Chapter One #3
And that should probably bother me more than it does right this second, because there’s something achingly easy about Jimmy when he’s like this. About the way he looks at me like we’ve always known each other. Like I’m just Allison. Like there’s no weight under it for him at all.
For me, there’s too much.
There always has been.
He reaches past me again, this time for the paper towel roll on the counter, and pauses when he notices the little line of lemonade running down the outside of the glass in my other hand. “You’re dripping.”
I blink. “What?”
He tilts his chin toward my fingers. “Your glass.”
“Oh.”
Before I can set it down, he takes it from my hand with an absent kind of ease, wraps the bottom in a paper towel, and hands it back like he’s done me some tiny practical favor without even thinking about it.
That’s all.
That’s literally all. And somehow it still hits me straight in the ribs.
Because Jimmy has always been like that. Not in a sweeping, dramatic way. Not in the kind of way that gets songs written about it.
In little ways.
Quiet ways.
He notices when somebody’s hands are full and takes something without asking.
He walks on the outside of the sidewalk when there’s traffic.
He makes sure the girls get to their cars at night.
He remembers how people take their coffee.
He checks locks before bed if there’s a storm coming because Aunt Lucy worries.
He just takes care of things.
Of people.
And God help me, I’ve been in love with him for so long that every tiny, thoughtless act of consideration feels like getting skinned alive.
“Thanks,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I mean it to.
His gaze catches on my face for a beat. Then his mouth twitches. “You always this polite now or should I be worried?”
I narrow my eyes at him, grateful for the tease because it gives me something solid to push against. “You say that like I used to be feral.”
“You did throw a flip-flop at me once.”
I gasp. “You deserved it.”
He laughs, low and easy. “Probably.”
That memory hits all at once.
I was seventeen, he was twenty-one, and he’d hidden my keys before a club barbecue because he thought it was funny to watch me tear through the common room threatening his life while Ana and Shaina laughed so hard they couldn’t breathe.
I’d found the keys in his jacket pocket and thrown my sandal at his head in retaliation.
He’d caught it. Then he’d grinned at me like I was the most entertaining thing he’d seen all day.
I’d thought about that smile for weeks.
My life is humiliating.
From the other room, Brooke calls, “Did everybody die in there or am I getting ranch?”
I clear my throat and grab the bottle off the counter. “Coming.”
Jimmy pushes off the counter and reaches for the pineapple before I can.
I look up at him.
He lifts one shoulder. “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.” I laugh again, and this time it feels freer. Easier.
He opens the kitchen door wider and gestures for me to go first.
I hate that I still notice things like that too.
I walk back into the common room with Jimmy at my back and immediately the room shifts around him the way it always does.
Not because he’s loud. Jimmy’s never been the loudest man in a room.
But because he carries himself like someone people naturally make space for.
Not in fear exactly, though there’s some of that if you don’t know him.
More because he feels solid. Capable. Like if something goes wrong, Jimmy’s the one who’ll handle it.
Mac spots him first and points at him with her tea glass. “Oh good. Another one.”
Jimmy glances around the room once, taking in the scene with a slow smirk.
Logan still looks shell-shocked. Carter is sitting on the edge of the coffee table trying to negotiate peace with Brooke through a milkshake and sheer emotional endurance.
Dom has somehow ended up with Kya’s feet in his lap and the expression of a man who knows this is his life now.
Jimmy’s grin deepens. “Damn,” he says, voice warm with amusement. “Y’all really got these men out here fighting for their lives.”
The room erupts.
Brooke laughs so hard she nearly spills her shake. Kya points at Dom like Jimmy just delivered gospel. Even Mac’s mouth twitches around the edge of her glass while Logan mutters, “Traitorous bastard.”
And just like that, Jimmy is folded into the middle of it, all broad shoulders and lazy amusement and easy confidence while the women roast the men and the men try to defend themselves with the kind of doomed energy that says they know they’ve already lost.
I stand there for one stupid second longer than I should, holding a bottle of ranch and trying not to stare at him like I’m still sixteen on the clubhouse porch.
He acts like he’s always acted with me.
Easy. Familiar. Like whatever this is in my chest has never existed at all.
And the worst part?
I still feel every single second of it anyway.
Jimmy (June 2026)