Chapter 31
By the time I pull into the coffee shop parking lot, I’ve already had this conversation in my head at least twenty times.
Maybe more.
Every version starts the same way.
I sit down. I tell Drew I don’t want to keep seeing him. I keep it clean. Polite. Short. No room for confusion, no room for “maybe later,” no room for him to twist it into something softer than it is.
Then I leave.
That’s the plan.
That’s the whole plan.
Simple. Adult. Done.
So naturally, my stomach has been in knots for the last twenty minutes like I’m on my way to confess to a felony instead of ending a relationship that barely had enough life in it to qualify as one in the first place.
I know why.
It’s not guilt.
I’m not guilty for choosing Jimmy. I’m not guilty for finally being done trying to force myself into something that never felt right just because it looked good on paper.
That part’s not the problem.
The problem is Drew has this way of making everything feel like a test I didn’t know I was taking.
Like if I say the wrong thing, or don’t smile the right way, or don’t soften my edges enough to make him comfortable, suddenly I’m difficult instead of honest.
And maybe I ignored that longer than I should have because I was so busy trying to prove to myself I could move on from Jimmy that I let “not Jimmy” become a personality trait.
Which, in hindsight, is deeply embarrassing.
I park, shut the car off, and sit there for one second with both hands still on the wheel.
The coffee shop is small and local, tucked between a florist and a boutique downtown, the kind of place with chalkboard menus and hanging plants and too many people pretending they didn’t spend seven dollars on oat milk for the aesthetic.
I picked it because it’s public. Because public is safe. Because men tend to behave better when there are witnesses and other people two feet away pretending not to listen.
That should make me feel steadier.
It doesn’t. Not really.
I reach for my phone. There’s already a text from Jimmy sitting at the top of the screen from ten minutes ago.
You there?
Simple.
No pressure. No “don’t go in.” No weird territorial demand for a play-by-play. Just checking.
Which, somehow, makes it worse in the best possible way.
Because now I can actually hear his voice in my head from this morning on the porch. That low, rough honesty when he said he didn’t want me in Drew’s space. The way he’d looked at me like every protective instinct he had was fighting with the fact that he knew this needed to be mine to handle.
Me: Just got here
The reply comes almost immediately.
Jimmy: Text me when you leave
That one lands deep enough to make my throat tighten. Not because it’s dramatic. Because it’s so…him.
Not “don’t go.” Not “I’m coming anyway.” Not “be careful” in that empty way people say it when they don’t actually know what to do with the fear under it.
Just, text me when you leave.
So he knows. So he can breathe. So he doesn’t have to sit at the clubhouse imagining every worst-case scenario his stupid, overprotective brain can invent.
Mine too, apparently.
Me: I will
Then I take a breath, grab my bag, and get out.
Inside, the place is busy enough to make me feel better and not busy enough to be chaos.
A few college kids with laptops. An older couple sharing a muffin. A mom with a stroller trying to keep her toddler from eating sugar packets. Two women in scrubs at a corner table looking like they’re one minor inconvenience away from homicide.
And Drew.
He’s already here. He’s sitting at a small table near the window in a pressed button-down and dark jeans like he’s headed to a business lunch instead of getting dumped in a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon.
His eyes find me immediately when I walk in. And there it is. That look. Controlled. Cool. Already slightly irritated for something that I’m blind to.
I hate it instantly.
Still, I make myself walk over like I’m not already regretting doing this in person. “Hey,” I say.
He stands just long enough to be technically polite. “Hey.”
I sit.
He sits.
And for one weird, suspended second, it almost feels normal.
Then the barista calls a name from behind the counter, milk steams, somebody laughs too loudly near the pastry case, and reality settles right back in.
I didn’t come here to ease into this. So I don’t. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Drew leans back in his chair, one arm hooked over the back of it, eyes already sharpening in a way that makes me wish I’d skipped straight to the “this isn’t working” part by text.
“Didn’t sound like I had much of a choice.” His tone is light. His face isn’t.
I keep my hands wrapped around the paper cup I grabbed on the way in even though I don’t actually want it. Just something to hold. Something to do.
“I wanted to talk in person.”
“That serious, huh?”
I hold his gaze. “Yeah.”
Something shifts in his expression then. Not surprise. Recognition. Like he already knows what this is and is trying to decide how much dignity he wants to pretend to keep while it happens. “Okay,” he says finally. “Talk.”
So I do. And because I’m not here to make myself feel better by being cruel, I keep it simple. No unnecessary details. No mention of Jimmy. No “I’ve always loved someone else” speech dramatic enough to get me slapped in a Lifetime movie.
Just the truth.
“I don’t think we should keep seeing each other.”
Drew goes still. Not dramatically.
Just…cold.
Like something in him closes all at once. “Why?”
I expected that. I didn’t expect how flat it sounds. Not hurt. Not confused. Interrogative. Like I owe him a breakdown.
I exhale slowly. “Because this isn’t right for me.”
His mouth twitches, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s vague.”
“It’s honest.”
“No,” he says, leaning forward slightly now, voice still maddeningly even. “It’s convenient.”
I blink once. “Convenient?”
“You tell me.”
There’s a beat where I honestly just stare at him. Because wow.
We got ugly faster than I thought we would.
I set my cup down carefully and say, “Drew, I’m not here to fight with you.”
“That’s good,” he says. “Because I’m trying to understand why you keep acting like you want something better and then running right back toward the same trash.”
There it is. The word lands like a slap.
Trash.
For one second, I don’t even fully process it because my brain is still trying to catch up to the fact that he actually said it out loud.
Not implied. Not dressed up in concern. Not tucked under that fake nice-guy act he’s been polishing since the second we met.
Just said.
About my family. My people. My home.
My whole body goes still. “Excuse me?”
Drew leans back again like he didn’t just say something insane. “You heard me.”
“No,” I say, quieter now. “I heard you. I’m giving you a chance to rethink it.”
That should have been his off-ramp. It isn’t.
Instead, he actually looks annoyed. “At some point, Allison, you need to decide if you want to keep playing house with a bunch of criminals and strippers or if you want an actual life.”
For half a second, the whole shop goes fuzzy around the edges. Not because I’m scared, because I’m furious. So furious I almost laugh.
Because this man really sat across from me in public and decided the best way to react to being dumped was to tell me the people who raised me, protected me, loved me, fed me, and would burn the world down for me are somehow beneath him.
Unbelievable.
“You don’t know anything about my life,” I say.
“I know enough.”
“No,” I snap. “You know what you decided before you ever bothered to actually listen.”
His jaw tightens. “You’re better than that place.”
And there it is.
The thing underneath all of it. The thing I’ve been trying not to fully look at because I wanted “normal” to mean safe and safe to mean good.
He doesn’t like where I come from because he thinks it makes me less. He likes me in spite of it. Not with it. Not understanding it. Not respecting it.
In spite of it.
Like I’m something to clean up and save and pull away from the “wrong” people until I’m polished enough to deserve him.
The thought makes my skin crawl. “No,” I say, voice sharp now. “I’m from that place. Those are my people. That is my life. So if you think you can separate me from it and somehow keep the parts of me you like, you’re dumber than I thought.”
His eyes flash. “There it is.”
I blink. “What?”
“The attitude.”
I laugh. One short, disbelieving sound that is probably not helping but I genuinely don’t care anymore. “Oh my God.”
He leans in. “You know, for a second I actually thought you were smarter than the rest of them.”
That one lands colder. Not because it hurts. Because it confirms everything.
Everything Jimmy clocked. Everything my gut kept trying to tell me every time Drew changed the subject when I talked about the club or gave me that careful, tight little smile like he was tolerating something temporary until I outgrew it.
He never liked my life. He liked the version of me he thought he could pull out of it. And now that I’m not playing along, he’s showing his whole ass.
I push my chair back. “This was a mistake.”
His expression sharpens immediately. “Sit down.”
“No.”
“Allison—”
“Don’t.”
I grab my bag and stand. And that’s when it happens.
Fast.
Too fast.
He reaches across the table hard enough to knock my cup off balance, and it hits the floor with a crack and a wet, explosive splash that sends hot coffee all over my bare legs.
I yelp before I can stop it and jerk backward on instinct. “Shit!”
The heat bites immediately, sharp and stinging, and before I can even fully process that or step away, Drew slams his palm down on the table so hard everything on it jumps.
“Would you just stop for one second and listen?” His voice is louder now. Not shouting yet. But loud enough that the whole room goes quiet around us.
Every instinct in my body goes on high alert at once.
This is bad.