My shoulders slumped even though it wasn’t like I hadn’t come to the same conclusion on my own.
“If you still want to translate, we’ll figure it out. My brother is going to pay you for teaching Asami. That’s nothing for you to worry about, we can work that out, find something that makes you happy,” he tried to assure me. “What else is wrong? What’s really bothering you?”
How did he know me so well? I wondered even as his words eased a tiny bit of my concern. He was right though, as worried as I was about money and how I needed a job to make some, it was nothing compared to the bigger picture. The hole in my heart that had only gotten bigger and more brittle.
“That drug lord, the head of the cartel, was sentenced to a few life terms in prison,” I told him. “That son of a bitch ruined so many people’s lives… my life, my grandparents’ lives… and he just gets to live some cushy life in a cell where he’ll probably bribe prison guards and still be able to live a pretty decent… what? Another twenty years? And the rest of us just get to live with the shit he left us with.” I made my hand into a fist. “I have nothing because of him, and he won’t even know a quarter of the way I’ve had to feel my whole life. He’ll never know how scared I always was, how lonely I was—”
My voice broke. I stopped talking as I clenched both my fists and tried to reel in the anger flaring within my veins.
“It’s not fair, Alex. It’s not fucking fair that I have nothing, and it’s his damn fault and my parents’ damn fault,” I spat out, angrily, cutting myself off as Alex’s energy suddenly flared, forcing me to focus on him as even my scalp started to tingle.
Out of the corner of my eye, I’d swear I saw the can of Dr Pepper levitate.
“You don’t have nothing,” he said slowly, carefully in that rich, demanding voice of his.
Fingers wrapped around my fist, and those long fingers pried mine open.
Then he slipped his through mine.
I pressed my lips together, trying to take a breath through my nose so that I wouldn’t tear up even more.
“You don’t have nothing,” he repeated, staring me right in the eye as he held my hand.
Oh, fuck. I reached up and wiped under my eyes. My nose stinging. My eyes stinging. My heart just… just fucking hurting in anger and grief.
And I shouldn’t have asked, I shouldn’t have been so pathetic, and my self-esteem shouldn’t have been so low, but I couldn’t stop the question. “What do I have?” I croaked, because it didn’t feel like a whole lot.
His expression went dark, and he scooted closer, his cape lapping at his calves on either side of the seat. Alex leaned forward, dropping his head so low, the tip of his nose brushed mine. Those eyes of his glowed. “You’ve got me.”
Oh hell.
Oh fucking hell.
My eyes went full-on traitor. All Benedict Arnold. Then my head did the same when it fell forward and hit his chest so hard it actually hurt a little. It was like hitting a brick wall.
I didn’t even think about it. I slid my arms around the lower part of his ribs, and I hugged him as close as I could without crawling into his lap. I took the deepest breath I’d ever been able to take in my life, I was sure.
And I just soaked him up. That body, his scent, his energy. Mostly the safety that he convinced the rest of me was possible.
It wasn’t my imagination either when he lowered his face and pressed his cheek to the top of my head. I didn’t make up the feel of his breath on my temple or what I’m sure was the brush of his mouth as he pressed it to my forehead. I definitely didn’t hallucinate him putting his arms around me, both of them around the middle of my back, as he held me tight.
And I barely heard him murmur, “You get on my nerves so damn much.”
I huffed into his chest and hugged him a little tighter, this fucking knot in my soul.
His breathing fanned my temple. And I didn’t imagine how his arms squeezed me just a little bit closer. “Let’s go outside,” he told me.
“Why? You want another snowball fight?” I asked, staying exactly where I was. “It’d be more of a mud fight.”
“No. We’re going somewhere.”
That perked me up a little. “We are?”
“We are.”
“Okay,” I agreed, but I thought twice. “But it’s not your mom’s house, right? I liked your dad, but she still scares me.”
His huff was a light one. “No, not my mom’s. I heard he liked you though.”
He had? “Okay,” I whispered, leaving that for another time.
Pulling away, he grabbed my hand and led the way, and I followed him outside, grabbing a jacket on the way and putting it on with his help. We headed toward the clearing by the garage where I’d learned he had a silver electric SUV and a plain older sedan that Selene had explained had been his first car. I wrapped my arms around me just as he stopped a few feet away.
Had he really said I could have one of his cars?
Alex stared for a minute before gesturing me forward. I took a few steps closer until I had to tip my head back even though it was so dark out I could barely see his features. The moon was tucked away and hidden tonight. Maybe she was sad too.
“Get on,” he said.
Huh? “What?”
Alex waved me closer again. “I can catch you if you fell off me going piggyback, but I’d feel better doing this if I can see since I’ve never taken anybody up before.”
My heart started beating fast first, but my brain slowly caught up. “Are you serious right now?”
“Dead.”
“But you said you don’t do this,” I gasped.
He held his arms out. “I changed my mind. Come on, Cookie.”
He meant it.
He fucking meant it.
I leaped at him like a flying squirrel, forgetting all about my heartache and the future and the other ache that I wanted to pretend didn’t exist.
And if I screamed at the top of my lungs as I did it, well, he was the only person around to hear it or laugh.
Because that was what happened.
Alex laughed, that slow, deep chuckle of his as he grabbed me right before I landed on him, my arms around his neck, legs around his waist. He didn’t rock, he didn’t move, grunt, nothing. I would’ve worried if he had.
“I meant in my arms, but this works too. Reminds me of old times,” he huffed into my ear as I squeezed the crap out of his neck, burying my face into the curve of his shoulder. He smelled so good. Was that an Atraxian thing too? “Ready?”
“I’ve never been readier for anything in my life,” I told him, joy boiling in my fucking veins, incinerating everything bad that had been in them before.
He was going to take me up!
I squeezed him that much harder, tipped my head back, and pressed my lips to his cheek before putting my face back where it was, chin on his shoulder. Breathing him in all over again because why the hell not?
The hands that were on my thighs moved up even more, settling low on my butt, and he pulled me up even higher on him, the cradle of my hips pressed to his lower stomach.
I felt it, I felt the energy in his cells right before his knees bent just a tiny bit and we went up.
Slowly, not at all like when he took off to go somewhere, our ascent took its time, and three feet off the ground turned into ten, then twenty, and pretty soon, his big house looked like it was a foot wide, we were so high.