Page 39 of Alessio

“You fucking know.”

“Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

“Fuck you,” Alessio mumbled, shaking his head under the water, droplets sliding down his face to fall to the tiled floor. “I didn’t come here for this—for her. We’re supposed to be figuring shit out, but we haven’t even done that, and you know what’s happening with me because that’s what you fucking wanted to happen.”

He would not spell it out for Corrado.

The asshole could read between the lines.

“It wasn’t us with someone else, Corrado,” Alessio said under his breath. “That’s not what this ever was, but you didn’t let me choose—you did. And you knew what would happen if I stayed here long enough … if I was around her long enough, so fuck you for that, too.”

Every word he threw at Corrado cut like knives. He was sure when they stabbed into Corrado, it hurt like hell. He wanted that clear, though, because it’s how this shit felt to him. Someone decided something else for him, and he didn’t get a say either way.

He could be pissed about that.

That, he could choose alone.

“Get out,” Alessio snapped at Corrado when the man just kept standing there.

“Les—”

“Go.”

Corrado didn’t leave like Alessio wanted him to. He never had understood boundaries, or possibly, a part of Corrado sensed when Alessio struggled, even when he said he wanted to be alone, he needed someone there more.

He’d been alone for most of his life.

A vicious circle.

Corrado often reminded him he wasn’t navigating life by himself so that just made this worse. It made the pain of it all amplified because God … Alessio handed him everything, and he ruined it.

Instead of leaving, Corrado backed him against the shower wall. Alessio tipped his head back to the tiles, letting the coolness of the marble press along his jaw and cheek when Corrado buried his face into his neck. His lips touched his skin, soft and quick, silent apologies following the featherlight kisses.

He didn’t need to have it said.

He knew what Corrado didn’t say.

“I didn’t find her,” Corrado muttered against his skin. “I didn’t seek her out—she just was, and I didn’t get a choice, either. You don’t want this to change, and I get it, Les. You get too close, you give a shit, and then what happens, huh? It’s someone else that can leave you, right?”

“Fuck you,” Alessio mumbled.

Fuck him for knowing.

For being right.

For doing all of this.

It wasn’t fair.

“It’s like you fucking tricked me, like you manipulated me,” Alessio said, his voice a rumble under the noise of the shower. “This is what you wanted, right?”

“I did nothing. I let shit happen.”

“No, you did.”

“Les—”

“That’s what it seems like, Corrado. And it makes it harder, it makes this worse.”