Page 30 of Breaking the Alpha
He knew saying anything was a risk, knew whatever this friendship was might be too fragile to handle the pressure his words would place on her.But, like everything else when it came to Angelina, spilling his guts was easy around her.Too easy.
She left him on her couch downstairs while she went up to the bathroom.He heard the sound of the faucet running and her bare feet padding back and forth for a solid ten minutes before the water was turned off and she returned.
“Come on,” she said quietly, taking his hand.“Just because it’s past midnight doesn’t mean Indulgence Night is over.”
He followed her into the bathroom, his eyes adjusting to the dim light of the large candles and lanterns lining the vanity and framing the oversized tub filled with bubbles.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, smoothing her hands along his chest.“In you go.”
Brows shooting up, he glanced at the water.“But—”
His protest died on his lips as she walked out without another word.
He stared at the bath for a stretch, uneasy with the thought of getting in alone.If she was joining him, he would strip down in a heartbeat.But he suspected this was a solo endeavor, one he hadn’t undertaken since he was a kid.
He could hear her moving around downstairs as he reluctantly pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it into a pile by the door.His jeans were next, leaving him standing in his boxers and glaring at the bubbles until the stairs creaked and he realized she was on her way back.With a deep breath, he shoved his boxers down, kicked them aside, stepped into the hot water, and sunk into it as she opened the door.
It was hard not to feel awkward.His height was not exactly conducive to lounging in a tub.He had to choose between getting his knees or his feet under the water, the surprising comfort of the pink bath pillow making his decision for him.
Knees out it was.
Angelina placed a padded footstool beside him and sat, dipping a turquoise cloth in and squeezing the hot water along his exposed shoulders.She repeated the motion over and over until he was relaxed enough to lean back and close his eyes.
In the dim light, he knew she wouldn’t be able to make out the imperfections his tattoos tried to hide, the divots and scars Birch had incorporated into every piece.But when she abandoned the cloth and began using her hand to scoop the water along his skin, he tensed up.
“I always wanted to be blonde,” she said softly, dipping her fingers into the water and smoothing them across his bicep, over the small burn marks and scars.“All the beautiful girls with the perfect lives were.When I was in high school, I would see them smiling and laughing, and they were so cool.So confident.So powerful.But I had no money of my own, and there was no chance my foster family would spring for a professional dye job.So I snuck into their laundry room, stole a cup of bleach, and did it myself.”She let out a quiet laugh.“It was so bad and my hair was so damaged, I had to chop it off all the way up to my chin and I spent senior year with this wild bob I had no idea how to control.”
He tried to picture her stunning locks as being anything other than the cinnamon he adored and came up blank.
“It ended up being one of a long list of things I did to try and be anyone but who I was.”He watched her pull her unruly mane back into a ponytail and reach into the water with both hands.“I had this tattered fashion magazine I took from one home to the next.It was filled with perfect women with perfect lives and perfect skin and perfect hair.They represented everything I could only dream about being.”
“Yeah, right.Perfect,” he scoffed.“One of these days I want you to join me on a shoot.It takes a full day to get thoseperfectshots.And even then, everything is touched up on computers.”
With a smile, she poured handfuls of water onto his chest.“I knew that even then.But from my perspective, those models represented confidence and freedom.Like they needed no one.And I wanted that life more than anything.”Her fingers trailed along his tattoos, moving from his pecs to his shoulders.“It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t their beauty that made them strong and perfect.Once I started looking for the imperfections in their untouched photos, I realized that those imperfections were what made one beautiful woman stand out against another, were what made each powerful.They were special.One of a kind.It was the first time I fully understood the importance of noticing flaws and appreciating them for their uniqueness.”
While she spoke, her hands moved along his own imperfections, the marks of his childhood hidden unless you knew where to look, what to search for.And just like her words, the gentle caresses of her fingers along his skin were sending the message that she didn’t see the scars as something to fix, didn’t see them as defects.
And so, just as he did every time she was near him, he started talking.
“I wasn’t an angry kid,” he opened, sliding a fraction lower into the bath.“After my mom took off, Birch and Winter did a damn good job of keeping things going considering they were kids themselves.They kind of stepped into the parental role while our dad worked and drank and did whatever the hell it was he did that kept him away for nights on end.I knew it wasn’t a normal household, but it didn’t seem all that bad.Life would be kind of calm, then Dad would return, smack us around a bit, eat all the meat Birch had stocked, leave, and we’d return to business as usual.”
She reached over and turned on the faucet, rejuvenating the hot water and bubbles.
“When I was around eleven, I saw Winter take a belt beating for scratches on the kitchen table I’d made while cutting up a watermelon.A few months later, our dad shoved Birch’s head into the wall because Grey’s toys tripped him up in the middle of the night.And that’s when I figured out that Birch and Winter were not only making sure Grey and I were fed and clothed and on time for school, they were taking on our dad so Grey and I didn’t have to.”
Angelina remained silent as she turned the water off and her body pressed against his arm dangling over the edge of the tub.
“It sort of flipped a switch in my head.I had some serious hero worship going for my brothers by then.Winter was twenty and working full time at a gas station up the road.Birch had dropped out and was working too, but he would always walk me and Grey to and from school, looking all cool and tough while he paid attention to us instead of the girls who’d hang around waiting for him to notice them.”Warm water trailed along the nape of his neck and he closed his eyes.“I decided I wanted to be on their side of our family, be one of the protectors for Grey.Except I wasn’t smart enough to know how to go about it.
“In my fourteen-year-old head, I figured if my fuckups were worse than Winter’s or Birch’s or Grey’s, our dad would turn on me and lay off them.Except all it did was make them work doubly hard to keep me out of the line of fire.By the time I realized I was only making shit worse for everyone, my dad had been called to pick me up from the cop shop for spray-painting the water tower.”A shiver ran through him as he recalled that night.“He didn’t say a word on the way to the house.He was a yeller, so I should have known then that it was going to get real bad real fast.”
He moved his right arm and felt her fingertips on his bicep, grazing one of his more gnarled markings.
“Compound fracture,” he muttered, ignoring the hint of an ache he felt in the bone every time he thought about it.“I don’t think the front door was even closed before he threw me into the glass coffee table, hollering about the cops tracking him down and the trouble my bullshit was going to cause him.I didn’t even know my arm was snapped until Birch and Winter came tearing into the room and Birch went super pale.”
She rested her head against his arm, her warmth stilling the tremor rippling through him as he recalled Winter’s expression, the rage and determination in his eyes.
“I don’t remember how it went down, but right after that, Winter killed my dad.He took the nineteen-year sentence because I wanted to prove that I was strong enough to be like him and Birch, that I could stand up to that asshole and take everything he threw at me.”He chuckled dryly.“This is probably stupid to say right now, but Windy Leigh is the only person outside my brothers I ever mentioned this to—once, when she asked about a few of my scars.I told her I had a shitty childhood.But I never actually told her anything else because it wasn’t worth it.She didn’t want to hear about it, just wanted to know when I was going to see a plastic surgeon and have them fixed.”
