“Take the time you need,” Gian said, “and go back better, Les.”
“This doesn’t get better from here.”
“But it might. Go back better, and ready.”
Yeah.
Right.
Ready for what?
And how should he do that when he only wanted to hurt Corrado? He could think of a million different ways to do it—ones to make the man feel the same cold ache in his chest that Alessio now had. Pain was always better when shared, right?
Did that make him a monster?
Alessio wasn’t sure he cared.
And right there ... that’s why he hadn’t gone back yet.
Not ready.
He wasn’t better.
The phone buzzed on the table between the wicker chairs as Gian turned to walk away. Alessio let him go, and leaned over to check the phone, thinking it would be Cree or Dare trying to get him back on the phone.
A text from Corrado lit up the screen, reading, Happy birthday, Les.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one up way too late. He might have appreciated the text, and that Corrado remembered.
He still didn’t.
Not when right above it rested a text, one the man had sent only two days earlier. One Alessio had been waiting for—I slept with her, Corrado had said.
This had never been about the sex.
The physical shit meant nothing to Les. Sex was sex to him—another urge or need to fulfill, like eating or sleeping or whatever else he needed to live. The idea of men sleeping with Corrado fucked with Alessio’s head, and they drew the line. Women, though? He didn’t care, he got off on it, really.
Rarely did he attach emotions to having sex with females, and neither did Corrado. Together was different, of course. Emotions had always been attached to their fucking when it was just them in bed together.
So, no, he didn’t have a single fuck to give about Corrado sleeping with Ginevra.
It was everything else.
Everything Corrado didn’t say.
All the things he hadn’t done.
That was the problem.
• • •
Alessio blinked, and a week passed him like nothing at all. He didn’t know how it happened, but he blamed the haze of his mind.
The war.
To his left, he watched the quiet, dark city street and the people passing by the bar’s large bay windows as he tipped his whiskey up for another drink. Two glasses in, working on his third, and he still didn’t feel shit.
The fucking numbness had come.
Now, he wasn’t sure if he wanted it.
On the bar, his phone buzzed. Alessio ignored the device altogether. The chime of a bell somewhere behind him said someone new had come inside, and five seconds later, a presence sat next to him at the bar.
“Since when do you drink whiskey?”
Alessio made a thick noise, tipping his glass up for another sip. “Since now.”
He preferred rum.
Tequila.
Vodka.
Bourbon.
Beer.
Fucking wine.
Anything but whiskey. The spirit was Corrado’s drink, and Alessio didn’t see the appeal. Something about the liquor made him cringe, which was amusing when he could take shots of tequila like nobody’s business. The only time he liked the taste of whiskey was when he licked it off Corrado’s—
Nope.
Not going there.
Not tonight.
“What do you want?” Alessio asked.
“Are you going to keep staring out the window, or look at me?”
Well ...
Alessio turned on the stool to face his guest, coming face to face with Christopher. Before then, Alessio never looked at Corrado’s twin and first recognized all the similarities between them. He always found the differences first because that’s what he liked about Corrado.
All the things which made him different.
Today, the first thing he saw in Christopher’s features were all the things that made him and Corrado identical. Right down to the way his lips quirked up at the corner when he smirked, and the gold flakes in the browns of his irises.
All it did was hurt.
Just like that, the numbness left, and the pain was back. Alessio didn’t know which one he wanted more.
To feel everything.
Or nothing at all.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked.
Chris shrugged. “Dad.”
“What, worried I might do something rash because I left the mansion?”
“Who knows? You might want someone else to talk to.”
Alessio nodded. “Well, I don’t.”
“And I’m still here.”
Perfect.
The phone vibrated on the bar. Alessio’s gaze cut to the device at the same time Chris’s did, both seeing a familiar name flashing on the screen to say a text had come through.
Corrado.
“What’s that about?” Chris asked.
Alessio sucked air between his teeth, hating the taste of whiskey on his breath but needing the annoyance to help keep the numbness at bay for the moment. “I told him I’m fine ... around, or whatever.”
“Ah.”
“And to leave me the fuck alone,” he added quieter, turning to stare out the window again. “Apparently, he didn’t get the memo.”
Chris sighed. “Or he’s ignoring it because he’s worried, and he cares.”
“Right.”
Cares.
A funny way to describe what Corrado had done.
“Do you want to talk about them—him and her, I mean?”
Alessio made a disgusted noise under his breath. “I don’t give a fuck about them, Chris.”
It was a lie.
He did.
He concerned himself with too much about them, what they were doing, and why. More than anything, he wanted to know why.
What was it about the woman that did it for Alessio and Corrado? Why her? Why was it her who finally broke them? After all these years, all this time, and every female the two of them had gone through over the years in their bed ... why the fuck was it her?
“Yeah, you get like that, huh?” Chris asked.
Alessio shot him a look. “Excuse you?”
“Indifferent. You act indifferent. You get in a mood whenever you don’t want to deal. Corrado knows how to handle it, but the rest of us think you’re being an asshole, Les.”
Huh.
He stared at Chris and quirked a brow. “How is that my problem?”
Chris rolled his eyes. “You give a shit about them ... or at least, him. Otherwise, you would have left by now, Les. You don’t have to be here. Nobody is keeping you in this city. If you wanted to go, or tell my brother to go fuck himself, you would have done so. It’s who you are. So, cut the shit, drop the attitude and the pretense, and then we can find what the real issue is here.”
Alessio already understood.
Corrado lied.
They had a thing, and he fucked up.
Alessio didn’t want to deal—he didn’t know how to handle the person he loved, the only one in the world who he trusted more than himself, doing something to purposely ruin the delicate balance they had.
“And you know ...” Chris dragged in a heavy breath before clearing his throat as his fingers drummed to the top of the bar. “I think he likes her.”
Really?
That wasn’t news.
If Corrado didn’t like the fucking woman, and he had done this, it would stun Alessio. Why would he even bother?