Page 143 of Corrado

“Fuck you, don’t give me bullshit, Corrado. Not right now. You give me the truth you should have given me a month ago, or you say nothing.”

If one was unlucky enough to see a snake right before it struck, they would know the serpent liked to coil its body tightly, saving all its energy, and letting the power of its muscles do the work before it attacked. And that was Alessio in that moment—coiled, prepping, almost ready to come at him, and barely holding back.

“Why not?” Alessio asked, his head turned just a bit so he could watch Corrado from the side. “You wanted to fuck her—still do, I bet—so why not do it? Just do it, right?”

He wanted to speak.

Wanted to tell Alessio exactly why.

His throat tightened, though, making the words hard to get out. To his companion, it only made it seem like Corrado was holding back, something that had always hit a raw nerve with Alessio when it came to them.

“Why the fuck not, huh?” Alessio demanded, blue eyes blazing. “Because the rest didn’t matter—you didn’t care to tell me anything else, so why not just do it.”

“Because I couldn’t.”

“That’s a coward’s answer.”

“It’s the truth,” Corrado murmured, “and I know I should have told you, but it wasn’t that simple, Les. I fucked up, yes, but it wasn’t as easy as you’re thinking. I didn’t purposely decide to do this, or do it to you, okay, I—”

In a blink, Alessio closed the distance between them. Another person, no doubt, would have backed up at the sight of Alessio coming at them looking like he did right then. Dressed in black, leather and combat boots, his expression darkened from his rage.

But not Corrado.

No.

He stayed right where he was, letting Alessio get as close as he fucking could, until their chests touched, and they were eye-to-eye. Stormy blue irises could have nailed him to the floor, but he still wouldn’t have moved.

“No?” Alessio asked, leaning in closer until their mouths were a breath apart. “No, Corrado? You didn’t purposely do this, huh? You didn’t purposely decide not to tell me that you were watching a woman, that you had something going on here I should have known about because that had always been our way? You really wanna say you didn’t do that knowing what you were doing?”

Alessio pointed a finger at him, but didn’t touch Corrado with it, and lost all his sense of decorum at the same goddamn time. His next words came loud, and sharp, because he clearly wanted Corrado to hear and feel every single one of them.

“I knew shit was up, and I went looking for it, Corrado. And I’m so fucking glad I found it before you could tell me, right, because I don’t think you would have.”

“I was going to tell you.”

“When, tonight? A little late, yeah?”

Corrado shook his head as Alessio took a step back. “If you’d just let me talk—”

“I’m sick of hearing you talk,” Alessio returned, “because you don’t say anything new, and you certainly don’t tell me what I want to hear anymore. You’ve been saying the same shit to me for the last five years, so why would this be any different?”

“Stop it,” Corrado said lowly, his fists clenching at his sides. “It’s one thing to be pissed about this, but it’s another to act like this has been something that’s happened time and time again. Because it’s not. It’s not, Les. And I didn’t mean for it to happen this time. She wasn’t supposed to be anything. She was just a fucking job!”

“A job, right. That’s fucking rich.” Alessio let out a laugh, bitter and aching, and moved closer to Corrado again. This time, Alessio coming forward forced him back a bit until his side hit the edge of the opened door and made the crack wider so that both of them were almost standing in the doorway. “If you had wanted to fuck her, all you had to do was tell me. It’s the one and only thing I’ve always asked from this, but you couldn’t even give me that. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“And what in the hell does that mean?”

Alessio shrugged. “At the end of the day, I’ll always be the second choice. To everything else, I come second, and you just made sure to really let me know here.”

No.

If it were possible for a heart to split in two from nothing more than someone’s words and their pain, then that’s what Corrado’s did. He wished Alessio could see himself through Corrado’s eyes. He wasn’t so good at this thing they had, and he screwed up, but that didn’t change what they were at the end of the day.

It didn’t change what he felt.

Alessio couldn’t be his second choice when he had already been his first.

“That’s untrue,” Corrado said, refusing to back down on that. Ever. “Don’t say that, because you know it’s not true, Les.”