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ALLIE
“Take the bed.” Jamal slouched down on a kitchen table chair he had brought up from downstairs. He tugged on a Redwood sweatshirt and closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall.
I arched a brow at him and threw a pillow at him, knowing how hard those wooden chairs were—I had sat on them too many times, crying my eyes out after Dad died. “You’re not sleeping on the chair, Jamal. You wanted me to stay over, so get in the bed.”
Jamal didn’t even open his eyes. “It’s fine, Allie.”
After sitting up, I rested my back against the headboard and crossed my arms. “You have football practice tomorrow. Just lie down. I don’t mind.”
Jamal opened one eye. “You’re not going to let me sleep, are you?”
I pulled the blankets open and pointed to the empty side of the bed. “No.”
He groaned inwardly and walked over to the bed. “I didn’t want you to come over so I could sleep with you,” Jamal said, sliding under the sheets with me. “I hope you know that. I mean, you’re hot as fuck, but …”
Turning on my side, I faced him. “Then, why’d you invite me over?”
There was awkward silence between us for a few moments, and then Jamal sighed again. “Because I knew you wouldn’t want to go back home and Imani is out with her family tonight.”
“How’d you know about that?”
He widened his eyes, the moonlight bouncing off them. “She wouldn’t shut up about it at lunch this entire week,” Jamal said.
My lips curled into a smile. “Oh yeah. I forgot that you sit with us.”
Jamal let out a quiet laugh. “Am I not that memorable?”
I playfully pushed his shoulder. “Stop it.”
After staring at him for a few moments, I gazed back up at the ceiling. I shouldn’t be here, but he was right. I didn’t want to go home to that big-ass mansion, knowing that Jace was out, banging Nicole at her house. But even now, how would I confront him in the morning? What would I freaking say to him?
“I want to be with you, Allie,” Jamal said.
Neither one of us could sleep, apparently. Maybe it was from the police sirens going off every five minutes or our racing thoughts.
“But I know that we can never really be together.”
I stayed quiet, not knowing what to say.
“Jace loves you,” Jamal said, his voice sounding so hurt. “He really does.”
My lips turned into a sour frown. “He doesn’t. He never did.”
Jamal turned toward me, the moonlight making his dark face glow. “I know that it might not seem like it. I know he’s treated you like shit these past two years. I know he does some shit that doesn’t make sense. But last night, he got so drunk that he couldn’t walk straight. I took him home and stayed with him the entire night as he puked and cried about how much he fucking loves you but can’t have you.”
Pausing, I turned my face toward him. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
Jace Harbor never cried, not even when his mother had died.
“Listen, Allie, I don’t know what’s holding him back, but I know that you know there’s more to him than who he tries to be in front of everyone. You’ve been hurt by him more than once. I get you’re pissed at him. I just wanted you to know that he still loves you.”
“Why are you trying to defend him?” I asked, brows furrowed together.
I wanted to hate the man in peace for everything he had done to me.
“Because he’s my best friend. I want to love you. I want you to smile again. But I see the way you are with him, even when we’re sitting at lunch. You want him, even after everything you’ve been through, and he wants you.”
“I don’t want him,” I clarified, balling the sheets up in my fist. “I don’t fucking want him.”
Jamal blew a breath out his nose in disbelief. “Look at me and tell me that, since sophomore year, you haven’t thought about being with him again. Tell me that you don’t wish things were different between you two.”
I glanced over at Jamal, fully prepared to tell him that I had been over Jace Harbor the second he broke up with me two years ago. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a sob. I slapped a hand over my mouth to quiet myself, so Marquis and his sisters wouldn’t wake up in the other room.
Jamal tugged me to his chest and shushed me. “I know how you feel about him. You don’t have to hide it from me.”
“You don’t … don’t deserve th-this,” I cried into his chest. “I shouldn’t be here …”
Jamal continued to stroke my hair, his breathing uneven and chest tight. I clutched on to him, my arms around his shoulders.
“You’re a really good friend, Jamal,” I whispered into his chest, relaxing once I finally calmed myself down enough. “You deserve someone wonderful.”
