Chapter 21 #2
He drags a hand through his hair and looks anywhere but at me. Of course he does. Because apparently that’s all I’m good for with him.
Intensity. Want. Chaos. Then distance.
He kisses me like I’m everything and leaves me standing there like I imagined half of it.
I laugh once, and it comes out cracked enough that his head snaps back toward me. “Wow,” I say.
“Allie—”
“No.” I hold up one hand before he can start. “No, actually, don’t.”
His face hardens in that miserable, defensive way it does when he knows he’s screwed up and still somehow thinks doubling down is the move.
I’m so tired. Just honestly so tired of this.
“You don’t get to do that,” I tell him, my voice shaking just enough to make me angrier. “You don’t get to drag me into corners and kiss me like that and then act like I’m the one making this messy.”
His mouth opens. Closes.No defense. No explanation.
Great.
“Say something,” I snap.
He looks at me like he wants to. Like he’s trying. Like the words are somewhere in there and he just can’t force them into existence without them cutting him open on the way out. And maybe a month ago that would’ve been enough to make me soften.
Tonight, it just hurts.
Because wanting to say it and saying it are not the same thing. And I am so done living in the gap between those two things.
When he still doesn’t answer fast enough, I nod once.
Then I step around him.
“Allie.”
I stop because apparently I hate peace. I don’t turn around.
Behind me, his voice drops lower. Rougher. “Don’t go out with him again.”
There it is.
The audacity.
The pure, unbelievable audacity of that man standing there with my lipstick probably still on his mouth and trying to give me orders like he has done a single useful thing with any feeling he’s ever had for me.
I laugh again, sharper this time. Then I look back over my shoulder and say, “Watch me.”
And I leave him standing in the hallway.
By the time I make it to the kitchen, I’m vibrating so hard with anger and hurt and leftover adrenaline that I almost walk right back out.
But the women are there. Of course they are. Because apparently every time my life implodes, there’s always a pregnant woman and at least one snack involved.
Tonight it’s all of them.
Mac is sitting at the island in one of Logan’s hoodies with a bowl of cereal and the expression of a woman who’s one inconvenience away from federal prison.
Kya is barefoot on one of the stools, eating pickles wrapped in turkey slices like she’s invented a new food group.
Brooke is on the couch with her feet in Carter’s lap while he rubs them with the solemn concentration of a man trying to atone for his entire gender.
Emma is at the stove making tea, and Amy is sitting at the table doing homework while Jason dozes in his carrier nearby.
Shaina and Ana are perched at the counter, both mid-laugh over something Shadow apparently said earlier.
The second I walk in, every female head turns toward me.
Carter takes one look at my face and immediately stands. “Nope,” he says, pointing at Brooke. “I’m not built for this. I’m leaving.”
Brooke grabs his wrist before he can actually escape. “Coward.”
“Correct.”
Emma glances at me once and says, “Tea?”
I almost cry just from the softness of that one word. Which is humiliating. So naturally I say, “Please.”
Mac narrows her eyes. “That bad?”
I drop into the empty stool beside Kya and set my purse on the island like I’ve just come back from war.
“That man is gonna send me to prison.”
Kya immediately lights up. “What happened? Are we talking Jimmy or Drew?”
I glance up and they can tell by the look on my face that I’m not talking about Drew.
Shaina gasps. “Did he do something stupid?”
Ana already looks smug, which is deeply irritating.
Brooke straightens on the couch as much as Carter’s foot-rubbing allows. “Wait. Before we get into that, how was the date?”
Right. The date.
My brain feels like it happened three years ago instead of an hour and a half. “It was…” I blow out a breath and reach for the mug Emma slides in front of me. “Fine.”
Mac raises one brow. “Fine?”
“Like actually fine or fake-fine?” Kya asks.
“Actually fine.”
That gets a mixed response.
Shaina looks vaguely disappointed.
Brooke looks relieved.
Ana looks suspicious.
Emma just waits.
I wrap both hands around the mug and stare down into the steam. “He was nice.”
Brooke smiles. “Okay, that’s good.”
“Very polite,” I add.
“Mm-hm,” Mac says, clearly waiting for the part that matters.
“He opened doors. He paid. He asked questions.”
“And?” Ana prompts.
“And every time the club came up, he steered the conversation somewhere else.”
That gets more of a reaction.
Mac’s expression flattens immediately.
Kya makes a face like she bit into something rotten.
Brooke’s brows pinch.
Emma just goes still in that quiet way she does when she’s filing something away for later.
Shaina says, “Ah. So he’s one of those.”
“Maybe,” I admit. “Or maybe he was just trying to be polite.”
“Polite men don’t act like a whole chunk of your life is an embarrassing side note,” Mac says.
“Facts,” Kya mutters around a pickle.
I sigh. “It wasn’t awful. It just…”
“Didn’t fit,” Emma finishes gently.
I look at her. Then nod.
Exactly.
Brooke softens. “Did you at least have a good time?”
I think about the dinner. The easy conversation. The way Drew smiled at me when he walked me to the car. The kiss at the end.
“It was nice,” I say again.
Kya squints. “That is not a good sign.”
Shaina points at me. “Nobody in the history of chemistry has ever described a life-changing date as nice.”
“Exactly,” Ana says.
Brooke bites back a smile. “Did he kiss you?”
Every single person in the room leans in.
Even Amy looks up from her homework.
“Oh my God,” I mutter. “This is a hostile environment.”
Emma hides a smile behind her mug.
I sigh dramatically. “Yes.”
Kya slaps the counter. “And?”
“It was…” I search for the word and immediately regret finding the honest one. “Nice.”
The entire kitchen groans.
Mac actually rolls her eyes.
Shaina falls back against the counter like she’s been physically offended. “That’s tragic.”
Brooke, trying to be kind and failing because she’s also way too romantic for this group, says, “Maybe nice can grow?”
“No,” Kya says instantly. “If she says nice twice, the man is doomed.”
Carter sits down apparently daring enough to have come back at some point mutters, “that feels harsh.”
“No one asked you,” seven of us say at once.
He lifts both hands. “I was just trying to participate.”
Emma laughs softly.
And there it is again. That grounding thing. The way this kitchen can hold absurdity and ache in the same breath and somehow make both survivable.
It almost works too.
Until Ana leans toward me and says, “Okay. Now tell us what Jimmy did.”
The room stills all over again.
Because of course that’s the real story. Not Drew. Not dinner. Not the painfully average kiss.
Jimmy. Always Jimmy.
I take a slow sip of tea and immediately wish it were vodka. “He cornered me in the hallway.”
Kya slams her hand on the counter so hard Jason startles in his carrier and Emma gives her a look. “Sorry,” she whispers, then hisses, “What?”
Mac’s eyes narrow. “And?”
I stare into my mug for a second too long. Then I say, “He asked if Drew kissed me.”
Brooke gasps.
Shaina actually starts laughing. “Oh, he’s gone.”
Ana grins. “Fully.”
Emma, calm as ever, asks, “What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
That gets a sharp little chorus of reactions. Then I add, because apparently humiliation is my brand now, “And then Jimmy kissed me.”
Silence. Then chaos.
Kya nearly falls off the stool.
Brooke makes a strangled sound.
Shaina and Ana both shout at once.
Mac just closes her eyes like she saw this coming and hates being right.
Emma is still the only one who doesn’t immediately react like a live grenade just rolled across the island. Instead, she asks the question that matters. “How did he leave it?”
And there it is. The wound under all of it.
Because if Jimmy had kissed me and then done one brave thing after, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here feeling like somebody reached into my chest and twisted.
But he didn’t. He kissed me like he meant every second of it. Then he pulled away.
Again.
I set my mug down carefully and say, “Like he always does.”
That shuts everyone up.
Brooke’s face crumples in sympathy.
Kya looks ready to stab someone with a fork.
Mac’s expression goes flat and cold in that dangerous way she gets when she’s beyond annoyed and into disgust.
Emma’s whole face softens. And somehow that’s the worst one. Because Emma looks at me like she sees exactly how deep this has gone and exactly how long I’ve been letting it.
I laugh once, quietly, because what else am I supposed to do? “It’s fine.”
Every woman in the room says, “No,” in some variation of the same tone.
Amy, who has absolutely no context but apparently enough emotional intelligence to clock bullshit when she hears it, mutters from the table, “That doesn’t sound fine.”
Emma presses a kiss to the top of Jason’s head and says gently, “She’s right.”
That almost undoes me. Almost. I keep it together by sheer force of spite.
“I just…” I shake my head. “I can’t keep doing this.”
Mac nods once. “Correct.”
Kya points at me with half a pickle. “You absolutely cannot.”
Brooke’s voice is softer. “You deserve more than him only showing up when he’s panicking.”
There it is again.
The truth. The thing I keep trying not to look directly at because once I do, I know what it means.
Jimmy only ever really comes for me when he feels like he’s losing me.
Not when I need him. Not when honesty would cost him something. Not when he could actually build something real instead of tearing through whatever little peace I’ve managed to scrape together.
Just when another man looks at me. Just when I try to move on. Just when his own fear gets loud enough to shove him into action.
And that’s not love. Not the kind I can survive, anyway.
Emma comes around the island then and lays one hand on my shoulder. Her voice is quiet when she says, “if a man only knows how to want you in pieces, he doesn’t get to keep access to all of you.”
That one lands so hard I actually have to look away. Because yes. Because exactly. Because I’ve been letting Jimmy set the terms of this thing for years without ever admitting that’s what I was doing.
He looks. He pulls back. He gets territorial. He disappears. He kisses me. He leaves.
And I just…wait.
Like maybe one day he’ll finally get brave enough to stop running in circles around his own feelings and choose me in a way that lasts longer than the heat of the moment.
But what if he doesn’t?
What if this is all he is ever going to be for me?
What if I keep handing him pieces of myself and all I get back is intensity without safety?
That thought settles cold and final in the center of my chest.
I look at Emma first. Then at Mac, Kya, Brooke, Shaina and Ana. At the women who love me enough to tell me the truth even when it hurts.
Then I nod once. Slowly. “I need to move on,” I say.
The words feel strange in my mouth.Heavy. Necessary. Late.
Mac’s expression softens just slightly. “Yes, you do.”
Kya sighs dramatically. “I hate healthy decisions.”
Brooke reaches for my hand across the island. “We’ll help.”
Emma squeezes my shoulder once.
And for the first time since Jimmy kissed me in that hallway and left me standing there with all the pieces, I feel something that almost resembles solid ground.
Not relief. Not yet. But resolve.
And right now, that’s going to have to be enough.