Page 78 of Pin My Alpha
“I don’t need anything from you,” I say.
His eyes come up. “That isn’t what I said.”
“It’s what you mean.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, Shay. It isn’t.”
“Then say what you mean.”
He opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Of course it doesn’t. Because this is what we do. We fuck. We fight. We make each other come so hard our brains turn off, and then we stand in a bedroom full of evidence and act like words are the impossible part.
I turn back to the bed.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. The group chat, probably. Jude sending ten question marks. Milo asking if I’m okay in the gentlest possible wording. Benji pretending he doesn’t care while absolutely caring. I don’t check.
If I look at their names, I might crack.
Declan takes one careful step into the room.
“I don’t want you to go.”
My shoulders lock.
“Don’t do this.”
“I need you to hear me.”
“I heard you downstairs.”
“No. You heard me apologizing.” His voice goes low, rough around the edges. “I’m asking you not to leave.”
I stare at the half-packed bag.
“That’s not your call.”
“I know.” A beat. “It has to be yours.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Because I love you.”
The room goes silent. No music, no traffic from the street below. Just the old fridge humming in the kitchen and Declan standing behind me, dropping words that should be impossible after three weeks but somehow aren’t.
My whole body goes cold.
He loves me.
Of course he does.
That’s the nightmare, isn’t it? That it’s not fake. That he means it. That he could look at all my sharp corners and my spreadsheets and the way I turn every feeling into a goddamn invoice, and still want me enough to say it out loud.
I force my hands to keep moving.
“You don’t know me,” I say.
