Page 11 of Healing the Alpha

I thought once my sprain was mostly healed and I could drop some of the painkillers, my insomnia would vanish along with it.

I was wrong.

My back aches. I’m restless. My mind is running at a thousand miles an hour, and I’d give anything to be able to lie on my right side. I don’t think I ever slept on my right side before the accident, but as soon as I wasn’t able to do it because of my broken arm, it became the fucking holy grail of sleeping positions in my mind. Like if I could just turn onto my right side, every locked-up muscle in my broken body would relax all at once.

I let out a frustrated groan and swing my legs out of bed, not even wincing at the shooting pain that runs up my arm and into my neck. At least I have the use of one of my arms now—god knows I’ll never take it for granted again.

The kitchen’s dark when I step through the door, but I only use the flashlight on my phone to light my way to the sink, not wanting to force myself any further from sleep by switching the light on. I pour myself a glass of water with one hand and gulp it back hastily, rolling my neck to try to work out some of the tension.

I nearly jump out of my skin when a tall, dark shadow appears in the doorway, before Max’s familiar, spicy ginger scents hits my nose.

“Jesus Christ, I nearly threw my glass at your head,” I whisper, even though there’s no reason to be quiet. “I thought you were asleep on the sofa.”

Max whisper-laughs, also keeping quiet for no discernible reason. “You’re the one stalking around in the dark like a creeper.”

I get a sudden, aching jolt of nostalgia. We used to have a lot of whispered late-night talks in the kitchen when we shared an apartment; we’d go in to get a glass of water before bed, and still be there an hour or two later, talking about… god knows. Everything. Nothing at all.

Max went through an insomniac phase in our mid-twenties, so sometimes I’d find him pacing the apartment at 2 a.m., and I’d stay up just to keep him company. I used to perch on the window ledge in our old kitchen and smoke out the open window, back before Max finally succeeded in his mission to make me quit. He would sit at the tiny kitchen table and talk shit with me even though he hated the smell.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I say, putting my empty glass in the sink.

“Me neither,” he says, and I notice in the gloom that he’s clutching his bare arms. “Temperature’s dropped, I’m fucking freezing. Got any spare blankets?”

I notice that the kitchen floor is colder than usual against my bare feet, and hum in agreement. I rack my brains trying to think where I put the spare comforter my mom bought me when I moved into this place, but I don’t have the will or the mental capacity to figure it out.

I walk toward him, grabbing the hem of his t-shirt in the darkness and tugging him behind me. “I have no idea.”

“Where are we going, then?” Max whispers, following me.

“To bed,” I say. “It’s big enough for the both of us.”

When I flip back the covers, Max crawls in right after me, and it hits me again how little of a reaction his scent gets out of me. Another alpha rubbing his scent all over my sheets should make me feel aggressively territorial at best, but here I am pushing him onto the warm side of the bed and covering both of us with the same duvet. If anything, having his scent this close makes me feel calmer, the ache in my muscles suddenly not so bad.

“Thanks, Ky,” Max whispers, turning to face me.

“You’ve looked after me enough for a few lifetimes,” I say. “I’m not gonna let you freeze on my sofa.”

His foot bumps against mine under the covers, and it’s like kicking an ice block. “Jesus, you really are cold,” I mumble.

I hook my foot around both of his, pulling them toward me and clamping my calves around them so they’re locked in the warmth. Max sighs contentedly, a shiver running through him as he scoots closer.

“I don’t think we’ve slept in a bed together since we were, like, fourteen,” he says with a soft laugh.

“Around the time we started getting morning wood, yeah,” I grin. “Too many close calls.”

“I guess that’s not an issue anymore, huh?”

I snort. “I guess not.”

Max wiggles his toes against my calf, and a strong gust of wind outside rattles the windowpane. I can see the glint of his eyes in the gray moonlight that’s filtering through my curtains, his gaze half-lidded, studying my face.

I move closer until our knees are touching and I’m sure I’m transferring some of my heat to him.

“Do you remember how drafty our apartment on James Street was?” he chuckles. “I used to stuff newspaper around the gaps in the windows to keep the chill out. I slept in socks for three years.”

“God, that place was a dump,” I agree, the memory twisting in my gut. “The radiators barely worked.”

Max sighs. “I think that was our justification for drinking so much fucking rum that one winter.”