Page 79 of Alessio

“We don’t assume that.”

“I beg to differ.”

Cree sighed. “Are things better there? That’s all I want—that you’re happy, Les.”

A loud, happy holler drew Alessio’s attention back to the other side of the room. Ginevra’s hands flew high in the air as she tossed her head back and laughed in her triumph. On the screen, the words Mission Accomplished flashed across her character, while Corrado’s only had a red FAILED.

“How did you beat me again?” Corrado groused.

Ginevra grinned, turning her head enough to catch his scowling lips in a kiss that had Alessio’s own smile growing. He wished he was over there, sharing their moment with them, instead of on this damn call.

Because they were happy.

He was happy.

“We’re all happy,” Alessio said. “And you can tell Dare, too.”

“I’ll try to rein him in, Les. It’s the best I can do.”

“I would appreciate it.”

He had to get back to his life.

“Stop it.”

Alessio’s words came out in a mumble given that his face had buried in the pillows on the bed, and he was half asleep. Nearly there, but not quite. He couldn’t fall into sleep like he wanted when a foot away from him on the large king-size bed, Corrado kept tensing every few seconds.

It wasn’t the movement, or even Corrado’s sighs in the darkness, but rather, the fact his lover was annoyed. Or bothered … likely both.

Alessio didn’t like that.

“Am I keeping you up?” Corrado asked.

Alessio twisted his head around, so he could stare at Corrado, or what he could see of him. “Yes, and if you want something different, go do that. Don’t lay there and fret about it. That drives me fucking crazy.”

“You don’t—”

A quiet shuffling echoed outside of their bedroom, because yeah, Alessio was back in here a couple of days later. This was where he wanted to be, he had a better night’s sleep, and didn’t give a fuck about the details. Those only held him back. Corrado left the door open in case the woman across the hall wanted something other than to sleep alone in her bed. Not that she had taken the invitation yet.

But at that sound, the noise Ginevra made when she rolled over in her bed again—for what, the millionth time since she had gotten out of the bathtub two hours ago?—Corrado tensed again. The woman wasn’t sleeping, but she was far enough away that she probably couldn’t hear their quiet conversation, and he wasn’t sure she had a clue that they were aware she wasn’t sleeping.

Her choice to sleep alone was hers.

They said nothing.

“At night, she worries,” Corrado said.

“About home, you mean.”

“What else? When does her brain shut off? About her mom, I suspect, and her sisters. She doesn’t tell us because who knows why … but it’s what she does. I don’t like it.”

Alessio sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face, willing that sleepiness to go. “Just go do what you want to do. If you’re going to lie beside me wondering about it, and keep me up all night, too, then I will need you to do that somewhere else.”

“Well—”

“Go get her,” he grumbled in the darkness.

“Or this is her time, no? At night, that’s when she can actually be alone without us, Les. It’s how she deals with all the shit going on—her anxiety, and the rest, you know?”