Meg was feeling really good when the bus stopped off at her house. She really wished her sister Amanda took the same bus home. She wanted to tell her all about James Adams.

But as she walked towards her front door, apprehension was starting to build in her stomach, and at a rapid pace. If her parents, especially her mom, found out about James, all hell would break loose. She had been through it so many times before. And if it was a Beta boy, it would be her mom that would always visit his father and “straighten out” the situation. Meg never knew what had happened, or been said, but the next day the boy would usually be too terrified to even look at her. She was determined to not let that happen to James and his father.

Once she went inside the house, she saw her mom in the kitchen and gave her a hug and said hi. Her mom returned the affection. Meg decided that it wasn’t a good idea to bring up James, so she told her mom that she was going to do her homework.

On the way to her room, she stopped by Amanda’s door and knocked. Meg heard her sister say enter, and once in, she sat on the bed, and asked if she could tell Amanda something. The young girl replied sure. But before she talked, Meg made her sister promise that whatever she said, her parents couldn’t know. Amanda agreed.

So Meg told her all about James. Everything that happened since that first day of school. Amanda would occasionally make a teasing remark, but was really excited for her sister. 

But Amanda also knew that Meg had liked boys before, but they never lasted. She didn’t know why, but she could feel her parents’ hostility towards smaller people, so she too could only guess at what happened. But once Meg was done, the sisters hugged, and Meg left to do her homework.

James woke up just before the alarm went off. But he wasn’t tired. In fact, he had his best night of sleep in over a week. So he got out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower. 

Afterwards, he got dressed and went to the kitchen. His parents weren’t up yet, so James made himself breakfast. He ate, then decided that he would surprise his mom and dad by cooking breakfast for them. 

Tom and Debbie were surprised by breakfast waiting for them on the table. And they really appreciated James’ gesture. Debbie went over and gave her song a big hug and a kiss on his cheek, and told him thank you. James looked at her and winked, and said it was his pleasure. 

But soon, the bus was there to collect him. So James grabbed his backpack and told his parents goodbye and got on the bus. He quickly made his way to where Meg was sitting, and climbed the steps up to the seat, and got comfortable next to her, grabbing her much larger hand and holding it tightly. 

Meg smiled down at him, and they resumed planning their pizza date. James said it would be obvious that they needed to eat at place built for her, and she replied teasingly that obviously would be the case. James laughed at his statement. He gave up. He looked up at her and told her to just pick the place and it would be his treat.

But then a serious look came over Meg’s face. James noticed and asked her if anything was bothering her. Meg looked at James. She wanted to ask him a question, and she wanted him to be totally honest. James told her ok.

Meg asked him if the fact that she was so much bigger than he was bothered him. James didn’t blink. He looked up at Meg, and told her the truth. He was bothered by three things the first day on the bus.

One was the size of the bus itself. He had always been the tallest person, but the bus made him feel really small, which bugged him. The second thing was the size of the seats. He felt like a toddler in a car seat. He wasn’t used to feeling like that. The third was the fact that even at his size, and while standing, he had to look up at her while she was seated. He had never experienced anything like that before.

He could see an unsure look in Meg’s eyes, so he grabbed her hand as tight as he could and told her that once she said hi to him, the size of everything never bothered him again. He swore that her height never ever was an issue with him. He liked her, and it was her personality, and her heart, and her gentle nature, that he was becoming attracted to. Her size was irrelevant to him. It was her as person that he needed to be around.

Meg started to cry. James tried to reach up to wipe them away, but his arms weren’t long enough. Meg bent down and kissed him with passion, which took James by surprise. But he returned the kiss with all the passion in his body. Once done, they looked at each for a couple of seconds, then sat in silence for the rest of the ride to school, each one unsure of what had just happened. 

Tom pulled his truck into the parking lot. Becky was waiting for him outside the building. She gave him a warm smile and said hello. She also gave him his new ID badge, and a set of keys, one to open the building, and the other to unlock the door to their office.

Tom really appreciated her help in trying to get situated in a new department. He was kind of thrusted upon her. But if she felt any resentment, she never showed it.

So he followed Becky into the building, and back towards their office. Tom noticed that the door was much different from the one he saw the day before. It looked heavy, and he needed a step ladder to reach the lock. But once he did unlock the door, he found it to be much lighter than anticipated. It swung open fairly easy. And that’s when he saw the other changes.

There was a 5ft platform built in the corner with steps to reach the top. There was also a normal sized desk on it, and a nameplate that read Tom Adams at the front. There was a normal sized laptop and printer, and normal sized supplies. Wow, he thought. Susan really went all out for him. He felt a little embarrassed that she went through all this trouble just for him, and had it done overnight. 

Becky was also impressed. She had been trying to get the construction department to redo her office, but all she got was an answer consisting of ‘it’s on their to-do list’. But she was glad that Tom would feel comfortable using things built for someone his size.

Tom offered to get Becky a cup of coffee. She thought he would be too small to reach the counter, so she went with him. And both were surprised to see a normal sized coffee table and maker, with cups of both sizes. Geez, Susan really went overboard, Tom thought. But he wasn’t about to complain. Besides, he wanted to make Becky comfortable enough for her to be able to do her job without interruption. So he told her that he would make the coffee runs. She smiled down at him and said it was a deal. So they got their coffee and headed back to the office.

Back at school, when James and Meg exited the bus, there was a little more buzz than usual. The other students were whispering among themselves and glancing at the two of them.

Apparently, the Alpha girl that had threatened James the day before had told all her friends that Meg said a little Beta boy was her boyfriend. And the story spread. Most couldn’t have cared less, but there was a sizable percentage of students whose interests were piqued by the news, and needed to see for themselves. But once that was over and done with, everyone got on with their day.

History class was first up again, and the students learned that a project was being assigned and it dealt with the Middle Ages. The students needed to work with someone else, and they could choose from a list of topics. It had to be at least 15 full pages, and would be due at the beginning of November. And then the teacher made an obvious point. It had to be factually accurate. The grades for the project would be given just before the Christmas break, so there would be plenty of time for the papers to be examined thoroughly.

Meg and James were excited. They immediately knew that they were working together on this. And it made them excited for the project. It also gave Meg an idea. She was sure that she could convince her parents that she and James were the only two people left in class without a partner for the assignment, and that she truly needed James’ help with the project. It would allow him to meet her parents in a different setting. But she was going to have to convince James that he couldn’t mention that he was her boyfriend. And in order to do that, she was going to have to tell him the whole truth about her mom and dad. She could only pray that it wouldn’t scare him off.

Back at the office, once Tom and Becky had their morning coffee, he opened his new laptop, and immediately started working on a document. Once finished, he looked it over, and once satisfied that it was perfect, printed it out.

He took the paper over to Becky at her desk. She asked him what he had, and he handed it to her. He then grabbed her foot stool and stood on so he could see the top of her desk. He went over the paper with her. She looked at it. She recognized it as a template. 

Tom explained that it was the proper form for her to list her proposals, and then explain them in detail, with an area for projected costs. He told her that it was the most professional form he found, and it would make her proposals more appealing to the budget department. He also told her that he would send the link for the form.

Becky was extremely grateful that Tom, this little Beta, was taking the time to build her proposals from the ground up. She laughed inside and jokingly thought that if only he wasn’t married. But she sent him the same proposals from the day before, so he could bring them up on his computer. Tom pulled up the documents, then went to work on trying to get them up to standards.