Page 83 of Rocked By the Alpha
“Ouch.” She swallows, as if buying herself time to consider her next words. “Of course it’s not amusing to me. That’s why I’m here talking to you about it. Have you told her how you feel? Have you gone and apologised?”
“She knows how I feel.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Like I said, I’ve been chasing her tail for months.”
His sister arches an eyebrow. “West, that isn’t the same thing. What did she say exactly?”
“That everything was falling apart. That it wasn’t going to work out between us.” He spreads his hands.
“Well, it’s not if you don’t fight for it. You have to tell her how you feel.”
“That’s not my style, Darlia. That’s not who I am.”
She bends her legs and rests her wrists on her knees, picking at the fabric of the towel. “When mom died you never cried, West. I remember looking over at you at the funeral and your face was just this blank canvass, no emotion, no feeling, nothing. And then at the wake, you were back to normal West, laughing and joking as if nothing happened.”
Her words slap him like a palm across the cheek. And all the pain from that day — the funeral, the burial, the wake — strikes straight back at his core.
“Just because,” his voice falters and he screws up his eyes. “Just because I didn’t fall apart and weep bucket loads, doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. That I don’t miss her.” He opens his eyes. His sister is studying him. “That song I wrote, the one about the wind, I wrote that for her.”
“I know you did, West,” she says softly, blinking away a tear. “But you don’t have to pretend all the time. You can tell us how you feel. You can be sad and angry. You don’t always have to be strong, you don’t always have to try to make everyone happy.”
He throws back his head. The sky is so blue it almost hurts his eyes.
Is that what he does? Hides? Pushes everything deep inside him and shields it behind his wide charming grin?
It’s always been safer that way.
“You think that’s what I’m doing with Ruby?”
“I think you don’t like to reveal your true feelings because you’re scared of getting hurt. I think you could have gotten together with this girl a lot sooner if you weren’t playing it so cool, so laid back, if you’d told her how you really feel.” She swings her feet back to the ground and leans forward to peck him on the cheek, her lips warm and her scent like their mom’s. “So tell her.”
Chapter 25
He’s ridiculous. Utterly fucking ridiculous.
He’s finally going to confess to a girl about his feelings and he’s going completely overboard.
But he wishes he’d written that song for his mom when she was alive. That she’d known how much he loved her.
He’s not making that mistake again.
And so that’s why he’s been locked away in the music room finishing this goddamn song for the last two days; breaking only to eat, pee and catch a few hours sleep.
He’s told the others he has a song for the album — which is only a half lie — and to leave him alone. He guesses his sister must’ve been talking to Kim because they have.
Now it’s finished.
He thinks.
Perhaps.
Although he’s going to listen to it one more time.
She’s probably going to hate what he’s done with their song — how he’s finished it, the lyrics he’s written. But it encapsulates exactly how he feels. So fuck it. His sister’s right. No more hiding. She needs to know. These four days without her have been fucking agony. Like one of his organs has been ripped from his body and now nothing works as well, feels as good. He needs her back in his life.
He plays the makeshift recording he’s made one more time. It doesn’t sound as good without her piano part, although he’s tried his best to capture the effect by layering guitar, and it definitely sounds homemade. He rubs his temple.
