“I can't come,” I bite out. “I have a few projects to catch up on.” I lie, knowing they'll buy it. I always do my projects in advance, they know this and respect it enough not to probe further

I hate lying to my friends, but it's not entirely a lie, this is a project, project 'get alpha to like me'.

“Why are you sad? Did my brother say something?” Nova me.

“How did you know?”

She shrugs, “It's pretty obvious. I've warned you guys about that psycho, and you've seen how ...