Chapter Three #3
“Because after you sang that song, I wanted you to know that you aren’t alone.”
Alexo slams his mouth shut.
“And yeah.” I shrug. “I was fascinated with you last night. You were magical—the way you danced, the way you performed like you were putting your whole heart into the words. Which is why I want to take this opportunity for what it is and get to really know you. Maybe it was some sort of divine intervention that brought us back together, but no god will get credit for whatever we make out of this, and what I want to make out of this is—” Something real.
I cut myself off.
And everything I’ve said comes crashing back over me.
I haven’t even tried to temper myself. I’ve been so swept up in confusion and wonder from the moment I saw Alexo in Roesia’s office that I didn’t put up any of my usual healthy relationship barricades.
This whole thing already started in the weirdest way possible; nothing real could come out of it.
And I don’t do real, for exactly this reason.
Because I gave up a massive life change for a guy I don’t actually know.
Gods, I’m a pushover.
Weak. That word beats in my head, throbs like an angry vein. Weak.
I close my eyes on a soul-deep groan and scrub a hand over the back of my neck. “I think the publicists got enough pictures.” I shove up from the chair. “Forget I said anything. We’ll see each other at the next—”
“I want to perform.”
My gaze hits his. “You want to—?”
“Dance.” He splays his hands. “Sing. Perform. That’s why this arrangement was appealing.”
I don’t sit back down. I should walk away, let this stay something professional, and go home so I can figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about Urzoth now.
“But,” I start, “Ms. Sombercrown said they asked you to audition and you didn’t.”
Alexo picks at the muffin crumbs. It is now that, just a mountain of crumbs.
“I had my reasons for not wanting to. But this sort of sponsorship—” He shrugs one thin shoulder, his Hellhounds jacket catching the café light in a sheen.
“I couldn’t say no. It solves a number of issues in my life that I didn’t think were possible to solve.
The Urzoth patronage is a … security blanket.
” Those dark eyes bounce back up to me. “Why did you agree to it?”
Because of you.
Just you.
I bite the inside of my cheek and throw an exasperated look out the glass window—
There’s someone new inside the HQ lobby.
Someone I recognize.
The guy who attacked Alexo at the bar.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I growl.
Alexo stands on his chair’s rung and leans over the table to see who I’m looking at.
The moment he spots the guy, he grabs my arm as I try to leave, only the motion has him wobbling precariously.
I whip back to steady him, but he’s already overcorrecting, and he ends up toppling off the chair and into my arms.
I catch him. There’s no other choice.
We’re bent to the side, me cradling him like he’s some kind of fainting damsel in distress, one arm braced under him, and he’s got his hand locked around my neck, his breathing fast and hot on my face. His apple scent is corrosively sexy—maybe he’s wearing a pheromone potion. That’s gotta be it.
“Th-thanks,” Alexo stutters.
He’s only about two inches from me. Closer than he’s been yet. And he smells so good and those big brown eyes are fucking me up inside, and—
The guy. In the lobby.
How did he find Alexo?
It’s painful to set Alexo down, but I do, straightening his jacket and keeping his back to the window as I throw a glare through the glass.
That guy’s standing there, hands in the pockets of his dirty jean coat. He clocks me through the café window and glowers, upper lip curling in a snarl, but he’s smart enough not to approach.
My instinct is to stomp out there and chuck this asshole into the parking lot.
But Alexo isn’t freaking out. He puts his hand in the center of my chest like he did last night. Only instead of lifting up to kiss my cheek, he shakes his head.
“It’s okay that he’s here,” he says. “He’s harmless. I promise.”
I really thought my brain wouldn’t have anything else to trip over after the unrepentant onslaught of what the fuck today. But I frown down at Alexo, flipping through his words, their implications, and—
Oh, gods.
“Is he your…” I don’t want to say boy friend. And it’s entirely because I already feel possessive of the word in relation to the two of us, however play-pretend it is.
My self-hatred is rocketing to levels it hasn’t been at in years.
Alexo hesitates.
That hesitation is a fist to the gut, socking right into my diaphragm.
But he says, “No. It’s just complicated.”
My eyes flick over his head to that guy, who’s watching us with a sneer.
The NDAs we signed strictly forbid us from telling anyone that this relationship is fake. But if he has a—fuck—boy friend, even an on-again, off-again piece of shit like that, we could make more problems for him with this fake dating charade.
“Is he someone who will have an issue with this arrangement?” I ask.
Alexo laughs. It’s strained, nowhere close to the real, ringing laugh he gave me earlier. “Oh yeah.”
Another sucker punch to the gut.
A winded, gasping grunt leaves my mouth, and before I know what I’m doing, why, I have Alexo’s chin between my finger and thumb and I’m bending down over him.
“We don’t have to do this,” I say. “If us dating publicly will cause trouble for you, we don’t have to do it. I can find another way to get you patronage on the cheerleading team.”
Alexo’s glare is sudden and intense and leaves me speechless. It’s all the fire of his performance, all the yearning of his song, and for a moment, I want to beg him not to join the cheerleading team. I don’t think I’ll survive seeing him dance.
Through that look, he leaves his chin in my hand. Doesn’t seem at all put off that I grabbed him like this, keeping his face tilted up to mine.
“I’m not letting this opportunity go,” he tells me. It’s a promise. A threat. “I’m tired of running. Of dimming myself. This is a real chance, and I’m taking it. Yeah, there might be some people who have problems with it. But fuck. Them.”
He punctuates the last two words with steps toward me, and I hadn’t noticed how much space we still had between us until he’s against my chest, his lips and breath and being held right up under my face.
There might be some people who have problems with it. But fuck. Them.
My eyes flutter shut.
This guy is the physical manifestation of all my inner turmoil the past few months.
I really never stood a chance.
“All right,” I whisper.
It’s not all right.
Alexo nods in my grip, and when my eyes open, he’s backing away and glancing out the café window.
The publicists give us a thumbs-up and head back for the elevators. I completely forgot they’ve been immortalizing all this.
That guy is shaking his head, staring at Alexo, fury stark on his face.
“I have to go,” Alexo says. He gathers up the trash on the table, the muffin remains, mostly. “I didn’t realize what time it was. I—”
He startles as I take the trash from him and push the untouched pastries and his coffee toward him. “I got this. You need to leave?”
A lopsided smile. The ghost of a dimple on one cheek. He nods out the window, toward that guy. “He’s my ride.”
I think I crack a molar. That tension is all that keeps me from asking if I can give him a ride instead, because I don’t want him alone with that guy. Do they live together?
Not my question to ask. Not my anything.
But I dig my phone out of my pocket and slip to a contact entry screen before extending it to him. “Give me your number?”
Alexo grips his coffee cup, contemplating the phone, then my face.
“Please,” I add. “We’ll need to … coordinate. Sometimes. For our events.”
Another small smile. That pleasantly surprised smile that’s an intoxicant.
He takes my phone, types in his number, and sends a text to himself. “There. Boy friend,” he adds with a wink.
I smile back, liking that way, way too much.
And when he leaves the café, crosses the lobby to talk with that guy, I clench down hard on the trash in my hand until the muffin crumbs are mushed into oblivion.
This is a business arrangement. For my career, for his. For our team.
I track Alexo and his escort as they cross the lobby, breath coming in faster pulls, shoulders rising to my ears.
The moment they leave, I toss the trash into a bin and storm through HQ to the gym. Our team drills don’t start for several hours, but a lot of people will be doing their own workouts until then. So I will, too. That’s fine.
Yeah. That’s fine. Sure.
I change into the gear I keep stored in my locker, throw myself on the first open treadmill—one of the larger ones for those of us with ancestries like mine—and wrench the speed to the max. If my nearby teammates give me odd looks, I ignore them. I just run.
And run.
And it’s too poetic, isn’t it? Running and running only to get nowhere.
When I’m so covered in sweat that my tank is translucent, I punch off the treadmill and head for the outside track that loops the training field.
It’s a sweltering day, the sun high and bright, which keeps anyone else inside.
Good. I’m alone, huffing and puffing and powerwalking through my cooldown until I yank my phone from my gym shorts.
I start to text Alexo. Ask if he got home okay.
Instead, I pull up Seb’s number and know I’m going to break not only my NDA, but the promise I made to myself, that even though I’m back in Philly with Seb, I’ll rely on him less. I’ll keep him at arm’s length.
I quit him cold turkey when I moved to Vegas four years ago.
We still have a relationship, but it isn’t the codependent, unhealthy domination we once had.
Well, that I once had with him, where I’d wake him up if I had Camp Merethyl nightmares or seek him out if I was on the verge of an anxiety attack.
My therapist once called Seb my security blanket, and—