Chapter 23 #2
Brooke frowns at the tiny pajama set in her hands like it personally offended her. “You know what’s awful? He probably does feel bad.”
Mac’s eyes cut to her. “That does not help his case.”
“I know, I know.” Brooke looks up, distressed. “I’m just saying, sometimes that almost makes it worse, because then you start making excuses for them.”
I point at her with my drink. “That.”
“That,” Shaina agrees. “Exactly that. Because if he were just a straight-up asshole, you’d already be over him.”
I bark out a laugh that has no humor in it at all. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Well, maybe not over him,” Shaina says. “But at least I’d be able to bully you about it with less guilt.”
Emma smiles faintly.
Ana does not. Ana looks like she’s actively writing Jimmy’s obituary in her head. “You know he’s going to come around again, right?” she says. “The second he thinks you’re actually done, he’ll do something else.”
My stomach drops because that is exactly what I’m afraid of. Not that she’s wrong. That she’s right.
That there is always one more look, one more grab of my wrist, one more kiss like it means everything before he pulls away and leaves me standing in the middle of all the smoke wondering why I keep mistaking sparks for something permanent.
Kya waves a gummy worm at me. “Then don’t let him.”
“I’m serious,” Mac says. “He does not get to keep wrecking you just because he’s confused.”
The thing is, I know she’s right. I know all of them are right. But knowing it and feeling it are not the same thing. Because I don’t just want Jimmy.
I know Jimmy.
I know the parts of him under all the bullshit. The loyalty. The steadiness. The way he notices things no one else does. The part of him that would burn the world down for the people he loves, even if he’s apparently incapable of saying the word love without acting like it physically injures him.
That’s what makes this so hard.
He isn’t empty. He isn’t nothing. He’s just not enough like this. And maybe that should matter more than all the rest of it.
Emma leans forward a little, her expression warm but serious. “Allie.”
I meet her eyes.
“If he wants to be in your life in a real way, he has to show up like a man who deserves that place. Not just when he’s jealous. Not just when he’s scared.”
Silence settles again.
Not heavy this time. Just clear. The kind that comes after someone says the thing you were trying not to look directly at.
I swallow hard and nod once.
Because yes. Because that’s it, exactly.
Shaina, being Shaina, breaks the tension by pointing at Brooke’s lap and saying, “Are those ducks or geese?”
Brooke looks down, startled, then glares. “They’re ducks.”
“They look smug.”
Kya gasps. “That’s what I said about giraffes.”
Mac pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m surrounded by lunatics.”
That gets a real laugh out of me. And maybe that’s what finally does it.
Not the advice. Not the anger. Not even the truth.
Just the fact that these women are sitting here in the middle of normal life, tiny clothes and snacks and ridiculous complaints and too much love packed into one room. Plus the fact that none of them are letting me romanticize my own hurt.
They’re not telling me to wait. They’re not telling me to give him time. They’re not calling his jealousy passion or his silence depth.
They’re calling it what it is. And loving me enough to expect better.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Everyone glances at it.
I don’t. Not at first.
Then it buzzes again.
Shaina leans over and looks at the screen before I can stop her.
“Ooh,” she says.
Kya’s eyes narrow. “What?”
Shaina grins and slides the phone across the table toward me. “Drew.”
My pulse does something weird. Not because I’m excited. Because I’m not. Or not in the dramatic, butterflies, world-shifting way I know actual excitement can feel. But there is something there. Something steadier.
Possibility, maybe.
The text is simple.
Drew: Had a nice time the other night. Want to go out again Friday?
I stare at it.
Brooke makes a hopeful sound immediately. “That’s sweet.”
Kya leans forward. “He asked again. Fast. That’s a good sign.”
Mac’s expression stays unreadable. “Do you want to?”
There it is.
The actual question.
Not should you. Not would it make Jimmy mad. Not is Drew better than the impossible situation you keep lighting yourself on fire over.
Do you want to?
I think about dinner. About the easy conversation. About the kiss that was nice and nothing more. About the way Drew steered around the club stuff like he didn’t know what to do with it.
Then I think about Jimmy.
About every version of wanting that keeps ending with me scraped raw and him still standing on the safe side of honesty.
And for the first time, the answer comes without that familiar internal flinch. “Yes,” I say.
Ana smiles first. Sharp and approving.
Shaina grins like she’s already imagining the fallout.
Brooke looks relieved.
Kya looks triumphant.
Mac just nods once like I passed some invisible test she set three chapters ago.
Emma’s smile is the softest of all.
I pick up the phone and type back before I can overthink it.
Me: Yeah. Friday works.
I hit send.
The room doesn’t explode. No one cheers. No one makes it bigger than it is.
And somehow that makes it feel more real.
Not a stunt. Not revenge.
A choice.
Mine.
I set the phone back down and lean into the couch, letting out a breath that feels older than tonight. “I’m going to give him a real chance,” I say.
The words sit differently than I expect.
Not light. Not easy. But solid.
Emma reaches over from the loveseat and squeezes my hand once.“Good,” she says.
And this time, when I nod, I mean it.