Page 37 of Use Me Up

“No, you threw all that shit in my face about how she went catatonic—”

“She got over it,” I say. “It was hard for her for a while, but she did get better. She and Andrew got married, and she was happy.”

“But then I came back?” His mouth twists.

“I cannot deny that she was better before you came back. And you...” I shake my head. “You don’t seem very good either.”

He downs my martini, looking miserable.

“So, why’d you come back?” I say.

“It just didn’t work,” he says. “I thought I could move on from her, and I really tried, and it didn’t work.”

“You moved on with her, how? With alphas you met while you were doing internet porn?”

“It wasn’t porn,” he mutters.

“It was naked pictures of you on the internet, wasn’t it?”

He rubs his neck, eyeing me. “Your point?”

“I don’t think you tried very hard to move on in a healthy way, that’s all.”

“What would be the healthy way to move on, Hannah?” He raises his eyebrows. “You?”

I feel my face heating up.

He leans across the table. “What if I say I want to try?”

I lift my gaze to meet his. “Don’t be a fucking asshole,” I breathe. Because he could never have actual feelings for me, and I know that, and I’ve already halfway fallen for him, especially because he’s so wounded, with his awful and painful past, all the trauma and everything?

“Is that an asshole thing to say?” He sounds genuinely curious.

“You can’t be with me, not really,” I say.

“Why not?” he says. He considers. “I can do better at sex with you. Like, I haven’t been trying.”

I glare at him. “Fuck you. You are an asshole.”

He drinks coffee, smirking. “Sorry, sorry. But seriously, you like me, right? You wouldn’t be here with me if you didn’t like me. And as shitty as the sex has been, you’ve liked it. And I’ve liked it. And…” He lifts his shoulders. “Seems like I could be with you, really.”

“Look at you,” I say, gesturing at him. Then I point at myself. “Now, look at me. We do not go together. I’m five leagues below your league, and—”

“Are you?” He looks me over. “I don’t think so. You’re pretty.”

“I have back rolls,” I say. “And an apron belly. And thunder thighs. And this.” I lift a lock of my hair. “What color even is this? Mouse brown?”

“Right, right,” he says. “I’m an omega, I get it. I get insecure, too. You should lift weights. Muscle really gives your figure definition, and strength is just healthier, too, and you kind of start focusing on the strength part and less on the way you look, I think, which is good. I mean, you remember what I looked like before.”

“You have always looked like some kind of god,” I say.

He grins at me. “Yeah, okay. You have always had a crush on me. But I was skinny and stringy and my legs were this big around when I got out of the compound.” He shows me with his fingers, making a circle.

Maybe I kind of remember this. He was beautiful, though. He has always been beautiful. He’s an omega.

“If you don’t like the color of your hair, dye it,” he says. “But do something, because I can tell you from personal experience that I can tell you that you look good until I’m blue in the face, but you can’t accept compliments until you already agree with them inside somewhere. Until then, people can say all kinds of things to you, and you’ll just think they’re saying it to be nice or something.”

Maybe he’s right about that.