Chapter 26 #3
That lands like a fist. Because it is the whole truth in one clean sentence. And there’s nowhere to hide from it.
I look at her. At the woman I have wanted in every broken, selfish, buried way possible and somehow still failed to protect from the worst of myself.
I should say it now. This is the moment. It has to be.
I should tell her I love her. Tell her I’ve been terrified.
Tell her I kissed her that first time because I wanted her and ran after because I knew once I really started I wouldn’t stop.
Tell her I’ve been watching her slip farther away and it’s driving me insane because she matters too much and I’ve got no clue how to do this without blowing up every line that’s held us together.
I should say all of it.
Instead, what comes out is, “Allie—”
And that’s it.
Just her name. Just the beginning. No follow-through.
Coward.
Her laugh is soft and completely wrecked. Then she nods once. “That’s what I thought.” She steps around me before I can stop her.
This time I don’t try. Because if I reach for her now, I’ll only make it worse again. And there may not be any worse left to make after this.
She gets three steps down the hall before I find enough breath to say, “Allie.”
She stops. Doesn’t turn around. And I know, with the kind of cold certainty that stays in your bones, that this is it. Whatever I say next matters. Maybe not forever, but enough.
So of course I still can’t say the right thing. Instead I say nothing. Because there’s nothing left in me that isn’t too late or too ugly or too small.
What I want to say is don’t go. What I want to say is him touching you will kill me. What I want to say is I’m serious, I’m just scared, and I’m sorry I waited this long to figure out the difference.
The second Allison walks away from me, every instinct in my body goes from bad to feral. Not dramatic. Not metaphorical.
Feral.
Because I let her get three steps down that hallway after looking at me like I am the exact kind of man she should be done with, and something in me finally stops trying to be reasonable.
Maybe it’s overdue. Maybe it’s ugly. Maybe it should’ve happened ten years ago before I let fear and bullshit and the kind of cowardice I still can’t believe I’m capable of turn this into a slow-motion car wreck instead of what it should’ve been from the beginning.
I don’t know. I just know I’m done standing still while she walks away from me.
“Allie.”
She doesn’t stop this time. That’s what does it. That’s what snaps the last thread of restraint I’ve been clinging to like it’s done me a damn bit of good so far.
I close the distance in three long strides, catch her wrist, and turn her back toward me before she can make it to the common room and the noise and the people and every single reason this conversation should not happen in public.
Her eyes flash immediately. “Jimmy—”
“Not here.”
Her jaw tightens. “You don’t get to drag me around every time you decide you’re having a crisis.”
“You’re right,” I say, already walking her backward down the hall. “I should’ve dragged you into a room and handled this weeks ago.”
“That is not better.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
She tries to pull free, and if she were actually trying, really trying, I’d let go. I know I would. But there’s anger in it more than fear, frustration more than panic, and I know her well enough to feel the difference in the way her body moves against mine.
That doesn’t make this gentle. It doesn’t make it calm. It just makes it honest in a way nothing between us has been in too long.
“Jimmy,” she snaps again, lower now because we’re passing the kitchen and the last thing either of us needs is half the women in this clubhouse deciding they’ve earned front row seats to our breakdown. “Let go of me.”
I don’t.
Not until we hit the far end of the upstairs hall where my room sits behind a closed door and enough distance from the main noise of the club to keep this ours for at least five damn minutes.
Then I shove the door open, pull her inside, and lock it behind us. The click sounds too loud. Too final. Too much like the point of no return.
Good. Maybe we should’ve crossed that point a long time ago.
Allison turns on me immediately. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright with fury and something else underneath it that makes my pulse pound harder. “You are out of your mind.”
“Probably.”
“That is not cute.”
“Wasn’t trying to be.”
She throws both hands up. “Then what exactly are you trying to be, Jimmy? Because from where I’m standing, you keep bouncing between jealous caveman and emotionally unavailable asshole, and I’m getting really fucking tired of pretending that should mean something.”
Every word lands. Every single one. Because there’s no part of me that can even argue with her right now without sounding like a liar.
My room suddenly feels too small.
Not because it actually is. Because she’s in it.
Because this has always been the room where I’ve shut doors on the world and kept myself separate from whatever was outside of it, and now she’s standing dead center in the middle of it with her anger and her hurt and every ugly truth I’ve been trying not to say packed into the space between us.
I rake a hand through my hair and pace once because if I don’t move, I’m going to do something reckless like cross the room and kiss her before I’ve earned the right to put my hands on her again. “That guy is not touching you.”
Her laugh is sharp enough to cut skin. “There it is.”
I stop pacing and look at her. “There what is?”
“That.” She points at me like I’m a case study she’s deeply sick of writing papers on. “You keep doing this. You keep making it about some other man looking at me, touching me, wanting me, and never once about the actual fucking problem.”
I take one step toward her. “The actual problem,” I say, voice low, “is that I can’t watch you with him.”
She folds her arms over her chest like she’s bracing for impact. “That is not enough.”
I know.
God, I know.
That’s the worst part of all of this. She keeps saying the thing that matters most and I keep circling it like if I look straight at it, I’ll lose whatever control I’ve got left. Too late for that now.
I move closer again, slow this time, deliberate enough that she could back away if she wanted to.
She doesn’t. Not even a step.
That alone nearly wrecks me.
“Then tell me what is,” I say.
Her eyes widen just slightly, like she didn’t expect me to actually ask. Then her chin lifts.No retreat. No softening. No easy out.
“Why now?” she asks.
Simple question. Brutal answer.Because the truth is, there is no version of this that doesn’t make me look exactly as bad as I deserve to.
I hold her gaze anyway. “Because I’m done lying to myself.”
That doesn’t move her. Doesn’t fix anything.
She just looks at me with those steady, furious eyes and says, “Try again.”
Jesus Christ.
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because of course she’s not letting me off with one clean line and a tortured expression after years of this bullshit.
And maybe that’s exactly why it has to be her. Why it’s always been her. Why nobody else has ever even come close to mattering in a way that felt dangerous enough to make me run. Because Allison has never let me hide in the easy version of myself.
Not once.
I drag in a breath that does absolutely nothing to steady me and say, “Because I can’t stand the thought of you with him.”
Her expression hardens. “No.”
I frown. “No?”
“That’s still not it.”
“Allie—”
“No.” She steps toward me now, and there’s more hurt than anger in her voice when she says, “You do not get to drag me into your room and act like this is some grand romantic gesture because you’re jealous.”
That one hits hard enough to make me flinch internally. Because she’s right. Again.
She sees it too. Her voice drops. “You want me because someone else might get me. Fine. Great. I’ve had that version of you for years.” Her throat works once before she keeps going. “Why should now mean anything?”
There it is. The real question. Not why now.
Why should it matter?
Why should she believe this version of me is any different than the one who kissed her and disappeared, fucked her and panicked, kissed her again and walked away, dragged another woman into his lap like a teenager with brain damage because he didn’t know what to do with his own jealousy?
Why should now mean a damn thing?
Because if I were her, I wouldn’t believe me either.
I take another step closer until there’s barely any room left between us and say the first true thing that gets past my teeth before I can choke on it. “Because I should’ve claimed you the night at the club.”
The room goes dead quiet.
Even the noise from the clubhouse outside the door seems to fall back for one suspended second, like the whole world just sucked in a breath and is waiting to see if I’m actually going to follow through.
Allison goes still. Not frozen. Not scared.
Just still in that dangerous, hyper-aware way people get when something finally lands where it’s been trying to go all along.
Her voice, when it comes, is almost too quiet. “Say that again.”
I don’t hesitate this time. Because I can’t. Because if I start retreating now, I’m never going to get her back. “I should’ve claimed you already.”
Her lips part. And there it is again, that split-second flicker in her eyes, that hurt and hope and disbelief all trying to exist in the same space without tearing each other apart.
But Allison being Allison, she doesn’t melt. Doesn’t fold. Doesn’t hand me the ending just because I finally found enough spine to open my mouth.
Instead she says, “Then why didn’t you?”
That one hurts worse than almost anything else she’s thrown at me tonight. Not because it’s cruel. Because it isn’t. Because the answer is humiliating in a way no amount of toughness or cuts or road name can dress up into something more respectable.