Chapter 8 #2
My gaze catches on her face again before I can stop it, and for one second I let myself look too long.
She’s beautiful.
Not in some polished, distant way. Not in a way that feels untouchable. She’s warm-looking. Real. Pretty enough to stop a room when she laughs and soft enough around the edges that a man could do serious damage to himself wanting shit he has no business wanting.
Family.
I shove her right back into the box where she belongs.
She shifts the lemonade in her hand, and that’s when I notice it dripping down the side of the glass, sliding over her fingers.
“You’re dripping.”
She blinks. “What?”
I tilt my chin toward the glass. “Your glass.”
“Oh.”
Before she can set it down, I take it from her hand with an ease that feels too practiced, wrap the bottom in a paper towel, and hand it back.
It’s nothing.
Tiny. Practical. Thoughtless.
Exactly the kind of thing I’d do for any of the women here, and I know that. But the second she says thanks, soft and a little too quiet, I’m irritated with myself for noticing that too.
“You always this polite now or should I be worried?” I ask, mostly because her looking at me like that makes me want to put some distance back between us.
She narrows her eyes. “You say that like I used to be feral.”
“You did throw a flip-flop at me once.”
“I deserved it.”
A grin pulls at my mouth before I can stop it. “Probably.”
I remember that day too clearly. She’d been all fire and outrage, storming through the common room with one sandal in her hand because I’d hidden her keys to mess with her.
She was younger then, all temper and long limbs and zero patience, and I’d laughed right up until she launched the damn thing at my head.
I caught it.
She was furious.
I thought about that laugh for way too long afterward.
That memory belongs in the box too.
From the common room, Brooke calls, “Did everybody die in there or am I getting ranch?”
Allison clears her throat, reaches for the bottle, and says, “Coming.”
I move before I can think about it and take the pineapple container out of her other hand.
She looks up at me. “If Kya sees that in your hands, she’s gonna think you’re trying to steal it.”
“She’ll think you stole it too.”
“Yeah, but I can outrun her.”
She laughs.
Again.
Jesus.
I open the kitchen door wider and let her walk out ahead of me, because whatever else is true, I’m not enough of an asshole to make her juggle all that while I stand there in the way.
The room shifts when we step back into it, not because anybody stops talking but because the noise catches around me in the usual way.
Men like me get used to that. You walk into a room, people clock you, the rhythm adjusts, and then everything settles again.
Mac spots me first and points with her tea glass. “Oh good. Another one.”
I take in the scene with one slow look, and the words come easy.
“Damn,” I say, voice warm with amusement. “Y’all really got these men out here fighting for their lives.”
That does it.
Brooke laughs hard enough she nearly spills her shake. Kya points at Dom like I just testified on her behalf in court. Even Mac’s mouth twitches while Logan mutters, “Traitorous bastard.”
I grin and move deeper into the room, setting the pineapple on the side table just out of Kya’s reach until she stops looking homicidal enough to throw it at me.
“It’s true,” I tell Logan. “You look one wrong answer away from sleeping in your truck.”
He flips me off. “Mind your business.”
Mac turns her head slowly toward him. “Oh, that can be arranged.”
Logan goes still. “Baby, you know I don’t mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
I huff a laugh and drop into the armchair near the sectional, mostly because if I stay standing Aunt Nikki will probably come around the corner with another box for me to haul upstairs. From here I get a full view of the whole room, and I make the mistake of letting my eyes find Allison again.
She’s by Brooke now, helping her shift more comfortably on the recliner while Carter hovers with the expression of a man who would donate an organ if asked but still can’t figure out how to fix the fries problem.
Allison tucks a pillow behind Brooke’s lower back, smooths her hand over the arm of the chair when Brooke sighs in relief, then pushes a strand of hair behind her own ear while she listens to whatever Kya is saying from the loveseat.
Domestic.
There’s that word again.
She looks like she’s been here forever. She has been here forever.
Still.
There’s something about the ease of it that catches under my skin. The way the women lean into her naturally. The way she laughs with them, fusses over them, grabs things before they ask. Like she’d slide right into this part of life too if she wanted to.
That thought comes back meaner this time.
Allison in a room like this, years from now, carrying one of my…
I kill the thought dead.
Absolutely the fuck not.
There is no version of my life where that line of thinking ends anywhere good. That’s exactly how a man gets himself in deep over something he should’ve left alone years ago.
I know better.
And I have known better ever since that drunken kiss after a club party, the one I still don’t let myself think about too long because it pisses me off how easy it is to remember.
The taste of her. The feel of her body tucked up against mine.
The quiet after, when I’d had one clear second of sobriety slam into me hard enough to realize what I’d done.
I avoided her after that because it was the only smart thing I’d done in the entire situation.
That should’ve fixed it. It didn’t.
It just turned her into a problem I keep having to manage every time she laughs too hard or looks too soft or gets too close.
“Jimmy.”
I blink and look up to find Dom watching me from the loveseat.
“What?”
He tilts his chin toward Kya. “Tell her there aren’t sides to a freezer.”
Kya whips her head toward me so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t hurt herself. “There absolutely are.”
I look at Dom, then at the fire in Kya’s eyes, and decide I enjoy breathing.
“There are sides to a freezer,” I say.
Kya points at me triumphantly. “Exactly.”
Dom mutters something under his breath about betrayal.
Carter lets out a quiet, exhausted laugh. “We’re never winning again, are we?”
“Not for the next four months at least,” Logan says.
“Maybe longer,” Mac says coolly.
Logan’s face goes pale enough to make Brooke laugh again. “Don’t say things like that,” he mutters.
Mac takes another sip of tea. “Then stop confiscating my drinks like I’m in hospice.”
Allison laughs so hard she has to turn away for a second, and I catch the line of her smile before she hides it in her shoulder.
Fuck.
I drag my gaze off her and reach for my water.
This is exactly why I keep my distance.
Because it’s too easy to get comfortable around her.
Too easy to slide into old patterns. Too easy to start noticing shit that doesn’t matter and then thinking about it after.
She fits here. She fits with us. She fits with the women.
All of that is fine. None of that has to mean a damn thing beyond what it is.
Family. That’s all.
Mom comes in from the kitchen with more food and immediately starts directing traffic. “Carter, if she wants different fries, go get different fries. Don’t sit there looking confused.”
“I’m going,” he says, already standing.
“Dom, stop arguing and go get Kya whatever she wants before she decides murder is a reasonable response.”
Dom points at Kya. “For the record, that’s where we’re at already.”
“Then move faster,” Aunt Lucy says.
Uncle Twisted follows her in carrying a box and glances around the room with the slow amusement of a man enjoying everybody else’s problems. “Looks peaceful.”
“Get out,” Logan tells him.
Uncle Twisted laughs and drops the box by the stairs. “Jimmy, after lunch you’re taking that crib upstairs.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Mom’s gaze sweeps the room and lands on Allison near the recliner. “Honey, did you eat?”
Allison looks up. “Not yet.”
“Then sit down before you wear yourself out waiting on everybody else.”
She smiles. “Yes, ma’am.”
That smile hits me again too. I’m getting real fucking tired of that.
Kya follows Mom’s line of sight and sighs dramatically. “Honestly, she’s too pretty to still be single. It’s making me mad.”
The room laughs.
Brooke nods immediately. “It really is weird.”
Mac glances at Allison over the rim of her glass. “You do make the local male population look incompetent.”
Allison rolls her eyes, already flushing. “Please stop.”
Kya waves a hand. “No, seriously. We should’ve fixed this by now.”
Something in my chest goes hard and sharp before I can stop it. “She’s fine,” I say.
The words come out too fast. Too rough.
The room goes just a little quieter around the edges. Not silent. Nobody here is ever silent. But enough for me to feel every eye that flicks my way.
Kya’s brows lift first.
Then Logan’s.
Brooke looks between me and Allison with the kind of open curiosity that would be annoying if it wasn’t half-hidden behind pregnancy hormones and a milkshake.
Allison goes still.
I feel it immediately, the way I stepped too hard into that one. The way it came out sounding like more than it should’ve.
So I do the only thing I can do. I lean back in the chair like I didn’t just react to her being discussed like she matters more than she should. I drag my water to my mouth and swallow once before I add, “She doesn’t need y’all turning it into a damn committee project.”
Logan’s mouth twitches because he knows exactly what I did there, even if he’s got enough sense not to call me on it in front of everybody.
Kya narrows her eyes at me. “That sounded defensive.”
“It sounded accurate.”
Brooke smiles slowly. “You got very intense very fast.”
I look at Carter instead because he’s the only one here with enough immediate suffering to redirect the room if he’ll just keep breathing wrong in Brooke’s direction. “Didn’t you have fries to go get?”
He blinks, then stands fast enough to nearly knock over the side table. “Yep. Sure do.”
The room shifts with him. Mom starts saying something about sauces. Uncle Twisted tells him to take Logan because he needs to quit hovering over Mac before she bites him. Kya starts listing three more things Dom needs to pick up while he’s out, and Dom looks ready to walk into traffic.
The moment breaks.
But the pressure of it lingers anyway.
I risk one glance at Allison. She’s looking at me. Not long. Not openly. Just enough for something low and old and dangerous to move in my chest before she drops her gaze and tucks her hair behind her ear.
Family box.
I shove her back into it with both hands and lock the damn lid.
Because if I don’t, this ends somewhere I have no business letting it go.