Chapter 9 #3
I can still feel the shock of it.
The impossible, disorienting rush of finally.
Finally.
Jimmy kissed me.
Not a peck. Not some drunken, meaningless brush.
A real kiss.
Deep enough to steal my breath and soft enough at first to feel almost disbelieving, like he was tasting the line before he crossed it. Then harder when I kissed him back, because of course I kissed him back. Of course I did. I’d wanted that for so long by then it had become part of my bloodstream.
He tasted like whiskey and heat and every bad decision I’d ever made where he was concerned.
And for one perfect, awful minute, I thought everything had changed.
I thought maybe all those years of wanting him had finally cracked something open.
I thought maybe he’d finally seen me.
Not as Ana’s best friend. Not as Torch’s daughter. Not as the girl who’d always been around.
Me.
Just me.
And maybe that was the cruelest part.
Because the next morning, he acted like it never happened. He didn’t bring it up. Didn’t joke about it. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t even look at me for more than half a second.
He just…avoided me.
For days at first.
Then weeks.
Then it settled into this awful in-between where he acted normal enough that nobody else would notice anything was wrong, but distant enough that I could feel the line every time I got too close.
And I hated him for it.
I hated him because that kiss meant everything to me and apparently meant nothing to him. I hated him because I’d let myself believe for one stupid second that maybe he wanted me too. I hated him because I still loved him after.
Which is somehow the most humiliating part of all.
When I finally look up, every woman at the table is staring at me.
Brooke looks devastated.
Kya looks like she might genuinely volunteer to stab Jimmy on my behalf.
Ana has lost some of her teasing edge, and Shaina, miracle of miracles, looks almost sympathetic.
Mac is the hardest to read, but there’s something in her face that makes my throat tighten anyway.
Because she gets it. Not the specifics maybe. But the shape of it. The weight of loving someone who acts like they don’t see how badly they’re hurting you.
“That’s awful,” Brooke says quietly.
I shrug like it doesn’t still sting. It does. It always will.
Kya leans forward. “I’m sorry, but I would’ve killed him.”
“Same,” Shaina says.
Ana rubs a hand over her face. “I still might.”
I huff out a laugh, mostly because if I don’t, I might do something embarrassing like actually let them see how much this still hurts. “It was years ago.”
Mac tilts her head. “And yet.”
And yet…
Yeah.
That’s the problem, isn’t it?
Years ago and somehow still not gone. Years ago and still lodged under my ribs like a splinter I can’t dig out. Years ago and I still feel every bit of it when he walks into a room and says my name like nothing between us has ever existed except family and familiarity and easy smiles.
I look down at my coffee again, now lukewarm and mostly untouched. “I’m just tired,” I admit finally, voice quieter than I mean for it to be. “I’m tired of feeling stupid over him.”
No one interrupts. No one rushes to fill the silence. And somehow that makes it easier to keep going.
“I know it’s pathetic,” I say. “I know it is. I know I should’ve gotten over it by now, and I know he’s never going to look at me the way I want him to. I know all of that.”
My throat tightens anyway. “But I’m tired of acting like it doesn’t suck.”
Brooke reaches for my hand again, and this time I let her. “It doesn’t make you pathetic,” she says softly.
“It makes Jimmy dumb,” Kya mutters.
Ana points at her immediately. “That part.”
Shaina nods. “He is kind of aggressively stupid.”
Mac takes one last sip of her coffee and sets the cup down. “Then stop letting him have access to the version of you that keeps waiting.”
I look at her.
She holds my gaze steadily. And there it is.
The thing under all the teasing and humor and softness.
The truth.
Because that’s what I’ve been doing, isn’t it?
Waiting. Maybe not literally. Maybe not in some dramatic, staring-out-a-window kind of way.
But emotionally?
Absolutely.
Every time I let one of his casual smiles wreck my day. Every time I let one of his little acts of thoughtless kindness mean more than they should. Every time I tell myself he didn’t mean to hurt me, so maybe I should just keep letting him orbit me without ever asking for more.
I’ve been waiting.
And maybe I’m done. Or maybe I’m just tired enough to want to be.
“Come on,” Kya says suddenly, pushing herself up with a grunt and a hand braced to her back. “If we keep sitting here, I’m going to cry or commit a felony. Either way, we need snacks.”
Brooke stands too, still holding my hand for one extra second before she lets go. “I want the little bunny onesie.”
“You want everything,” Mac says, but she stands too.
Shaina loops her arm through mine as we start moving again. “For the record, I still think you should’ve bit him after the kiss.”
I laugh despite myself. “That’s psychotic.”
“You say psychotic, I say memorable.”
Ana falls into step on my other side. “You okay?”
I glance at her and force a small smile. “Yeah.”
It’s not entirely a lie.
Because I’m not okay exactly. But I am steadier. And that counts for something.
We move deeper into the store, toward more baby clothes and more tiny shoes and more chaos, but my mind doesn’t stay with the racks of soft fabric or the sound of the women bickering over whether baby overalls are practical.
It drifts.
Backward. To a summer night. To whiskey on Jimmy’s mouth. To one kiss that changed everything for me and apparently nothing for him.
And even now, after all this time, even now with my friends laughing around me and a basket full of baby things digging into my arm and enough proof to know I should’ve moved on years ago…
I still think about the kiss.