Page 109 of Pin My Alpha
My green bar towel is still right in the middle, faded and soft from too many years over my shoulder. Shay picks it up, rubs the fabric between his fingers.
“I took this because it smelled like you,” he says.
“I know.”
“I know you know. I’m saying it anyway.”
“Okay.”
His eyes meet mine. “I didn’t want to need it that much.”
I move closer, but not close enough to touch him yet. “I didn’t want to need anything that wasn’t this place.”
His mouth tightens.
“The first bar went under and I thought it was because I’d wanted too much,” I say. “I wanted it to work. I wanted people to like it. I wanted a life that looked bigger than what I could afford. Then I lost it, and I got scared that wanting things was how I ruined them.”
“Declan.”
“So I made Byrne’s smaller.” I glance around the apartment. “I kept it manageable. Kept myself manageable. Work, home, work again. No room for anybody to leave. No room for me to screw it up.”
Shay’s fingers curl around the towel.
“You didn’t screw it up,” he says.
“I almost did with you.”
“You did,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Yeah. I did.”
He doesn’t flinch from the truth. Neither do I.
Then he sets the towel down and comes closer until the space between us is barely there.
“My mom used to get quiet when one of them started pulling away,” he says. His voice has gone flat around the edges, like he’s holding something fragile with both hands. “That was always worse than when they yelled. She’d start checking her phone. She’d buy stuff she couldn’t afford, cook their favorite food, act like if she could just be useful enough, pretty enough, easy enough, they’d stay.”
My jaw locks.
Shay looks down at the blankets. “I watched her disappear into them. Every time.”
“You’re not her.”
“I know that now.” He lets out a shaky little laugh. “Or I’m trying to. I have a degree. A job. A horrifying amount of spreadsheets. I can leave when I want.”
“You can.”
“But I don’t want leaving to be the only thing I’m good at.”
Fuck.
I cup his face before I can stop myself, then wait. My hands are big against his jaw, my thumbs near the soft line of his beard-shadowed cheeks. Shay leans into the touch.
Chooses it.
“You’ll never have to earn a place with me,” I tell him. “Not with work. Not with sex. Not by being easy, or useful, or anything else. You’re here because I love you. You’re my partner because you’re damn good at this and because I want you beside me. Those are both true.”
His eyes shine.
