Chapter 33 #2
“And I know you can handle yourself,” he says. “I know you’re not fragile. I know you don’t need me breathing down your neck every second of the day.” His jaw tightens. “But I also know that motherfucker has already shown you exactly what he is.”
There’s no answer to that. Because he’s right.
Again.
***
The next time, it’s worse.
Two days later, I’m at Ambrosia in the afternoon working through a vendor issue with Destiny and trying to ignore the fact that my bruise is still dark enough to make me angry every time I catch sight of it, when she goes still halfway through a sentence and says, “Uh.”
I look up from the paperwork in front of me. “What?”
She jerks her chin toward the front windows. And there he is.
Drew.
Standing across the street. Not moving. Not pretending to do anything else. Not even on his phone. Just standing there looking at the building like he’s deciding whether he wants to come in or not.
My stomach drops so hard it almost hurts.
Destiny looks at me, then back at him. “Is that—”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to get someone?”
My first instinct is no. Always no. Don’t escalate. Don’t turn it into a scene. Don’t make this bigger than it already is. But that instinct is starting to feel a lot more like fear than pride, and I hate that even more than I hate asking for help.
So this time, I say, “Yeah.”
Destiny doesn’t waste a second. She disappears toward the back, and by the time I look up again, Drew is gone.
Just gone.
Like he wanted to be seen and then decided that was enough for one day.
That’s what gets me. Not the confrontation. Not even the possibility of one. The game of it.
The way he keeps putting himself just inside my line of sight like he’s reminding me he can.
Like he’s testing how much of my space he can take up before somebody stops him.
And maybe the ugliest part of all is the creeping suspicion that he’s using more than just free time and persistence to do it.
Because how does he keep knowing where I am?
How does he know when I’m at the grocery store, or Ambrosia in the middle of the afternoon, or parked outside the pharmacy while I’m picking up prenatal vitamins for Brooke and antacids for Kya because apparently all my friends are growing entire human beings and have collectively decided I’m their emotional support errand runner?
Maybe it’s coincidence.
Maybe.
But in my gut, it doesn’t feel like coincidence anymore.
It feels like access. It feels like someone with a badge and too much entitlement deciding he has the right to use what he can reach.
And that thought keeps me up at night in a way I can’t quite admit out loud without wanting to crawl out of my own skin.
So instead, I end up in the clubhouse living room with the women. Only this time, the energy is quieter. Not less warm. Not less funny. Just…gentler around the edges. Like everybody knows I’m wound a little tighter than usual and they’re all unconsciously adjusting the volume of the room around it.
Mac is curled into the corner of the couch with a blanket over her legs and a bowl of grapes she keeps glaring at like they personally offended her.
Kya is stretched out dramatically across the loveseat with her head in Emma’s lap and one hand over her stomach like she’s been grievously wounded by the existence of third-trimester heartburn.
“She kicked me in the bladder and then I threw up over string cheese,” she says to no one in particular. “If I survive this pregnancy, it’ll be out of spite.”
Emma smooths a hand over her hair. “That’s the spirit.”
Brooke is on the floor with a pile of tiny baby clothes in her lap, folding and refolding the same sleeper like she’s trying to emotionally process how something that small is supposed to fit a real person.
Raven is nearby with Lexi tucked into her side while the little girl colors with the kind of deep concentration only toddlers and tiny dictators seem capable of.
Shaina and Ana are sharing the armchair like they did when we were teenagers, except now we’re all older and supposedly more emotionally evolved, which feels like a lie.
And me?
I’m in the middle of the couch with my tea going cold in my hands and the low, ugly hum of anxiety still moving under my skin even though I’m technically safe.
Emma looks over first. She always does. Not because she’s the oldest or the wisest or whatever bullshit people like to assign to the calm one in a group.
She’s just good at reading a room. Good at reading people.
And right now, I’m apparently broadcasting loud enough for the whole room to pick up on it.
“You wanna talk about it?” she asks gently.
I stare down into my mug for a second. Then shrug. “He keeps showing up.”
That stills the room in a way no one-word panic ever could. Not dead silence. Just immediate attention.
Kya pushes herself up on one elbow. “Showing up where?”
“Places.”
“That’s vague,” Mac says.
I look at her.
She lifts one shoulder under the blanket. “I’m not being mean. I’m saying vague is how people talk themselves into underreacting.”
That hits a little too close to home. So, naturally, I glare at her.
Mac remains completely unmoved.
“Grocery store,” I say finally. “Outside Ambrosia. And I swear he was parked near the pharmacy earlier this week, but I didn’t actually see him until I was already pulling away, so I don’t know.”
Kya sits all the way up now, instantly furious. “Oh, I hate him.”
“Same,” Brooke says softly, folding the sleeper with more force than strictly necessary.
Ana’s jaw tightens. “Have you told Jimmy all of it?”
I make a face. That’s apparently answer enough.
Shaina groans. “Allie.”
“What?” I snap, more defensive than I mean to be. “I told him some of it.”
Ana blinks at me. “Some?”
“Enough.”
“No,” Mac says flatly. “Clearly not.”
I stare at all of them. “All of you are being deeply unhelpful.”
Emma smiles softly. “That’s because we’re not trying to help you feel better. We’re trying to keep you safe.”
That one lands.
Hard. Because there it is. The difference between being comforted and being protected. And maybe I need both right now more than I want to admit.
Raven, quiet until now, says, “He’s testing boundaries.”
Everybody looks at her. She doesn’t flinch under it.
“He’s seeing what he can get away with,” she says, voice even. “How much space he can take before somebody pushes back hard enough to make him stop.”
That sends a cold little chill down my spine because it’s exactly what it feels like and hearing somebody else say it out loud makes it too real to minimize anymore.
Lexi, blissfully unaware of the emotional temperature in the room, holds up a purple scribble and announces, “I made a pony.”
Brooke immediately tears up. “That is beautiful.”
Kya points at her. “See, this is why we can’t have serious conversations with you anymore. You cry at line art.”
“It is beautiful,” Brooke protests.
“It’s a blob.”
“It’s a thoughtful blob.”
And just like that, the room laughs. Not because any of this is funny. Because that’s what these women do. They hold the hard thing in one hand and the softness in the other and somehow make room for both without forcing you to pick one.
That almost gets me more than the actual advice does.
Because I’m held here. Really held. Not babied. Not smothered. Just…surrounded. From every side. And that should make me feel stronger than I do.
Instead, for one brief, humiliating second, it makes me want to cry.
I blink it back so fast I’m pretty sure only Emma sees. Her hand lands on my knee and squeezes once. No words. Just there. That’s what finally breaks whatever stupid, stubborn pride I’ve been hanging onto.
I set my mug down and say quietly, “I think he might be using cop resources.”
The room goes dead still. Actually dead still this time.
Kya says, “Oh, I’ll kill him,” with such sincerity that even Mac looks mildly impressed.
Shaina leans forward. “What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know.” I drag a hand through my hair. “He just keeps showing up where I am and I haven’t exactly been posting my location on a billboard.”
Ana’s face hardens. “That’s not normal.”
“No shit,” Mac mutters.
Emma’s expression stays calm, but I know her well enough now to see the edge underneath it. “Okay,” she says. “Then we stop treating this like maybe it’ll fade if we ignore it.”
I look at her.
She looks right back. “We tell the men everything,” she says.
My first instinct is immediate resistance. “No.”
Every head in the room turns toward me.
I exhale sharply. “If Jimmy hears ‘cop resources’ and ‘watching me,’ he’s going to go nuclear.”
Mac lifts one brow. “And?”
“And I would prefer not to have a homicide on my conscience this month.”
Kya snorts. “That’s fair.”
Emma doesn’t move her hand from my knee. “He deserves the full picture,” she says gently.
And God, I know she’s right.
I know it. I know I’m not protecting Jimmy by keeping pieces of this to myself anymore. I’m just making it harder for him to actually protect me the way he’s clearly trying to.
That thought is still sitting ugly and unresolved in my chest when Jimmy finds me an hour later. Because apparently this man has developed some sixth sense for the exact second I’m trying to carry too much by myself again.
The women clear out of the room in slow stages once he appears in the doorway, not making it obvious, just…giving us space.
Kya has to be bodily redirected by Emma because she’s nosy enough to qualify as a felony, but eventually it’s just me and Jimmy and the quiet hum of the clubhouse settling around us.
He comes straight to the couch and crouches in front of me, hands braced on his thighs, eyes locked on mine.
That alone tells me the women already said something. Probably all of it.
Fantastic.
His voice is low when he says, “How much were you planning on not telling me?”
I sigh. “That depends. How dramatic are you planning to be about it?”
His jaw flexes. “Allie.”
Right. No jokes. No deflecting.
I drop my gaze for one second, then force myself to look back at him. “I didn’t want to make it worse.”
His whole face changes. Not angry. Not exactly. Just…wrecked in that very specific way only Jimmy can look when he’s trying to keep it together and failing by inches.
“You think me knowing makes it worse?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I think you caring this much makes it dangerous.”
That lands. I can tell it does.
Because his eyes go soft and sharp at the same time, and when he speaks again, there’s no edge in it at all. Just truth. “It already is dangerous.”
There’s no arguing with that. Not anymore.
He reaches for my hands and pulls me gently to the edge of the couch until I’m close enough that he can rest his forehead briefly against my knee like he’s trying very hard not to say ten things he knows will scare me more than help.
When he looks up again, his expression is settled in a way that makes my pulse skip. Not because he’s angry. Because he’s decided something. And when Jimmy decides, the whole room tends to rearrange around it whether anyone else is emotionally prepared or not.
“No more alone,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
His eyes don’t leave mine. “You don’t go anywhere alone.”
The words are calm. Firm. Absolute. Not a suggestion. Not an emotional overreaction he’s going to walk back in twenty minutes when the adrenaline fades.
A line. A real one.
“Jimmy—”
“No.” He stands then, still close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him, and says it again, slower this time. “You don’t go anywhere alone.”
And looking at him, really looking at him, I know he means it.
I know this isn’t the jealous idiot who used to kiss me in quiet rooms and then run from what it meant.
This is the vice president of a motorcycle club.
This is the man who stood in front of our whole family and claimed me.
This is the man who looked at the bruise on my wrist and became something colder and more focused than I’ve ever seen him before.
And whether I’m ready for it or not, he’s done asking nicely.
Because Drew didn’t stop.
And Jimmy isn’t going to let him get another chance.