Chapter 26 #2
Just those words, said in Allison’s tired, careful voice, and suddenly every ugly thing I’ve been trying to keep contained all week shoves hard against the inside of my ribs at once.
Jealousy. Panic. Regret. That sick, grinding guilt over how I’ve handled her. That mean, savage possessiveness that keeps waking up every time I think of Drew touching her. Every second of watching her pull farther away because I keep giving her pieces of something instead of the whole ugly truth.
All of it rises at once.
Shaina says, “Do you actually like him?”
Allison hesitates. “Maybe not like that yet.”
That buys me one breath.
One.
Then she keeps going. “But he’s consistent. He asks. He shows up. He doesn’t keep making me guess.”
The words aren’t said to hurt me. That’s what makes them worse. Because she’s not performing this. Not saying it loudly enough for me to hear on purpose. Not trying to twist the knife.
She’s just telling the truth. And the truth sounds a hell of a lot like a list of everything I haven’t been.
Shaina mutters, “That bar is in hell.”
Allison laughs again, quieter this time.
“I know.” Then, after a beat, she says the thing that finally snaps something in me all the way through.
“And maybe I should just take it further with Drew. Maybe taking that step with him will help me decide to keep going or look for someone else completely. Jimmy clearly never intends to be serious. I can’t just sit her waiting and hoping for one day. ”
The world narrows.
Just like that.
No room left for reason. No room left for patience. No room left for the thin little voice in my head reminding me that Landon’s sister is on the other side of this wall and I’ve already made enough of a mess without adding eavesdropping asshole to the list.
Take it further. With Drew.
Because I clearly never intend to be serious.
She’s right.
That’s the part that burns hottest.
She’s right.
Every excuse. Every retreat. Every look and grab and kiss and half-confession. Every time I’ve acted like wanting her should somehow count for more than actually doing something about it.
She’s right.
And the idea of her taking what she wanted to give me, what I should’ve claimed clean and honest years ago, and handing it over to him instead because I kept standing here being a coward?
No. Absolutely the fuck not.
I’m moving before I consciously decide to.
One step. Then another.
The beer bottle in my hand hits the side table in the hall hard enough to rattle the lamp when I set it down without looking, and I’m already rounding the corner toward the laundry alcove before any sane part of me can catch up and tackle me to the floor.
Shaina sees me first. Her eyes go wide for exactly half a second before they narrow into something sharp and furious enough to make most men stop in their tracks.
I am not most men right now.
Allison turns at the change in the air, then she sees me. And the look on her face when she realizes I heard what she said, that should stop me too.
It doesn’t.
Because by the time her eyes widen and her body stills and Shaina says, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I’m already there.
Too close. Too angry. Too far gone.
“Go away,” Shaina snaps immediately, stepping off the counter.
“Not happening.”
Her chin lifts. “You don’t get to burst in here after eavesdropping like a psycho—”
“Shaina.” Allison’s voice cuts through, lower, steadier. “It’s fine.”
No. It is not fine. Nothing about this is fine.
Because she’s standing there in soft clubhouse clothes with tired eyes and Drew’s name still hanging in the air between us like a threat, and all I can think is that I have run out of room to keep doing this halfway.
Shaina looks between us once, then points a finger at me like she’s personally appointing herself judge, jury, and executioner. “You say or do one stupid thing, I’m calling Shadow and Landon.”
Normally that would stop me. Or at least slow me down. Tonight it just hits the pile of other things that are already too much.
“Then call them.”
That surprises even me.
Allison’s brows pull together, and for one second I see it, the exact moment she realizes something in me has shifted from bad to worse.
Shaina hears it too. She studies me for one long beat, then looks at Allison.
Allison doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t ask her to leave.
But whatever Shaina sees in her face is enough. “Five minutes,” she says tightly. “Then I’m coming back.” Then she shoulders past me and leaves, not before clipping my arm on purpose hard enough to count as a warning shot.
The second she’s gone, the alcove feels too small. Too quiet.
Allison folds her arms over her chest and looks at me with this awful mix of exhaustion and anger and something else I don’t want to name. “You were listening.”
Not a question. I don’t insult either of us by pretending otherwise.
“Yeah.”
Her laugh is soft and disbelieving. “That’s low, even for you.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” The word cracks like a whip.
I drag a hand through my hair because I can feel how close I am to saying this wrong too, to ruining it again, to turning something already shredded into dust. Too late. Already doing it.
“You’re gonna take it further with him?” There are about a hundred better openings than that. I know it the second I hear my own voice.
Allison’s expression goes flat in the worst possible way. “You heard all that, and that’s what you came in with?”
I step closer.
She doesn’t move.
“Answer me.”
Her eyes flash. “I might.” Then she keeps going. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes, Jimmy. With you.” Her voice rises just enough to put steel under it. “With this. With you only ever deciding to care when you think somebody else might actually choose me.”
“I always care.”
The words are out before I can stop them. Too fast. Too honest. Too late.
Allison goes still.
So do I.
Because there it is. A crack. A truth. Something real finally breaking surface instead of staying buried under all the dumb shit I’ve been using as cover.
Her mouth parts slightly. Then her eyes narrow with something like hurt. “That doesn’t help me,” she says quietly.
Christ.
That one goes straight in.
Because she’s right. Again. Always, lately.
All the things I feel that I don’t say. All the wanting. All the protecting. All the jealousy and guilt and fear. None of it helps her if I keep it locked in my own damn chest and only let it out in the worst moments.
“I know,” I say, but it comes out wrecked.
Her face changes. Just a little.Not softer. Not harder.Just sadder, somehow.“And yet here we are.”
The words hit like a verdict.
Because that’s exactly it, isn’t it?
Here we are. Years deep into this thing. Still circling. Still hurting each other. Still finding new ways to prove that wanting is not the same as showing up.
I take another step closer because I don’t know what else to do, and because distance feels impossible right now. “You’re not going out with him.”
The second I say it, I know it’s the wrong move. Not because I don’t mean it. Because I do. Because it comes out like an order, like a claim I haven’t earned, and Allison’s whole posture shifts in exactly the way I should’ve expected.
Her chin lifts. Her shoulders square. Her eyes go cold and bright all at once. “You don’t get to tell me that.”
“He’s wrong for you.”
She laughs once, sharp and ugly. “That still doesn’t make you right.”
That one lands. Hard enough to stop me cold for half a second.
Because she’s right again. Because she has been right almost every time we’ve had one of these conversations and I keep barging through them like volume and intensity might somehow make up for the fact that I’m not saying the thing that matters most.
And maybe that’s what finally breaks loose in me.
Not wisdom. Not clarity. Just too much pressure in one place for too long.
“He thinks you’re better than this place,” I say, voice lower now, rougher. “Better than your family. Better than the club. He’s not looking at you, Allie. He’s looking at what he thinks he can pull away from it.”
Her eyes widen just a fraction.
There. That got through. And I know it did, because for the first time since I walked in here, she doesn’t fire back immediately.
Instead she just looks at me. Really looks. And that should feel like progress. Like maybe this is finally the moment where I stop fucking around and tell her everything.
It doesn’t.
It feels like standing on the edge of something high enough to kill us both if I jump wrong.
So of course, I ruin it. Because instead of saying I want you. Instead of saying I’ve wanted you for years and I’m losing my goddamn mind at the thought of you giving yourself to him because I was too much of a coward to step up first.
Instead I say, “You think he’s gonna touch you and not see it like some kind of rescue?”
The second the words leave my mouth, Allison’s face changes.
Whatever I almost had a second ago is gone. Because I made it ugly. Possessive. Mean. Because I always seem to hit the ugliest part first.
Her voice, when it comes, is very quiet. “You don’t get to talk about me like that.”
I feel sick immediately. Not dramatic. Not metaphorical.
Actually sick.
Because I hear it now. Hear exactly how it sounded. Hear the way my own jealousy dragged the worst possible version of the truth to the front of my mouth and handed it to her like a weapon.
I drag in a breath. “That’s not what I—”
“Yes,” she says, louder now. “It is.”
I stop.
Because she’s done. Because I can see it. Because her eyes are shining in that dangerous way that means she’s hurt enough to lose all patience and I am exactly the man she’s lost it with.
And still, still, I can’t quite make myself back off. “I’m trying to tell you—”
“No,” she cuts in, and there is so much exhaustion in that one word it almost folds me in half. “You’re trying to stop me from moving on while still refusing to give me anything real.”