Page 51 of Alessio

Corrado smiled, staring down the hall. “You wouldn’t unless you favored Japanese writings, and you don’t.”

“Because I can’t understand the language.”

“Anyway … I learned what the phrase meant days before I came to The League with my father and brother; when I met you.”

“That doesn’t tell me what it means.”

“It is the knowledge upon meeting someone that, eventually, you will fall in love with them.”

“Sounds like bull—”

“Except I felt it with you,” Corrado interjected, his gaze snapping back to Alessio’s in an instant. The truth he found staring back kept Alessio from saying anything more. “And somehow, I believed you would change everything for me. You did, by the way.”

Alessio dragged in a hard breath. “And you mean to tell me … what, you felt it with her, too?”

“Almost instantly.”

Huh.

Alessio ran his tongue along the seam of his lips, considering and unsure of what to say. Mostly because yes, he was still angry this had happened. He became so attached to this thing they had created between only them; he didn’t know what it would be like after.

Because this would change.

Corrado’s feelings, even if Alessio’s were not there yet, determined that for them. Would the rest come along, too?

That was yet to be determined.

“You get she’s not like us, right?” Alessio asked in a murmur. “She hasn’t been in this kind of relationship, Corrado. This poly—”

“Or are you scared she might be perfect for us, but then that leaves you vulnerable again, Les?”

“Unfair.”

Not everything boiled down to Alessio’s issues.

Sometimes, shit just was.

“Why, because I understand your baggage like you get mine? Is it only okay when you want to throw my baggage at my feet for us to unpack together, but not when I throw yours back at you to do the same?”

“All of this still doesn’t change you didn’t tell me from the start about her, Corrado. The one thing I asked for with us, and you abused my trust.”

“I understand. I’m trying to fix it.”

“It’s still hard for me.”

“I didn’t assume otherwise.”

“As long as you’re aware.”

Corrado laughed huskily. “And nice deflection—you still haven’t answered my question. Anything else you want to ask me about my conversation with Ginevra?”

“Good catch.”

Because the man wasn’t wrong.

Alessio just figured this was something he should work out on his own, but especially his darker urges that seemed to want to come out to play more often. It’d been too long since he’d fucked, and he sat on an edge like never before. It was strange how something like sex could drive him up the wall, becoming a focal point in his thoughts.

“I get you—you already have me. Despite all of this, that hasn’t changed. I swear, we won’t ever fucking change, Les.”