Page 88 of Alphas Like Us
My chest ignites on fire. “Because I didn’t think it mattered, and I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t even realizethe extentof how much I wanted you back then until after we got together.” It’s only inhindsight.
Just like for him, it’s in hindsight. He never let himself dream about loveor what he was looking for in a relationship until he seized it for the first time. Untilme.
And yeah, he had a crush on me. Because he allowed himself to fantasize about me. Sex is uncomplicated to him. Love ismessy.
I didn’t know these private things about him back then, not completely, but I knew that he had one-night stands. I knew that I didn’t. I knew that I needed the prospect of more if I sleep with aguy.
And I always,alwaysbelieved he’d never act on anything. Moral, good-natured Maximoff Hale would never get with a friend of the family’s and definitely not his mom’sbodyguard.
I look at Maximoff now and try to wrangle thesethoughts.
“I don’t dwell on what I can’t have,” I clarify, “and in my mind, I couldn’t have you for the longest time. I went on with my life, but whenever I saw you, I wanted to be around you. So it’s only in hindsight that I realize how fucking much I was hooked onyou.”
Maximoff tries his absolute worst not to smile. “You likedme.”
I smile wider and tilt my head. “You going to write this in your diary tonight? Edit out all the parts about your unrequited teenagelove?”
He holds my hand in a tight fist. “You’ve been reading someone else’s diary, man. Mine just talks about fuckingyou.”
I laugh. “Let me readit.”
“Let me read yours.” His tone isserious.
I nod a few times, understanding that he wants more. “In retrospect, if I could pinpoint a day that I’d say I felt an…” I suck in a breath, searching for the word “…intensechemistry, I’d say it was when I went to Harvard and sutured your leg. I couldn’t stop looking at you, and I fucking craved to know you even better. If you had asked me to spend the entire day there with you, I would’ve saidyes.”
He dazesoff.
Where’d you go, wolf scout?I snap my fingers until his focus is back on me. I’m smiling. “You can masturbate to that later,” Itease.
“No thanks,” he says dryly, and then he takes a breath. “I was just thinking about which day that I felt we’d be good together. Inhindsight.”
“What day?” I ask,curious.
He releases my hand from our stronghold and then outlines the inked lettersk.n.o.t.on my fingers. “The day on the yacht,” he says, assured. “The summer bash when I was nineteen. You threw me your shirt after I fought with Charlie, and you made one of the worst days of my life easier. Better. Just being around you…” He threads our fingers again, thinking for a short beat. “You had a boyfriend that day, didn’tyou?”
I nod. “Yeah. But it was close to being over bythen.”
I replay that memory in my head where Maximoff was frozen next to a cooler on the yacht deck. When I caught his attention, he revived. And he looked up atme.
My lips lift because I’ve remembered that moment before. That one part where he reawakens always floods back and breaks my face into a smile. I remember the salt in the air and how his dark brown hair blew in thewind.
And those tough forest-greens that saidI can handleeverything.
Now years later, I’m at a crossroads with him. I’ve been vacillating between security and finishing my residency because neither feels one-hundred percent right. If I could speed through residency and just be his doctor right now, it’d be an easier choice. But there’ll be three years where I’m not around him thatmuch.
I do believe what Maximoff said. Being his bodyguard isn’t what bindsus.
It never hasbeen.
And hell, if anything feels right, it’s him and me. We’re better than good together. Better than perfect. Gradually, I start envisioning what’ll happen if I choose medicine. “If I’m not your bodyguard,” I tell him, “that means some other prick is on yourdetail.”
“Yeah,” Maximoff says. “You’ll have to be okay withthat.”
My eyes almost roll around the world because I’m not that excited about it. Somewhat for territorial reasons. Mostly because this’ll upheave his life. He hates big change, and he’s been bulldozed with itrecently.
I shake my head. “I can’t do this to you right now. I’llwait—”
“No,” he cuts me off. “I can take a lot. And a new bodyguard isn’t even that hard to handle. Unless you have an annoying clone, I’lllive.”
