“Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
He figured that was obvious.
Or it should be.
“But do you really,” Corrado pressed, making Alessio’s attention snap back to him at the deeper tenor his tone took on. “Because you’ve always been touchy, Les, about me, what’s yours, and when you think someone is encroaching on things that belong to only you. Yeah, you don’t make it obvious sometimes, but you still do it. And don’t act like you didn’t come here because you felt like someone was encroaching on me, and you didn’t like that.”
It was the challenge in Corrado’s stare that kept Alessio silent—the unspoken I dare you to lie right now that Corrado wouldn’t say.
“Well?” Corrado asked.
Alessio swallowed the thickness in his throat. “You’re not wrong.”
It was his favorite way to say someone was right without showing his whole ass even if it irritated Corrado to no end.
“She’s not a man,” Alessio said, “so I shouldn’t have felt that way at all, but I did because you hid her and your intentions. You put me in this position, in this fucking head space I don’t want to be in, and I can’t jump right out of it because you snap your goddamn fingers and tell me to.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“But I don’t know what I want to do now, either,” Alessio muttered, “and that pisses me off more. You didn’t give me a choice here, Corrado. I’m here, or I’m gone. Those are the options I have ... five fucking years with you, and those are the options I’m left with. To stay here, and watch you be with her because you want to, or walk away alone. It should be an easy choice—I’m tired of what we’ve been doing, but I’ve still got you, right?”
“Until I die, yeah.”
Alessio sneered, angry again just like that. “So, yeah, you put me back there like you did five years ago. Where I have to make the choice between keeping you, because at least I get a part of what I love, or walking away and having none of it. So thank you for that, really.”
“Les—”
“Just, don’t.”
Corrado dragged in a heavy breath and dropped Alessio’s stare. “It’s only like that because you don’t want me to tell you what you want to hear right now because she’s involved. If she wasn’t here, you’d let me say and tell you all of it. The shit I didn’t say five years ago, the issues you kept running from, and I ignored ... I’d say it but she’s here, and that changes it for you again.”
Again, he wasn’t wrong.
Alessio shook his head. “I want to understand why it was her. Why now?”
They weren’t even questions.
Mostly because, he didn’t know if there were answers.
“I can explain it, but once I do, when it’s all out there, everything will change again. Is that what you want to happen? Because I will, Les. I’ll say what you wanted me to say for the last five years, but I will say something about her, too, and it will change things. So, if that’s what you need, and you want to handle all of it, then let me know.”
Alessio stayed quiet.
He heard what Corrado said.
He knew what it meant.
And fuck ...
“Not yet,” he said under his breath. “I don’t think I can understand yet, and I know it’s important to you, and this ... I need time.”
“Just tell me when.”
Time for Alessio also meant space—he needed both. Which was fucking hilarious, the world was laughing at his stupid ass, because at the same time ... he didn’t want to leave here. He needed to be here. Something inside told him he wouldn’t find what he needed away from Corrado, and this home.
“I’m staying here, though. In this penthouse, I mean.”
Corrado shrugged like he expected nothing different. “Our names are on the deed. It’s your home, too. You good?”
“Not even close.”
“I’m sorry.”
But all it took was Corrado’s hand coming out from his side so that his fingertips could glide along the inner skin of Alessio’s wrist. A soft touch, something he wasn’t at all used to with this man when they were doing their thing. He expected roughness ... but never in their quiet moments, he knew.
Never then.
Alessio let out a slow stream of air, flipping his hand around, and let his fingers weave with Corrado’s. The touch was brief, with featherlight pressure, and he didn’t look at his lover, but he needed that.
A them moment amid everything else.
It was good.
Right.
Then, Alessio let Corrado go, and moved to head out of the bedroom, but stopped beside him first to say, “And I kissed her earlier, so you know.”
Corrado cleared his throat. “Did you?”
“I did.”
“Hmm.” Corrado glanced to the side, cocking a brow when his gaze met Alessio’s. “Was that because you wanted to hurt me, confuse her, or something else?”
Alessio smirked.
Really?
“One—I don’t need to use her to hurt you. Ever.”
“Fair,” Corrado replied.
“Two—that woman is a lot of things, but confused isn’t one of them when she’s getting something she wants. And she wanted that.”
“Be careful with that, she’s not used to this thing like we are.” Then, Corrado nodded, his tongue peeking out to run along the edge of his bottom lip. “So, your reason for doing it was the something else?”
“I wanted to kiss her. That’s all.”
“And you always take what you want, don’t you?”
Alessio winked. “That I do.”
Back in the living room, Alessio took his position on the couch he had vacated earlier. Ginevra looked his way as he picked up the book, too, but continued playing her game like nothing was happening. Corrado hung back in the hallway like he hadn’t decided whether he wanted to join them.
“So,” Ginevra said, still watching the screen, her tone playful, “where is everyone sleeping?”
• • •
The black Cartier watch on Alessio’s wrist ticked past twelve at night as Corrado stepped into the penthouse’s home gym. Corrado found Alessio perched on top of the bars they used for chin-ups. The single, smooth bar of metal secured between two beams wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit, but it gave him a better view out of the windows, and made him seem unavailable to conversation.
Which he was because—
“Is that the book Ginevra was reading?” Corrado asked.
Alessio rolled his eyes and peered up from the words on the page. “The poems, yeah.”
“Didn’t she take that to bed with her?”
Why was he asking questions?
It was easier not to ask.
Alessio didn’t want to explain that he’d felt the strangest urge to sneak that book from Ginevra’s bedside table and take a peek at where she left off before falling asleep.
“I’ll put it back before she wakes up,” he muttered.
That was way too defensive, asshole.
Corrado’s brow lifted, but he said nothing in reply to that. “Just curious.”