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JIMMY

“Babe! Babe! Where’s my shirt?”

“Which shirt?”

“Seriously?” Steven strutted into the room, wearing only his favorite jock and a scowl. Of those two things, it was hard to say which one I hated most. He stopped in front of where I was lying in bed, covers pulled up to my chin, scrolling my phone. I didn’t think it was possible for his scowl to deepen, but oh, look at that, it had. “What the hell are you doing? We need to leave for trivia in twenty.”

“I told you when I got home that I wasn’t going out tonight. I feel like shit.” I kept my voice calm and even despite having already told him this when I got home from school an hour ago. He hadn’t listened. He rarely did, choosing instead to ignore me or twist my words around to suit him. But pointing that out would only result in a fight, which wasn’t worth it.

“What are you talking about? You’re fine. Get dressed, or we’re gonna be late.”

I sneezed three times in rapid succession, then reached for a tissue out of the box on the nightstand. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go without me.”

“God, you’re so dramatic. You’re letting a tiny little sniffle ruin the whole night.” He rolled his eyes and stomped across the room to the closet, where I could hear him jerking hangers back and forth across the rod. “What did you do with my shirt?”

I sneezed again, then blew my nose. Lucy, my three-year-old black cat, jumped up on the bed, nudging my hand with her nose. “Which shirt?” I called out.

“You know which one. It’s the same one I always wear to trivia.”

I allowed myself the freedom of rolling my eyes since I knew he couldn’t see me. He had three times as many clothes as I did and most definitely did not wear the same shirt every time we went to trivia. In fact, he’d once told me he’d be caught dead before he did something so embarrassing as wearing the same outfit to the same place twice. “What color is it?”

He stomped back out of the closet in a pair of pants that looked like they’d been painted on and glared at me. “You are so fucking useless.” Something caught his attention and he walked over to the chair in the corner, plucking up an eggplant-colored garment and shaking it out. “Ugh, it’s wrinkled and covered in hair from that damn cat.”

As if he knew Steven was talking about him, Lucy sniffed, stood, turned around, and sat back down, facing away from Steven. I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t worth pointing out that he was the one who’d left the shirt draped across Lucy’s favorite chair instead of hanging it up. Honestly, I just wanted him to get dressed and head out so I could take some ibuprofen and go to sleep.

He stomped back into the closet, coming back out with a selection of shirts he then took into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, he emerged in a cloud of cologne and hair gel, wearing the same tight pants paired with a black button-down, left open nearly to his navel. He stood in the doorway, hip-cocked and arms crossed. “You’re seriously not coming?”

I shook my head.

“Fine. Maybe I’ll just stay at Chance and Justin’s tonight.”

When I didn’t rise to the bait, he turned around with a dramatic toss of his head and walked out the door.

Relieved to finally have the apartment to myself, I collapsed back on the pillows and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

It was dark when I woke up next. Lucy let out a disgusted meow as I rolled over to check the time, disrupting his sleep. It was a little after nine, and since I hadn’t eaten anything when I’d gotten home from school, I decided I should at least try to find a snack.

I stumbled out of bed, padding through the empty apartment in my joggers and hoodie, sniffling as I pulled open the fridge. Seeing nothing of interest, I pulled a can of soup from the cupboard, dumped its contents into a bowl, and popped it into the microwave. Mindlessly, I watched the bowl spin and wondered how my life had come to this.

I was sharing an apartment in Omaha, an hour away from my job, with a man I didn’t love. Who didn’t really love anyone other than himself. We’d been on-again off-again more times than I could count over the last year, and I wasn’t even sure why I kept allowing him back in my life. He treated me like shit. My friends didn’t like him. Sammy had made it clear he couldn’t stand him, but just before Steven and I started dating, I’d made Sammy promise to stop picking fights with the guys I’d dated, so he was forced to bite his tongue.

Then Will had returned six months ago. He and my brother had fallen in love all over again, and somehow, that had made it even harder for me to leave Steven. Watching them together only reminded me of just how much I’d lost. I’d had a love like theirs, a once-in-a-lifetime soulmate, but I’d let him go. I wasn’t likely to find that kind of love again, so I’d settled. I hated myself for it, but I hated the idea of being alone even more.

Like a masochist, I pulled out my phone, opened Instagram, and typed Thomas Sullivan into the search bar. I’d lasted three weeks since the last time I searched him out on social media, so there was a new batch of pictures to look through. TJ had been back in Nebraska for a little over a month now, but our paths hadn’t crossed. It was bound to happen eventually since he worked with Drea at the dance studio she managed in Astaire. But the thought of seeing him terrified me. What would I say? What would he say? He’d lived an entire life in the last five years while I… I had withered away into a shadow of my former self. I wondered if he would even recognize me.

I clicked on the thumbnail to expand the most recent image in his grid. He was standing next to his brother—I was pretty sure it was Tyler, though all three of them looked alike—holding a baby in his arms and beaming from ear to ear. There were several images in the post, and as I scrolled through, it became evident that TJ had become an uncle.

He’d make an excellent uncle. Or dad, for that matter.

My heart twisted at the thought and I ruthlessly shoved it away before it could send me into a downward spiral that would take me weeks to recover from.

The microwave beeped, and I closed the app, shoved my phone in my pocket, and pulled out my soup. I stirred it, testing the temperature before carefully carrying it over to the island. Once settled, I pulled my phone out and was debating between pulling up my book on the Kindle app or finding something to stream on Netflix when it buzzed with an incoming text.

Drea

We’re having a bonfire next weekend. You in?

I considered my answer. I wasn’t in the mood for socializing, and Steven hated hanging out with my friends. But I hadn’t seen any of them since Mandy’s baby shower in June, almost three months ago. And if Steven wanted to be a pain about it, I’d just go by myself. It was probably better that way anyway.

Sure

Really? I thought I was going to have to beg

lol. Unless I’m still not over this cold, I should be there

Yay!

Sorry about the cold though. That’s a bummer

Eh. I’ll live

You better!

I’ll text you later in the week with details.

Sounds good

I guess I had plans next weekend. And maybe I wasn’t feeling as antisocial as I thought.