Oh, Alex was aware that his partner had baggage, but that didn’t matter to him.
They all did.
It had been his chin the gun was under when he woke him from that nightmare.
Not.
Hers.
Elizabeth continued.
“So, we’re going to bump the teams. Axl is going to partner up with you, and Duke is going to resume working with Corbin for the time being.”
He was silent.
But inside, he was mourning.
Inside, there was that scream of rage as stability got torn out from under him again.
His brain was so confused as to why this felt like a bad breakup. It was rare he had one. Alex was known for fucking and running, but when he did make attachments, they were supposed to be long-term.
There were few people he trusted enough to build those ties to, because he’d been burned before.
Deep down, he’d learned that people left.
All.
The.
Time.
Elizabeth knew what he was thinking. She could hear the hamster running in the wheel, so she cut that off at the pass.
“This hasNOTHINGto do with you.”
He stopped her.
“It always has something to do with me. That’s my history, and we both know it, Elizabeth. You know what’s in my psych eval. Let’s not pretend we haven’t been to this rodeo before. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation. You pulled me aside and have done this before. I’m the problem child. I know everyone says it about me.”
Oh, they had.
But he wasn’t the problem child.
Alex was a good person.
He just had a past, like everyone did, and that past effected his life.
When Noah wanted to work with the man he was going to marry, they’d done this then too, and it took Alex a while to regroup. For a while, she didn’t think he’d survive it.
But he had.
“If I didn’t have to do this…”
He stopped her.
“Why?” he asked. “Why is he asking to be moved from working with me? Don’t I deserve that at least?” he asked. “How am I supposed to change my behaviors if I don’t know what I did?”
Only, she couldn’t tell him that.
