Marked by the Alpha Team (Luna Merrick) novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

LUNA

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If I wasn’t so completely against violence of any kind, I was almost certain I would have punched Ivy right in the face. Hard enough to risk breaking her nose and probably getting expelled on the spot. It had been almost half an hour since Ryder walked out of our room, and not once, not one single time, had she stopped asking questions.

She was sitting cross–legged on her bed now, textbook forgotten, staring at me like I’d just turned down a winning lottery ticket.

“So let me get this straight,” she said for the third time. “Ryder Graves…the Ryder Graves of the football team, was in our room. In our room, and he invited you to the party tonight, and you said no?”

I rubbed my temples so hard I was probably leaving red marks. “Yes, Ivy. I said no because I don’t like parties. End of story.”

She let out a shaky sigh, the kind people make when they can’t believe what they’re hearing. “Luna, I know I have no right to tell you what to do, but you have to go to that party.”

I dropped my hands and stared at her. “What part of ‘I don’t like parties‘ are you not understanding?”

She leaned forward, her eyes wide and earnest. “It’s not just any party, Luna. This is the one the football team throws at the beginning of the season. Everyone who’s anyone shows up, especially the athletes, and I mean prominent student athletes from Blackridge and even some from other colleges. Track people like you go too, and it’s basically the event that decides who’s going to matter this year.”

I blinked at her. “I matter because I run fast, not because I go to some stupid house party.”

Ivy shook her head like I was missing something huge. “You don’t get it, and I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably picturing one of those lame high–school parties with a bunch of kids drinking cheap beer, doing drugs in the bathroom, making out in corners, and someone throwing up on the carpet. Right?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much.”

She leaned even closer. “This is nothing like that. The football team’s parties are… different. They’re exclusive, as in invite- only, and yeah, there’s drinking and music and all that, but it’s not sloppy or trashy. It’s more like… networking. People talk to coaches there, scouts sometimes show up, athletes make connections, deals get made, and reputations get built.”

I stared at her for a long second. “You’re telling me a party organized by a bunch of jocks is basically a career fair with alcohol?”

Ivy laughed, short and nervous. “Kind of? I mean, I’ve never actually been there myself.”

That made me pause. “Wait. You’ve never been?”

She looked down at her hands, her cheeks turning pink. “No. It’s mostly invite–only, and only the cool kids get in, and I’m….. well, I’m clearly the farthest thing from cool.”

I almost nodded in agreement, almost, but caught myself just in time since that would have been mean. Instead, I just sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Be more detailed on your limited knowledge and convince me, because right now it still sounds like a loud, crowded mess I want no part of”

Ivy tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear and thought for a second.

1/4

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Chapter 10

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“I can’t give you every detail because, like I said, I’ve never been inside, but I’ve heard things from people who have. It’s at the big off–campus house on Maple, the one with the wraparound porch and the huge backyard. They clear out the living room and make it a dance floor, and there’s a DJ, not some guy with a laptop, like an actual professional. There’s real food too, not just pizza, I hear they get real catering, and the drinks… they’re not just beer in red cups. They have bartenders, like, actual bartenders who make cocktails and all those nice things rich people drink.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Sounds expensive.”

“It is,” she said quickly. “The team pays for most of it since their families have crazy money, but the point is, it’s not chaotic, it’s controlled. People dress nice, not club fancy, but nicer than jeans and hoodies, and yeah, there’s drinking, but no one’s getting sloppy drunk in the middle of the floor. It’s more… sophisticated? I guess?”

I snorted. “Sophisticated drinking. Sure.”

Ivy ignored my sarcasm. “The real thing is the people who show up. Important coaches, alumni who played pro, and sometimes scouts from bigger programs, and track coaches too. I heard last year one girl got offered a spot on the relay team just because she talked to the right person at that party.”

I felt my stomach twist a little.

Coach Ramirez’s words from yesterday floated back. ‘Prove you’re worth the trust.‘ ‘Prove you’re not just a charity case.‘

A party where coaches and scouts hung out… that could be useful. Dangerous, but useful.

Still.

“I don’t do crowds,” I said quietly. “And I don’t do attention.”

Ivy gave me a soft look. “Ryder Graves came all the way here to invite you personally, Luna. I hate to break it to you, but you’re already getting attention whether you want it or not. The video’s still floating around, and people know your name. Going to the party might… I don’t know… take some of the mystery away? Make it less weird? Or at least show you’re not scared of them.”

I rubbed my face with both hands.

“But I am scared of them,” I admitted, my voice muffled against my palms. “Not like jump–out–of–the–closet scared, but… something’s wrong with me around those guys. I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I feel hot and weird around them, and I don’t know why.”

I couldn’t believe the words had actually come out of my mouth.

I’d just admitted to Ivy, out loud, that I felt hot and weird around those jerks from the football team. The second the confession left me, my face burned. I hadn’t planned to say any of it, and it was embarrassing, but I’d only been at Blackridge for two days, and everything was already spiraling so fast that keeping it all inside felt like trying to hold water in my hands.

Maybe talking to someone, anyone, would help me make sense of it. Maybe Ivy would laugh and tell me I was overreacting, and maybe she’d have an answer that didn’t make me feel like I was losing my mind.

Instead, she just stared at me.

For several long seconds, the room was completely quiet except for the faint hum of the mini–fridge in the corner. Ivy’s eyebrows slowly climbed higher and higher until they almost disappeared under her bangs.

“What do you mean… hot and weird?” she finally asked, her voice careful, like she was trying not to spook me. “Like around all the football guys? Or just some of them?”

2/4

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Chapter 10

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I rubbed the back of my neck, cheeks still flaming. “Not all of them,” I muttered. “Just… a few, like Ryder. Every time he’s close, I feel…” I waved a hand uselessly. “Hot, like my skin’s on fire, and weird, like my body knows something my brain doesn’t.”

Ivy blinked at me a couple more times, then burst out laughing, not mean laughing. Just a surprised, relieved laugh.

“Oh my God, Luna,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “I thought you were about to tell me something serious, like. medically serious.”

I frowned. “It is serious, and it feels wrong.

She shook her head, still smiling. “No, listen. I feel very weird around any member of the football team too because they’re hot, like, stupidly hot. All of them. Ryder, Theo, Jace, Knox, and Orion are basically walking billboards for perfect genetics. So yeah, feeling hot and weird around them? Totally normal. Everyone does. You’re not broken, you`re just… human.”

I stared at her.

She kept going, talking faster now. “Except, of course, if you’re worried you can’t keep your hands to yourself, like, if you think you might literally jump on one of them the second you see them, then yeah, maybe skip the party, but if it’s just normal ‘wow, they’re attractive‘ butterflies, then you’re fine, more than fine. You’re reacting like a regular person.”

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they might get stuck. “I could care less about boys,” I said flatly. “No matter how hot they are, and never in a million years would I jump on a man. That’s not the issue.”

Ivy gave me

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