The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,71
it. Want him.
“You say you’ve been on best behavior, but that isn’t true, is it?” I whisper.
His gaze is still so unfocused. I've become so used to Deadpan Alex at school that I've learned the language of him now. I can recognize and decode even the smallest facial movement, the tiniest, little twitch. But here, alone with him, Alex isn't the guarded, hyper careful version of himself that I'm so used to. He's let down a considerable number of his walls and seeing so much of what he's thinking and feeling on his face is making me a little dizzy. He picks up my hand and lifts it to his mouth, softly placing a kiss against the inside of my wrist. “And why would you say that?” he asks.
Hard to think with his lips brushing over such sensitive skin. “You did something before you came to Raleigh. Must have been pretty bad to get you kicked out of Bellingham and nearly carted off to prison.”
He smiles against my wrist. “Just ask, Argento. I thought we were done with the pussyfooting around.”
“Okay then. What was it? What did you do that got you into so much trouble?”
He groans, smiling awkwardly, slumping back into the couch. He’s suddenly very interested in the fringe trim on the ancient cushion beside him; he tugs at it, clearing his throat. “Well. The last time I got separated from Ben, I was sent to live with this guy, Gary. He was a parole officer, and he fucking haaaaated me. Told me he only took me in because he was sick of watching little punks like me get away with blue murder, and I was going to have some sense knocked into me if it was the last thing he did. And boy, did he like knocking sense into me.”
It’s far too late for the dread that writhes in my gut, urging me to do something, to help him—this has all taken place already—but I feel it just the same. “He hurt you?”
Alex grunts, eyes blank, fixed on the fire that’s burning in the grate on the other side of the room. “I left a dish in the sink, I earned myself a swift right hook. I came back too late, I got a steel toe cap to the ribs. I played guitar too loud, I got three of my fingers broken.”
“He broke your fingers?” Of all the terrible things that happened to him, this, to me, is the worst. Stealing a musician’s ability to play is tantamount to stealing away their soul. Alex holds up his hand—the one with the rose inked into the back of it—and wiggles his fingers.
“Middle, ring and pinkie,” he informs me. “Bastard held me down and pinned me to the side of his truck, then slammed the door on them repeatedly until I started fucking screaming. I was twelve.”
“God, Alex…”
“I was lucky really.” He closes his hand into a tight fist, shoving it back underneath the blanket. “They healed up straight. No real, long term damage done. They ache when it’s cold and I’m on the bike sometimes, but…” He shrugs. “Gary was trying to crush my hand. If he’d fucked up the bones and the tendons there, I never would have played again.”
“What happened then? How did you end up getting away from him?”
Alex smirks. “Puberty. I got big, and I got big quick. Fucker was content wailing on me when I was a scrawny little shit with Popeye muscles, but I started bulking out when I was fourteen, way quicker than any of the other kids in my year. I was fifteen when I started hitting back, and Gary…boy, Gary did not like that. Took him a while to give in, mind you. He spent a year trying to get the upper hand on me. He'd wait until I was asleep in the basement, and then he'd creep down there and start laying into me while I was unconscious. Fractured my jaw once. Eventually, that was the only way he could best me, so I just stopped sleeping. I used to lie there on the mattress, faking it, willing him to come sneaking down those fucking stairs so I could surprise the motherfucker and knock a couple of his teeth out.
“One night, he started whaling on me with this crowbar, and I fucking lost it. I took it from him and started in on him with it. Next thing I know, the cops are dragging me off, and Gary's