Page 124 of Alpha Theo

I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “Because you’re perfect, right? You never say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing.” The words taste bitter as they leave my mouth. “Well guess what? I’m not perfect. Never have been, never claimed to be. Do you know how hard it is to try to be the guy you deserve when you’re so fucking perfect? How the fuck am I ever supposed to measure up?”

“I’m not perfect,” Brooke mumbles, shaking her head. “There are things about me that you don’t know.”

“Because you won’t fucking let me in!” I sigh, throwing my hands in the air. “Admit it, Brooke, you’ve never been all in on this thing between us. You’ve always had one foot out the door, just waiting for me to fuck it up.”

And there it is. The thing that’s been eating at me since Brooke said she’d give this thing a chance- the one lingering doubt I’ve had about being bonded to her. Despite everything, she hasn’t asked me to mark her yet. She’s been dragging it out, waiting for me to screw up. Because as sure as I am about her, she doesn’t know if she wants to keep me.

“How can you say that?” she asks, eyes wide.

I feel bile rising in my throat, my emotions at war with one another. Part of me wants to grab her, hold her, fix this somehow. The other part is so fucking pissed off that I just want to storm out of here and never look back. Go back to living my detached existence, not relying on anybody but myself.

The silence between us is deafening.

“I can’t do this right now,” Brooke finally mutters, shaking her head. “We’re merging Denver’s data into my program today and I need to get back to the hub to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

My eyes meet hers, the rejection in her words searing through my fucking soul. I just stare at her, gritting my teeth.Fuck, is this really how we’re going to leave things?

She grabs for the doorknob behind her, stepping forward to pull the door open.

Guess so.

“Fine,” I grind out, stepping toward the door. I stop beside her, leaning in. “But for the record, I’m not the one bailing this time, you are.”

She just narrows her eyes, shaking her head. I grab the doorknob on the other side, stepping into the hallway and pulling it shut behind me with a thud.

And from the other side of the door, I immediately regret everything. In my mind, I see myself turning back around, pushing it open. Scooping Brooke up into my arms and telling her I’m sorry. Kissing her within an inch of her life.

I don’t, though. Because I’m pissed off, and because unless Brooke decides she’s all in, it won’t make a bit of difference. I can’t be the perfect mate for her any more than I can be the perfect son for my father.

I storm down the hall to my room and change out of my grubby workout clothes. Five minutes later, I’m in jeans, a t-shirt, and my motorcycle jacket, pushing through the double-doors to leave the complex.

My friends are still circled up out on the practice field, and they all look to me quizzically when I emerge from the complex.

“What happened, man?” Gray calls, but I just shake my head.

I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to explain. I just want to get out on my bike and hit the forest roads, clear my head. So that’s what I do. I head up to Pine Mountain. I park my bike, sit near the edge of the cliff, and look out over the view. It doesn’t calm me though, like it normally does. It only makes me feel emptier.

This isn’t my place anymore. It’s ours- the place we came when everything started to shift between us. The place where I spilled my guts to Brooke about my past. The place where she was so patient with me, like she was trying to put my broken pieces back together.

Damnit.

For the first time in a long time, I feel listless, out of control. Like I want to throw my head back and scream at the sky.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Brooke

My chest feels hollow as I muddle through my afternoon at the hub. I hate that I picked a fight with Theo. After I let those nasty comments from Sutton fester, I knew it was only a matter of time- and when I heard him make that comment about his dad and becoming alpha, it tipped me over the edge. I lashed out, tried to hurt him before he could hurt me.

The worst part is that he’s right-he’s so right. Even though I said I was giving him a chance, I always had one foot out the door, unsure whether we’d really be able to work as a couple. Not allowing myself to give in fully, to give myself fully. Refusing to admit to myself that despite our differences, we fit pretty damn well together. We could be happy. Wewerehappy.

But I screwed it all up. Pushed him away in some vain effort to shore up my walls and protect myself. And it totally backfired- in trying to protect myself, I only hurt myself. Because I need Theo- he may be sarcastic and flawed and frustrating, but he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s made me come alive in so many ways- pushed me to take chances, have fun, be more free. Pushed me to become the person I always wanted to be.

I feel like this is all my fault. I’m letting my own damn insecurities hold me back from my fate. It was always Theo. Even before the mate bond snapped in, even before I went to work at the complex, when I was a pre-teen and had a crush on my friend’s older brother. It was always him. I was just too blind to see it, too stubborn to accept it. And now…

As much as I want to run to him and try to fix things, I feel like maybe we both need some space. So I resist the urge to seek him out, text him, or call him. I get to bed early for the first time in ages, and I’m so emotionally drained that I fall asleep quickly.

I’m not sure what time it is when I wake up. Pale moonlight peeks through the crack in my curtains as I shuffle out of bed in the dark, padding barefoot across my room. I can’t stand being apart from Theo any longer- I have to go to him, see if we can work this out.

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