When he blinked and came back to the realworld, I leaned forward and took his hand. “Where did you go?”
I could see he was getting ready to lie tome, but instead, he stopped and studied me closely for a few seconds. “Ivolunteer there because I grew up not far from those kids.”
Huh?
Nodding slowly, I refused to say anythingthat would come across negatively. “Giving back to the community is important.”
He shrugged. “I would have gone to East ifI’d stayed in that area for high school.”
Wow.
I kept my face completely neutral, but evenwe’d never hung out with the kids from that side of town. It made the highschool Bradley was volunteering at look like paradise. It took several secondsto figure out a reasonable question that wouldn’t steer us in the wrongdirection or offend him. “Where did you go to high school?”
He relaxed back in his seat as he spoke. “Igot a scholarship to the school the guys were going to.”
Ah, that made sense.
I gave him a dirty leer. “One of thosepreppy schools with the hot uniforms?”
Bradley groaned. “They were veryappropriate, not hot.”
“Oh no, I can just picture you in one ofthose navy-blue uniform suits. I bet you were so cute.” I’d have gone for thatin a heartbeat when I was that age.
Rolling his eyes, Bradley refused to admitI was right. “That’s ridiculous. Kids at that age are awkward.”
I snickered. “I loved cute and awkward whenI was that age.”
“I bet you were a jock who had it alltogether.” He crossed his arms over his chest like he was daring me todisagree.
“Yep, I played all kinds of sports, so Iwas popular with that crowd, but I was also into computers which was trendy atthat point and the nerds considered me one of theirs. So it gave me twice thedating pool.” I gave him a dirty leer. “Nerds are sexy.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve everheard.” But he finally cracked a smile.
“But if it helps, I was trying to figureout all the domination shit in my head and trying to understand how different Iwas from the other alphas.” I raised one eyebrow and he finally nodded.
“Yeah, that’s not easy.”
“Being good with computers made it easierthan a lot of guys in my situation would have had it, though.” I thought backto that time. “But then you add in my mother and her sister and that puts itback in the hard and slightly shitty category.”
Bradley winced. “Yeah, that would have beenterrible. At least with my family I didn’t care what they thought.”
Nodding, I kept my face as neutral as Icould. It was one of the only personal statements he’d ever made about hisfamily.
“My mother kept lecturing anyone she couldfind on omega rights. I even remember times where she was fighting with thenews people on TV when they disagreed with her. There was no reasoning with herand no disagreeing. So I kept my thoughts to myself.” As I spoke, Bradleysqueezed my hand.
“Did it affect your relationship with her?”He looked thoughtful. “I can’t remember Shane saying anything.”
“He was the more agreeable kid and focusedon school so he probably didn’t notice, but yeah, she and I had severalstressful years. I know she didn’t understand why, but for a long while everytime I looked at her I just pictured her telling me I was evil.” Kids sawthings in black and white. Adults needed to remember that more.
“That’s terrible.” He sighed. “At leastwith my family I always knew they were shits, so it didn’t matter what theythought.”
“They were always that bad?” I was worriedI’d pushed too fast when he quieted, but after a few seconds, he nodded.
“Yeah, my mother was never around andgenerally just didn’t want me. My father was a gambler who lost our money on aregular basis and didn’t have much desire to get to know his omega son whowasn’t manly enough.” Bradley let out a breath. “I’m not sure if it was becauseI was smart even as a kid or if he knew I was submissive somehow, but he alwayshated me.”
The careful way he spoke about the pastsaid he was downplaying it, but I hoped I could get him to keep talking. “Howdid your getting into the private high school go?”
Bradley gave a dry chuckle. “Prep school.It wasn’t just a private school, I had to get into a fucking prep school wheremost of the kids made more off investments in a year than my dad would in hisentire life. Let’s just say the first couple of weeks were rough.”
