought Justin was our kicker.”
I wanted to smack my palm against my forehead, because how the fuck could you attend practices and not know the positions of who you were playing with? Apparently Kyle could. He was the quiet one, which would’ve been fine if he wasn’t also the dumbest. He didn’t speak up often, but when he did, you could feel everyone’s collective IQ drop by ten points.
“No, you idiot,” Jake said around a mouthful of protein bar. He was perpetually eating; if it was edible, it was in his mouth. “Justin’s the backup QB.”
“Backup QB?” Kyle blinked. “I thought that was Brody.”
“Do I look like I can throw a football?” Brody asked, gesturing at his hulking, obviously linebacker frame.
“Dude, you look like you were a brick shithouse in a past life,” Zach quipped, earning a round of laughter.
Brody grinned, completely unfazed. “Alright, alright. But seriously, Vaughn, what did you do to get benched?”
I groaned. “It’s my grades, okay? Apparently, the school doesn’t appreciate a C-minus GPA. Who knew?”
Yeah. Who knew? I’d been using my teammates as a benchmark all this time and I’d been the one to get benched over grades, out of all of them. One time, Brody tried to microwave a Gatorade bottle to see what would happen (it exploded) and Jake had tried to eat a whole rotisserie chicken during halftime. And Kyle had skateboarded down dormitory steps holding two Red Bulls and landed himself in the ER.
I loved them, but they were fucking idiots. Another reason why me getting benched was just plain unfair as fuck.
I’d thought about calling my parents, but the idea made my stomach twist. As much as I liked to joke about them making problems disappear, they didn’t pull strings unless the trouble wasn’t my fault. And this? This was all me.
If they found out, I wouldn’t just lose the scholarship—I’d win the Lecture Lottery. Mom would hit me with her ‘education is the key to opportunity’ spiel, complete with dramatic pauses, while Dad brought out the ‘sacrifices our family made to get where we are’ Greatest Hits tour. They’d sell tickets. I’d be front-row for my own funeral.
No, thanks.
The Vaughns didn’t pay for things like tuition, broken phones, or bad grades—not because they couldn’t, but because they wouldn’t. Vaughns earned things. Through hard work, discipline, and a handshake so firm it felt like a bench press for your soul. And failure? Failure wasn’t just a word; it was a curse.
Without my scholarship, I wasn’t just benched—I was done. Game over. And no way was I letting me be the Vaughn who blew it
Jake whistled. “Damn, bro. A C-minus? You’re practically a scholar.”
“Right?” I said, throwing my hands up. “And yet, here I am. Benched. While Justin gets to play. Justin, who can’t even throw a spiral.”
“Man, that sucks,” Zach said, his sympathy only slightly undercut by the grin tugging at his lips. “I mean, Justin throws like he’s got a noodle arm.”
“More like a spaghetti arm,” Jake added around a mouthful of granola bar.
“Spaghetti’s a noodle, dumbass,” Brody said, shoving Jake’s shoulder.
“No, spaghetti’s pasta. Noodles are, like, the flat ones,” Jake retorted, holding his granola bar defensively.
Kyle nodded solemnly. “Ramen’s noodles.”
Normally, I’d be pissing myself laughing at their idiotic banter. But these were not normal times and the last thing I felt like doing was laughing. The more they talked about Justin, the more I wanted to punch something. Instead, I slapped a fresh scent patch on my throat and finished getting dressed.
“The point is,” Zach raised his voice over their nonsense. “Justin sucks.”
“Justin couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat,” Brody added.
“Justin probably thinks a spiral is a pasta,” Jake said. He shoved the last of his granola bar into his mouth and pulled out another one, much to my dismay.
“Bro. You’re eating again?” I asked, staring at him.
“I’m bulking,” Jake said defensively.
“Dude, you’re always bulking,” Zach pointed out, half-laughing.
“And you’re always talking,” Jake shot back with a growl. “Jesus, McAllister, you nag like my fucking girlfriend. You wanna suck my dick, too?”
Zach made a face. “Sorry, I only suck dicks that aren’t tiny.”
Ignoring the headache beginning behind my temples, I grabbed my stuff and shot to my feet, waving my arms at them. “Alright, children, settle down. Justin’s starting, and I have to go to tutoring so Coach doesn’t murder me. Any other questions?”
Brody raised his hand like we were in kindergarten. I grit my teeth together and turned to look at him, forcing my patient ‘team captain’ mask on. “What, Brody?”
“What’s tutoring?”
“It’s where nerds help you not fail,” I deadpanned.
“Sounds fake,” Brody said, squinting suspiciously.
“Whatever. I have to go. Tutoring calls.”
“Yeah, you better learn how to spell ‘ethics’ with an E this time,” Zach said, snickering.
God, does everyone know about that? “It was a typo,” I bit out, which only made them laugh harder.
“Good luck,” Zach called as I headed out. “Use your big alpha brain, bro!”
“Shut up!” I yelled over my shoulder, flipping them off as the door swung shut behind me.
Fine. I’d sit through tutoring. I’d learn the periodic table. Hell, I’d even pretend ATP wasn’t bacon for cells. But the second I was cleared, noodle-arm Justin was out. My cleats, my passes, my team. No discussion.
No matter what it took.
----------------------------------------
Walking into the library felt like stepping into a swamp. The air was heavy and damp, like someone had tried to bake the entire building at 400 degrees. I glanced around at the other students scattered across the library, most of them fanning themselves with notebooks or water bottles, their expressions a mix of misery and exhaustion.
I was sweating before I even reached the table where Ainsley was already seated, looking like a tiny, pissed-off librarian. His honey-colored curls were damp around the edges, his cheeks flushed, and his glasses were slipping down his nose every few seconds.
His gaze was fixed to his laptop screen when I dropped into the chair across from him, though he raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You’re on time.”
“I’m full of surprises.” I grinned, leaning back and wiping sweat off my forehead. “So, is this, like, a new study method? Torture by heatstroke?”
Ainsley didn’t look up from his laptop. “The A/C is out,” he said simply. “We’re starting with calculus today.”
As if calculus wasn’t already hard enough without sweating literal bullets. I groaned. “Can’t we do, like, anything else? I thought you were going to, you know, be gentle with me and all, since this is technically our first time together.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“Unless you want to fail calculus, no,” he retorted, flipping open his notebook. “Alright, Vaughn. Derivatives. Let’s review the basics—what’s the derivative of 3x²?”
I blinked. “The… what of what now?”
He sighed. “The derivative. It’s the rate of change of a function with respect to its variable. In this case, x.”
“Are you going to look at me when you speak to me?” I asked, the words spilling out before I could stop them. There was a petulant edge to my voice I didn’t even bother to hide. He hadn’t looked at me once since I sat down, and it was starting to really piss me off.
No one ignored me. No one.
His head snapped up, green eyes narrowing as he adjusted his glasses. “I don’t need to look at you to teach you calculus, Vaughn. That’s not how this works.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
But he looked at me then and it felt like I’d won some kind of cosmic lottery. His green eyes locked onto mine, sharp and unflinching, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. I should’ve been annoyed by the condescension in his gaze, the barely veiled disdain that screamed, I am so much smarter than you, but instead, I just thought, Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.
I widened my grin, leaning forward. “Maybe not, but it’s kinda rude, don’t you think? What if I’m, like, a visual learner or something? Maybe I need eye contact to absorb the knowledge.”
Ainsley’s lips pressed into a thin line, his freckled nose scrunching in annoyance. “You’re not a visual learner. You’re barely a learner at all.”
“Ouch,” I said, clutching my chest dramatically. “You’re really gonna insult me in front of all these books?”
“Yes,” he said flatly, turning back to his laptop.
Omegas were supposed to be shy, right? All soft smiles and fluttering lashes and “Oh, alpha, how can I help you?”
Yeah, not him.
I huffed, tapping my fingers against the edge of the table. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer to me. Most omegas would—”
“Stop,” he interrupted, his tone icy. He looked up again, and this time, his gaze was sharp enough to cut. “Don’t even finish that sentence.”
“Okay, jeez,” I said, raising my hands in mock surrender. “I was just saying—”
“Well, don’t,” he snapped.
Jesus, he really didn’t like that. I frowned, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms. The silence stretched between us, broken only by the sound of his typing and the faint hum of the broken A/C. I hated how unbothered he looked, like I wasn’t even here. My irritation simmered.
“Seriously, though,” I said, my voice dipping lower. “What’s your deal? You can’t even look at me?”
He sighed heavily, pulling his eyes away from the screen to glare at me. “What do you want, Vaughn? A gold star for showing up?”
I tilted my head, my smirk returning. “Maybe. Mostly, I just want you to look at me when you’re talking to me. You know, like a normal person.”
His glare deepened. “This isn’t a conversation, Vaughn. It’s a tutoring session.”
“Yeah, but I’m still a person,” I shot back. “And it’s kinda hard to focus when you’re treating me like an equation you’re trying to solve.”
Ainsley blinked, clearly taken aback. For a second, I thought I’d actually gotten through to him. But then he sighed again, pulled his glasses off, and pinched the bridge of his nose like I was giving him a headache.
“Fine,” he said reluctantly, putting his glasses back on. “I’ll look at you. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” I said, grinning.
“So, the derivative of 3x². The derivative is the rate of change of a function with respect to its variable. X is the variable. What is the derivative?”
I paid zero attention because I was suddenly hyper aware of every little detail of him: the freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks like stars in a constellation, the faint pink flush creeping up his neck, the way his lips pressed together like he was trying to hold back some scathing remark.
My brain helpfully supplied, What if he bit his lip like that while— Nope. Shut it down. Abort mission.
Realizing he was waiting for an answer, I stared at him blankly. “You just said a lot of words, and none of them made sense.”
Ainsley’s eye twitched. “The derivative,” he said slowly, like he was explaining calculus to a child, “is the slope of the tangent line at any given point on a curve.”
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”
“I did,” he said through gritted teeth. I could practically hear him grinding them; he was going to break a molar with force like that.
“Okay, okay, chill,” I said, holding up my hands. “So the slope. Got it. What was the question again?”
“The derivative of 3x²,” he repeated for the third time.
I squinted at my notebook like it might spontaneously give me the answer. “Uh… 3x?”
Ainsley stared at me for a long moment, his expression hovering somewhere between deeply unimpressed and actively considering homicide. “Close,” he said finally. “But wrong. The correct answer is 6x. You multiply the exponent by the coefficient, then subtract one from the exponent.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding like I understood a single word he’d just said. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
I frowned, the wheels in my brain grinding slow but determined. “Wait. But doesn’t subtracting one from the exponent make it, like, 6x¹?”
Ainsley froze mid-tap, blinking at me like I’d just asked him if the Earth was flat. “What?”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning back with a triumphant grin. “6x^1, right? You forgot the little one. Gotta include it. That’s math.”
For a long moment, Ainsley just stared at me. His lips parted slightly like he was trying to find the words, and his green eyes flashed with what I thought might’ve been frustration, but maybe was awe at my genius. Definitely awe.
“Maxwell,” he said slowly, carefully, like he was explaining calculus to a golden retriever. “6x¹ is the same as 6x. You don’t need to write the one.”
“Why not?” I argued, crossing my arms. “The one’s still there, right? It’s just invisible. That feels dishonest.”
“It’s not dishonest,” he said through gritted teeth, closing his eyes like he was summoning patience from the heavens. “It’s implied. Everyone knows it’s there. You don’t have to write it.”
“Yeah, but what if someone doesn’t know it’s there?” I pressed. “Like, what if they’re new to math or something? They’d be looking for the one, and bam—confused. I’m just saying, writing the one makes sense.”
Ainsley let out a slow, measured breath, his fingers tightening around his pencil. “Maxwell,” he said, his voice clipped, “please don’t make me explain implied coefficients to you right now.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Isn’t that your job?”
The pencil snapped in his hand.
“Okay,” I said quickly, raising my hands in surrender. “Fine. Got it. Moving on.”
We kept going, and I’d like to say I improved, but that would be a lie. Ainsley would ask a question, I’d guess wildly, and he’d correct me in that sharp, exasperated tone that somehow made me want to keep talking just to see how far I could push him.
At one point, I thought I had him.
“What’s the integral of x?” he asked, tapping his pen against the table.
I grinned, feeling like a genius. “x², right?”
Ainsley froze, his pen hovering mid-tap. For half a second, I thought I’d actually gotten it right.
Then he sighed. “Close,” he said, sounding more tired than ever. “It’s x² divided by two. Don’t forget the constant of integration.”
“The constant of what now?” I asked, my grin faltering.
He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Never mind. Let’s just move on.”
I tried not to let it bother me, but damn, this calculus stuff was brutal. I wasn’t dumb—far from it—but numbers had never been my thing. Football? Easy. Socializing? Piece of cake. But this? This felt like trying to read a foreign language written in invisible ink.
Still, I wasn’t about to give up. Not when Ainsley was sitting across from me, his green eyes flashing with determination and his freckled nose scrunching every time I said something stupid. He was frustrating as hell, but he was also…
Cute. Not that I was going to say it aloud and get my head bitten off, but he was. It was undeniable. And it was also why I was staring at him when it happened.
At first, it was faint—just a whisper of something warm and sweet in the air. But it grew stronger, curling around me like smoke. Ainsley swiped a hand across his forehead and muttered something under his breath. He shifted in his seat, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt, his cheeks growing redder by the second.
“You okay?” I asked, frowning.
“I’m fine,” he said sharply, but his hand shot up to his neck, pressing against his scent patch.
And that’s when it hit me.
The scent.
It was warm and sweet, but not cloying—like honey just before it melted on your tongue. Beneath it was something deeper, something grounding and soft, like the earth after a summer rain. It wasn’t the kind of scent that screamed for attention. No, it pulled you in slowly, wrapping around you like a favorite blanket, drawing you closer until you couldn’t think about anything else. My brain slowed to a crawl, every instinct screaming omega.
Ainsley’s scent patch was dangling from his neck, and his scent was leaking. And he smelled fucking incredible.
“That’s you?” I heard myself say, my voice hushed, almost reverent.
Ainsley’s eyes snapped up, wide and startled, and for once, he looked like he didn’t know what to say. “Don’t,” he said sharply, his hand flying to the patch on his neck like he could physically stop the scent from leaking out. I watched as he tried to press it back into place, but all the sweating he was doing was messing with the adhesion.
And it was too late. I could smell him.
I leaned forward, inhaling deeply, and the faintest growl rumbled in my chest before I could stop it. “You smell…” I shook my head, searching for the right words. “Incredible.”
“Shut up,” he hissed, clapping a hand over the patch like it would do anything to stop the leak. “Give me another one. Now.”
“What?” I said, barely registering his words.
“Your spare,” he said through gritted teeth. “You have a spare, right?”
Did I have a spare? Probably. Maybe. Yes. I couldn’t think about it to save my life, though. All I could focus on was him—his flushed cheeks, the way his curls clung to his damp forehead, the delicate line of his neck. The scent wasn’t just hanging in the air; it was him. It was curling out from his skin, his hair, every inch of him, and it was driving me insane.
“Vaughn.” Ainsley’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Oh, uh… yeah,” I said, fumbling with my backpack. My fingers brushed against the replacement patch I kept in the side pocket, but I hesitated. “But I mean… you don’t need to rush it or anything.”
“Vaughn.”
There was a panicked edge to his voice but I couldn’t focus on that, either, instead swaying closer towards him until I was on the edge of my seat, growling at the table separating us. I sucked more of his scent into my lungs, greedily. The longer I sat there, the worse it got. My mouth went dry, my head spun, and my chest felt tight, like something was clawing its way out of me.
“Ainsley. You smell.. fucking incredible. Like… I don’t even know. Like honey and… I don’t know. Rain?”
“Rain?” Ainsley repeated incredulously, his hand still clamped over the patch. “What is wrong with you? Vaughn, give me the patch before someone else catches my scent. There could be other alphas in here—”
If another alpha scented Ainsley, I’d kill them.
Wait. No. I wouldn’t. That’s insane. I’m not some possessive caveman. Alphas don’t just kill other alphas. This isn’t one of those nature documentaries where lions fight over the last gazelle on the savannah.
… Unless they touched him. Or tried to take him. Then I’d kill them.
I mean, I wouldn’t want to, but I’d have to. That’s just how these things go, right? It’d be like… instinct. Natural selection or whatever. And besides, what kind of alpha lets someone else take what’s his?
Not that Ainsley was mine.
But the thought of some asshole—Justin, probably, because he’s the absolute worst—getting anywhere near Ainsley’s scent made my blood boil. If Justin scented him, I’d break his nose. No hesitation. And if he so much as thought about touching him, well... let’s just say there’s a reason I’m the best quarterback on this team. Strong arm, great aim. Could probably throw a chair at his head from fifty yards out and knock him flat.
“Seriously, though,” I said, leaning forward, my voice dropping low. “I wondered what you smelled like under there, but I didn’t think you’d smell like… this. Like something I could get addicted to.” The words were out before I could stop myself.
Ainsley froze, his cheeks somehow getting even redder. “Oh my God,” he muttered, dragging his hands down his face. “This is not happening.”
“It is, though,” I said, grinning despite the ache in my chest. “And it’s not my fault you smell so—”
“Stop talking about my scent,” he snapped, his voice high and sharp. “And give me the damn patch.”
“Why?” I asked, genuinely confused. “It’s a compliment.”
“It’s inappropriate!”
“Is it?” I tilted my head, watching him with growing fascination. “Because I think it’s the most interesting thing about this session so far.”
“You’re impossible,” he muttered, standing up so fast his chair scraped against the floor. “Give me the patch. Right now.”
“You’re just embarrassed.”
“I am not embarrassed!” he hissed.
“Then why are you blushing?”
“Because it’s a hundred degrees in here, you idiot!”
“Right,” I said, smirking. “Totally the heat.”
I grinned, but the moment I handed him the patch and he slapped it on, the scent vanished, replaced by the sterile, chemical nothingness of the blocking technology. The warmth it had wrapped around me was gone, leaving me feeling cold and restless.
“Better?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual, ignoring the sharp stab of disappointment.
“Infinitely,” he said, his voice clipped as he settled back in his seat.
I was shocked at how quickly his composure came back, falling back into place over his flushed features as he adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Right. Where were we?”
Something else was different now, too. I could still remember the scent—could still feel it—and it was like it had flipped some switch in my brain. Suddenly, I could focus.
“Alright,” Ainsley said, scribbling something on the notebook and sliding it toward me. “If the derivative of x squared is 2x, what’s the derivative of 3x squared?”
I stared at the problem, my brain turning over the numbers. “Uh… 6x?”
Ainsley blinked, clearly surprised. “Correct. Let’s try another one.”
We went through problem after problem, and for the first time, I wasn’t completely floundering. I wasn’t amazing or anything, but I was doing better.
“See?” I said, leaning back with a smirk. “I’m a genius.”
“You’re tolerable,” he corrected, his voice dry.
By the time we wrapped up, I was actually feeling kind of good about the session. Ainsley, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to bolt. I watched him pack up, my chest tightening with something I couldn’t quite name. I’d known Ainsley Kerrigan for all of two sessions, but now I felt like I’d caught a glimpse of something hidden and raw, something he didn’t let anyone else see.
“We’ll meet again tomorrow. Same time,” he said.
“Sure,” I said, watching him pack up. His curls were still a little damp, clinging to his forehead, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “Hey, Ainsley?”
“What?” he asked, looking up at me with his usual annoyed expression.
“You smell amazing,” I said, winking.
His face turned bright red, and he practically fled the library.
As I walked back to my car, I couldn’t stop replaying the session in my head, thinking about Ainsley. The way he looked when he got flustered, the way his green eyes lit up when I actually got something right. The way he smelled under his patch. God, his scent.
The scent had burrowed into my brain, lingering even after it was gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to get closer, to breathe him in again without the patch in the way.
It wasn’t just the scent, though. It was him. His sharp tongue, his wild curls, the way his green eyes sparked with intensity when he was explaining something. He was a walking contradiction—tiny but fierce, polished but messy, cold but somehow warm.
I’d met plenty of omegas before—hell, I’d dated a few—but none of them had ever smelled like that under their patches. None of them had ever made my head spin or my chest ache like that. But Ainsley did. And I wanted more.
What the hell was that?