Page 48 of Corrado

But it was.

Alessio made it confusing.

“That kind of help doesn’t help,” Corrado said.

“Or you got in your feelings because it was me.”

“No—”

“I think that’s exactly what happened.”

“I think you don’t listen as well as you talk.”

Alessio blinked.

Corrado stood firm.

“If you want to help, that isn’t the way you do it,” Corrado said, reaching up to poke Alessio right in the middle of his chest hard enough that it movedhim a bit. Slightly, and not much, but it still did. “Do you hear me?”

Alessio’s gaze blazed with fury … and something else entirely. “Don’t put your hands on me unless you plan to use them in a way I’ll like. Do you hear me?”

He hesitated, then, his mind snapping back to earlier. To importantwords, and a lesson he hadn’t thought about, really.

Fists cannot teach affection.

Here, at The League, fists taught a lot. Violence kept them in line, and made sure they understood exactly what was expected of them. And yet, it had been made explicitly clear, even if the words hadn’t been told to him directly, that between Corrado and Alessio … violence should never be the first default.

Ever.

He didn’t understand this thing happening between him and Alessio. Sometimes, it made him infuriated. Sometimes, he was drawn in again just because. It left him a mess, and that wasn’t something he was accustomed to.

It didn’t matter, though.

Something was happening.

He had to be mindful.

Corrado dropped his hand instantly. “Sorry.”

“Good. And don’t do it again.”

“Same for you, then.”

“Is that really a fucking problem for you?”

Corrado let out a hard breath, and it ached the whole way out. “Yeah, man, it is. It doesn’t help me here, and if you gave a shit, you’d realize that.”

It took a second.

Then, two.

Alessio’s stance softened. “I do … know that, I mean. I didn’t think.”

“Try.”

In a blink, Alessio’s defensiveness was back. His gaze narrowed. “Is that what you want to do right now—fight because you’ve got a problem with your fucking pride? Didn’t you get enough of that with Oliver beating the hell out of you all day?”

Corrado’s fists flexed, but not because he wanted to hit Alessio. More because he was still quite aware of just how close the two were together, and no … he didn’t want to fight at all.