Chapter 16
Derek
“What are you doing here?” she asks when she opens her apartment door.
I hold up the tray with two coffees and a paper bag with bagels. “I brought bagels.”
She steps back as I enter the foyer and move toward the kitchen.
“So, you just brought breakfast?” She follows me into the kitchen.
I sit down at the table, but she remains standing. Allegra crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the kitchen countertop. Her tone holds a note of skepticism and her eyes narrow.
I grin and pull out a buttered salt bagel. Breaking off a piece, I pop it into my mouth. “I got your text.”
“And?” She huffs, crossing to the table and taking the seat across from mine. She reaches into the bag and plucks out an everything bagel with cream cheese. She picks at it.
“We should talk,” I declare.
“I’ll go see Levi,” she states, taking a nibble of her bagel.
“About us,” I clarify.
Allegra widens her eyes, her lips parting. “You’re serious?”
“One-hundred percent.” I lean closer, narrowing my eyes. I know she’s about to call me out on my own bullshit, and right now, I welcome it. Fuck, I’ve missed her.
“I spent all summer trying to get a read on you, wanting to know how you felt about me and now…you decide we need to talk and so we’re gonna talk?”
“I miss you,” I blurt out.
Her mouth drops open.
I smirk. “I’ve missed you since I left that bed with you in it in August.”
She snaps her mouth shut.
I arch an eyebrow, silently challenging her to toss me her shit.
“I don’t trust you,” she reminds me.
“I know and I don’t care. I still want you, Allegra. And I’m gonna earn back your trust. Next issue.”
“I don’t want a boyfriend.”
“Then we don’t label it.” I take a swig of coffee.
“But I’m not going to sleep with you and know that you’re out, hooking up with other women.”
“No other women,” I say easily. I’ve learned my lesson; all other women, fuck, all other pussy pales in comparison to Allegra. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” I point at her. “But no other men. No fucking Ethan.”
She laughs, delighted that I’m still just as jealous. “Ethan and I are friends. There’s nothing there.”
“He’s into you.”
She shrugs. “Lots of guys are into me.”
She’s right. “What else?”
Allegra leans back in her chair. Her blonde tresses brush over the tops of her shoulders. She regards me coolly, taking a long pull of her coffee. Then, she slouches forward again. “So, we’ll hook up, not sexually see other people, and just…see what happens.”
A ripple of unease moves through me, but I keep my expression blank. No, if I had my way, I’d drag her across the fucking table, put my mouth and hands all over her gorgeous body, and make her mine.
In every sense of the word.
But she’s gonna buck me hard and I deserve it.
So, I shrug. “If that’s what you want.”
“What do you want?” she asks coyly.
I grin. “You know what I want, babe. I fucking want you. All of you. But I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give until I can prove that I’m not going anywhere. So, you wanna hook up and see how it goes? I’ll be in your bed every night until you kick me out.”
She’s stunned for a heartbeat. Then, a grin spreads over her face. “Every night?”
I laugh. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
She sighs and breaks off a bite of her bagel. “Yeah, it was good. I don’t…” She pauses, takes a small bite of the bagel. “I was numb for most of the sex I had last semester.”
Hearing her say it fucking scores my skin like knives. The words move through my chest like razor blades, death by a thousand fucking nicks and minuscule slices.
“I hate that for you, baby,” I tell her the truth. “I fucking hate myself for it, Allegra.” My eyes close and I breathe out, my nostrils flaring. My hands curl into fists and tremors of rage rumble through me. I did that to her. I hurt her so badly that she started hurting herself.
“It’s—”
“Don’t say fine.” My eyes pop open.
She shrugs. “It is what it is. It wasn’t meaningful.”
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek. I know what she’s explaining. I’ve felt it. The reckless need to push and do fucked-up shit just to feel. Cut yourself just to see if you bleed. But that’s for angry minds battling darkness, for guys like me.
Not for light and sunshine. Not for a soul like Allegra’s.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she murmurs.
“Like what?” My words are husky, low and gravelly and covered in a thin coat of anger.
“Like you’re disappointed.”
“I am,” I admit. “In myself. I can’t stand that I made you feel anything but cherished. I hate how I treated you. I left because I wanted to protect you. And the Clovers. And me, from all the things I felt for you. But if I knew…” I clear my throat. “I never would have left.”
She shrugs with one shoulder. Her bagel is a shredded pile of tiny dough balls. “I’m glad you’re back,” she says finally, meeting my eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise.
“We’ll see,” she replies, flicking a dough ball at my face.
I swat it away and snort. “So, Levi can start seeing visitors this week. You’re in?”
She nods slowly. “Yeah.”
“Wednesday okay? Mav and I will swing by and pick you up. Five p.m.?”
“Sure,” she agrees. “That works.”
“You nervous?” I ask. I saw how hard she tried with Levi last summer. He never looked out for her the way he should’ve; he didn’t protect her the way she needed him to.
Case in point: me. Levi should knock my teeth down my throat for the way I treated his sister, and he doesn’t even know.
He still has no fucking clue.
“A little,” she admits. “In my mind, he’s my last bridge home. My last connection to family.”
“Your parents?” I wonder, even though deep down, I know the response.
“Mom and I spoke briefly at Christmas. That’s it,” she sighs, sorrow heavy in the sound.
“They don’t deserve you.”
She smirks. “I’ve heard that too many times for it to be true.”
“I won’t lie to Levi this time,” I say, wanting her to know that I’m going all in.
She rears back. “You want to tell him about…” She gestures between us.
“I know how I feel, Allegra. How you want to treat this”—I gesture between us the way she did—“is up to you. But on my side, I’m all in. And I’m not going to fake that shit in front of your brother. He’s one of my best friends, my bandmate, and I should’ve been straight with him from the jump.”
Allegra lets out a shaky exhale. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”
I grin. “I’m doing everything by the book this time, baby. Something bothers you, you tell me. If I can fix it, I will. I know I’m gonna mess some shit up because this is new territory for me, but I won’t leave you again. I don’t ever fucking want you numb, not when you make me feel everything.”
Allegra stares at me like she doesn’t recognize me.
My smile widens. I like that I can still catch her off guard. That I can try to be the good, deserving, stable man she needs and keep her on her toes.
“Wednesday,” she murmurs.
“Five p.m.,” I confirm.
“Okay,” she says. In that word, I know she’s giving me her acceptance.
We’re going to tell Levi that we are…well, whatever we are. But it’s something. It’s meaningful and real and the most important relationship in my life right now.
Even more so than the Clovers.
I won’t lose my Stellina again. I won’t let her down. I won’t disappear.
This time, I’m going to prove I’m worthy of her. To do that, everyone in my circle needs to know I’m hers, even if she’s gonna play hard to get a little while longer.
Allegra can build a wall between us, but eventually, I’ll scale it. Smash it. Burn it to the ground.
Eventually, she’ll be mine in all the ways that matter.
She’ll be mine completely.