Jimmy (Deathstalkers MC 2nd Generation #7)

Fifteen Years Old

The clubhouse is loud in the way it always is when everybody’s home at the same time.

Music hums from the old speakers somebody mounted up near the back doors years ago, the bass carrying across the yard and mixing with the crack of laughter, the low rumble of men’s voices, and the occasional shriek from one of the younger kids tearing across the grass like they’ve got a death wish.

The grill is going outside, smoke curling up thick and white into the warm Alabama air while Uncle Whip and Dad argue over whether the burgers need to be flipped yet, both of them acting like the other one is too stupid to handle meat over an open flame.

Rows of bikes gleam in the late afternoon sun, lined up near the gravel drive like black and chrome sentries, and every picnic table around the clubhouse is crowded with paper plates, sweating beer bottles, half-empty chip bags, and people talking over each other so much that nobody should be able to follow any conversation at all.

But somehow we all do.

We always do.

This is normal. This is family. This is the Deathstalkers MC.

Lucy, my mom, Aunt Jaz, Aunt Nikki, and Aunt Becca are gathered around one of the tables with Aunt Tracie, all of them talking at once while still somehow keeping an eye on the kids, on the food, on the men, and on everything else happening around them.

My brother Landon and Cain are near the horseshoe pit talking shit to each other while Carter and Logan throw in their opinions from the sidelines even though neither of them is actually playing.

Ana and Shaina are on either side of me on the porch steps, both of them laughing over something one of the older girls said five minutes ago, and I’m trying to look like I’m listening.

I’m not.

Not really.

I’m half here, half somewhere else, because every few seconds my eyes drift across the yard and find Jimmy.

Again.

I tell myself it’s accidental the first few times. The sun is bright. There are a lot of people moving around. He just happens to be in my line of sight.

By the tenth time, even I know that’s bullshit.

Jimmy stands near the grill with his dad, one hand wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle, the other braced against the back of an empty folding chair while Dad says something that makes him grin.

He’s older than me by enough that it matters right now, old enough that everybody already treats him like one of the men instead of one of the kids, and there’s something unfair about the way he’s changed over the last couple of years.

He’s gotten broader, taller, harder around the edges.

His shoulders look too wide for the old black T-shirt he’s wearing, and the sleeves stretch over his arms when he reaches for the spatula Whip is trying to keep away from him.

He laughs at something Cain yells from across the yard, then shoves Logan with his shoulder when Logan tries to steal a piece of grilled chicken off the tray Mom just set down. Logan swears at him. Jimmy only laughs harder.

He looks easy in his own skin in a way I can’t even imagine feeling.

I’m sixteen and stuck in the worst possible space a girl can be in, where I’m not a little kid anymore but nobody seems ready to admit I’m getting older either.

The old ladies still ask if I want a juice box sometimes like I’m eight, and half the brothers have this irritating habit of telling me to be careful every time I go somewhere by myself, which means to them walking from the main room to the vending machine in the hall apparently counts as a solo expedition.

My dad still calls me baby girl when he thinks I’m tired, my brother still acts like every boy in a ten-mile radius is a threat to national security, and the worst part is that none of it feels temporary.

It feels like they’re all going to blink one day and I’ll be thirty and still be getting told not to stay out too late.

Ana nudges me with her shoulder. “You heard a word of what I just said?”

“Of course I did,” I lie.

Shaina snorts. “No, you didn’t.”

I drag my attention away from Jimmy and try to look offended. “I did too.”

“Then what’d I say?” Ana asks, grinning because she already knows she’s got me.

I narrow my eyes at her. “That you’re annoying.”

“That applies all the time,” Shaina says. “Doesn’t count.”

Ana laughs and bumps me again. “We were talking about the county fair next month. Aunt Nikki said if we go without one of the guys, she’ll lock Shaina in her room.”

“My mom’s dramatic,” Shaina says.

“Your mom’s smart,” I tell her.

She tips her head and studies me for half a second, a look in her eyes that makes me instantly suspicious. Shaina sees entirely too much and enjoys it entirely too much too. “You’ve been staring at Jimmy for like ten minutes,” she says.

Heat climbs straight into my face. “I have not.”

Ana follows my line of sight without an ounce of subtlety. “Jimmy?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Shaina says.

Ana grins slowly. “Oh my God.”

I want to shove both of them off the steps. “I’m not staring at Jimmy.”

“You absolutely are,” Ana says, voice going sing-song in a way that means she’s about to become unbearable. “Alison has a crush.”

“I do not.”

Shaina leans in, lowering her voice even though there’s nobody close enough to hear us over the music and noise anyway. “You’ve been looking at him all afternoon.”

“I look at everybody all afternoon,” I mutter.

“Not like that,” she says.

My face gets hotter. I hate that I can feel it happening and can’t stop it.

Ana’s smile softens a little, taking some of the teasing edge off. “He is cute.”

I glare at her. “You can’t call your brother cute.”

She shrugs. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean objectively. Like, if I wasn’t related to him, I’d get it.”

“Oh my God,” I groan.

Shaina throws her head back and laughs.

“Y’all are disgusting,” I tell them.

“And you’re blushing,” Ana says.

I hate them. I really do.

Only not enough to move, because the porch steps are warm from the day’s heat, and this is where we always sit during parties and cookouts and family nights, shoulder to shoulder, talking about everything and nothing while the world of the club turns around us.

I’ve grown up in this spot. I know the exact feel of the warped wood under my thighs and the smell of cigarette smoke drifting from the men by the far side of the yard and the sound of my mom laughing before I even look up to confirm it’s her.

It should all feel ordinary.

It mostly does.

Except Jimmy glances this way, and my stomach drops so fast it makes me feel a little sick.

He’s not even looking at me, not really. He’s probably just checking who’s on the porch because Aunt Nikki called for Shaina a second ago. But for one stupid second those blue eyes slide in our direction, and I freeze like he’s caught me doing something I wasn’t supposed to.

Then Logan says something to him, and Jimmy’s attention shifts, and I make myself breathe.

“This is pathetic,” I whisper.

Ana hears me. “What is?”

“Nothing.”

Shaina follows my gaze again and smirks. “It’s okay, Allie. Lots of girls have bad taste.”

I smack her arm.

She only cackles louder.

The football comes out a few minutes later because of course it does. Every cookout, every bonfire, every family gathering somehow turns into somebody throwing a ball around until one of the old ladies starts yelling that somebody’s going to break a window.

Jimmy catches it first when one of the younger boys launches it badly in his direction.

He snags it one-handed without even looking like he’s trying, then tosses it back with enough force that the poor kid nearly stumbles catching it.

Cain laughs from near the pit and says something I can’t hear, and Jimmy flips him off before jogging toward the patch of grass near the side of the building where the little ones are already crowding around.

He looks stupidly good doing something that simple.

That’s the part that makes me mad.

He isn’t posing. He isn’t showing off. He’s not one of those guys who knows exactly what he looks like and leans into it every chance he gets. Jimmy just exists that way, like he was born broad and sure and impossible not to notice.

He crouches to talk to one of the little boys, says something that makes the kid grin, then stands and starts throwing the football in easy arcs while three of them race after it, tripping over each other to bring it back.

I smile before I can stop myself.

“Still not staring?” Shaina asks dryly.

I don’t answer.

The heat hangs heavy in the air, sticky and golden, the kind that makes everybody move a little slower by late afternoon.

Somebody opens another cooler. Somebody else turns the music up.

My mom starts passing out plates because the food is finally ready, and Aunt Tracie calls for us to stop sitting on our asses and come help.

Ana groans like she’s been sentenced to hard labor.

Shaina says, “You’re literally the vice president’s daughter. You’ve never worked a day in your life.”

Ana gasps dramatically. “That is slander.”

I laugh and get to my feet with them.

Helping means carrying plates from inside, running buns and condiments to the tables, and trying not to get in the way of six grown women who’ve all been organizing club gatherings longer than I’ve been alive.

It also means Aunt Nikki hands me a tray of drinks ten minutes later and tells me to take them over to the men by the grill because apparently none of them are capable of walking three feet to grab one themselves.

I take the tray because saying no to Nikki Pearce is a death wish.