Page 126 of Alphas Like Us
I move off the counter.Please let me wrap my arms around you.I stop when he backs up for a second. “Maximoff.”
He lowers his hand. “And I keep thinking about how you just spent forty-million hours working nonstop to come back tothis.”
I almost smile. “Thirty hours,” Icorrect.
He scrutinizes my unruffled state of being. “I don’t get how you’re okay with this.” He gestures from his chest to my chest. “I’ve taken so much away from you, and I can’t stop it. I can’t change the fact that my family is chaotic, messy, and bizarre-as-fuck because I love them as they fucking are, and I feel selfish wanting you to be a part ofthat.”
I inhale. “The media took my privacy; you haven’t taken a thing from me, Maximoff. You’re giving me something so fucking precious: your chaotic, messy, bizarre-as-fuck family, and I also love them as they fucking are. Plus, I look forward to coming home and putting out wildfires with you. It’s not thatcomplicated.”
I knew we’d need to talk this through again. It’s different now that I’m finishing my residency and not working directly for his family yet. He thinks he needs to give me peace and quiet away from thechaos.
But I want everything that comes withhim.
Maximoff stands still, taking deeper breaths. His gaze fastens tight to me, and love is written all over his eyes. “I was excited to see you,” he admits. “Like stupidlyexcited.”
I picture that, and the corner of my mouth rises. “Your infatuation isshowing.”
“I don’tcare.”
It swells my chest, and my eyes burn. I give him a once-over before I movecloser.
He steps back. “Wait.”
I stop a few feet from him, and I comb my hand through myhair.
Maximoff pinches his eyes one more time, then stares upward like he’s wracking his brain. When he looks down at me, he asks, “Did April callback?”
“Yeah.” My older stepsister never used to dial my number, and in the past few days, April has bombarded me with phone calls and texts. “It’s why I was late.” I run my tongue over my molars, almostwincing.
“That bad?” he asks. Now Maximoff looks like he wants to holdme.
But we wait a little bit longer to bridge thespace.
“It’s not good,” I say. “She said she still doesn’t feel safe at her house. Someone threw a bouquet of flowers over thegate.”
Maximoff shakes his head. “We can hire more private security forher.”
“We’ve already hired threearound-the-clock security guards, plus installed security cameras,pluswe had a gated fence put up.” It all happened after April called me. Panicked about how people kept ringing her doorbell and asking her questions about me andMaximoff.
My stepsister’s home address in Palo Alto was leaked when I wasdoxxed.
Maximoff nods. “Then she needs to move houses if she still doesn’t feel safe. I’ll pay for anycosts.”
“That’s exactly what I told April.” I raise my brows. “And she started screaming at me about how I don’t have to move out ofmyhouse, and it’s not fair since I did this toher.”
His eyes flash hot. “Jesus Christ, you didn’taskto be doxxed. This isn’t yourfault.”
“No shit,” I say, and I catch him smile-grimacing at that. I almost laugh, and after a short pause, I tell him, “I don’t feel that guilty anymore. Right now she has more protection around her house in Palo fucking Alto than your townhouse inPhilly.”
Maximoff nods again, and it’s taking all of my energy not to walk forward and close the gap that separatesus.
I feel my lip piercing beneath my tongue. “Still stupidly excited to seeme?”
He smiles, his eyes welling. “You have no goddamnidea.”
It overwhelms me, and I moveforward.
Maximoff moves forward. Our arms find each other, and our mouths crash together, hungry and starved—I clutch the back of his head, and his arm hooks around my shoulders. Pulling me closer. Andcloser.
