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He doesn’t like going into his office after dark, not until he absolutely has to.
The soft, bubbling light of the tank illuminates the inside of the salon, along with the slanted shadows fighting back against the streetlights casting in from the parking lot. It’s just his tiny Esteem out there now, its yellow form a little duller in the late evening, all alone.
Jimmy really should be in bed. If you could call the collapsible torture rack with a single balding sheep’s worth of wool on the frame a bed. Anyway, whatever it could be classified as, he should be in it, since the Financial Times wasn’t going to run itself tomorrow morning, and he could really do without his brother thinking any less of him. It might dip into the negatives.
But the thought of going back there—of padding down the hallway in socked feet to meet a dingy, grimy cube filled with roadside furniture, thrifted suits, and a water heater that for once might be merciful and explode, taking him as collateral—wasn’t very appealing. So here he’s sat; on creaking faux leather that over a thousand butts have seen, nursing a plastic cup of stolen cucumber water in one hand and twirling his cell in the other.
It’s funny, the way he can’t remember the last time someone called him. He supposes it might’ve been one of the odd half dozen companies calling about bill collection (as if the mail wasn’t enough), a telemarketer? Maybe? Definitely not any clients. Then naturally, he starts thinking about who he could call, not just at this late hour, but in general. He doesn’t like seeing Chuck’s contact, an old phone he doesn’t even have now, no possibility of returning his calls at all. Jimmy can’t bring himself to delete it.
And finally the conclusion he’s always left with—Kim. A smile pulls at the lines of his face involuntarily, remembering nights filled with the side of his face growing warm, cradling the tinny sound of her voice against his ear, pinning it there with an awkward head lean and a raised shoulder as he sorted his laundry or got something out of the fridge or any number of the evening rituals he took her along with. Or, when the clock crept closer to the AM; laid out on the pillow beside him, turned down low, hand dipping below the waistband of his boxers, body taut and hanging onto every word that crackled out of the speaker. His chest twinges at the thought—they haven’t done that in a while.
But it was getting late, and he was liable to do something stupid. Maybe he would just wallow some more, feel a little sorry for himself in this dark, open room, swallowed whole by the acrid smell of acetone, staring at the wall of winking glass bottles filled with sickening amounts of color. He thinks about what shade Kim might be wearing now, if any, and he tries to remember the glint of her nails the last time he saw her.
He takes another sip of cucumber water and it goes down a little cold, like the kind of cheap pilfered beer him and Marco used to sneak from the shop, the taste lacking but the distinct zing of getting away with it giving the drink an irresistible bump, something he can’t describe except in the simple way that it felt good, to get away with something. He wonders if Mrs. Nguyen might start marking the side of the glass at the end of her working hours, just like Chuck used to do when he came back for the holidays, with Jimmy trying to hide a hangover while his older brother made a face at the watered-down wine that paired so wonderfully with Christmas dinner.
The memory brings a small smile out. He wonders if he’s ever grown out of that scruffy-haired kid in Chuck’s eyes, and a pang hits squarely in the chest at the thought. He hopes he’s tipped the scales a little with a decade of putting his head down and following along the straight and narrow. But who knows. Chuck isn’t exactly forthcoming.
The faint scrape of wheels on asphalt draws his eyes away from the blank wall, wondering idly if someone took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and needed to turn back, or if one of the salon ladies forgot something that was just too important to ignore till morning, but to his absolute surprise, it wasn’t a stranger’s car—in fact, it was Kim’s, pulling right into the spot next to his.
“Kim?” he says to the air around him, as if she could hear him yet. Jimmy almost wanted to wipe his eyes, to pinch himself, wondering if maybe his wishful thinking had gone a little too far and he might need to start seeing someone. It could run in the family.
The muted click of the car door opening held him in a sort of quiet disbelief, a gripping state of limbo, and while he’s seen desert mirages—he desperately hopes the sixer in her hand and the slumped, tired line of her shoulders is real. That she’s here, that she’s choosing him, if only for an evening.
He watches her make her way up to the door before he gets his body to listen, to open it before she knocks. But, well, he’s kind of in love with the way she looks when no one’s around. He tries not to think about the fact she’s in her work clothes, that she must’ve only stopped for a beer run before coming here.
Jimmy can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. She’s in front of him, just beyond the glass, with a few strands of gold spilling out from her ponytail, meeting his eyes with a sheepish quirk of her lips. Sorry I didn’t call, her eyes seem to say, and Jimmy’s already forgiven her.
The door opens with a jingle that seems odd at this time of night, displaced without the usual chattering of patrons and soothing, ambient spa music that plays on loop, and Kim’s smile turns into something more solid.
“Jimmy.”
“Kim,” he says softly, hoping his grin isn’t too wide, sidestepping the entryway to let her in, “Didn’t expect you to swing by.”
He should leave well enough alone, but he can’t help a small fishing expedition, a prod in the hopes of shaking something loose.
“Yeah, well,” She pauses. No dice. “Didn’t know if you’d answer.”
They both know he would have. It’s easier to not look directly at it, to ignore how far he’s willing to go for her. It’s a necessary, almost cruel type of kindness, something that allows her to be here at all.
“Beer?” She holds it up between them like a truce, the Shiner Bock label reflecting the faint blue light of the tank. Jimmy just feels better hearing it clink around, an echo of simpler times—of Kim’s ratty old couch of an apartment long past, of a steady buzz with a thrum in his chest that he couldn’t entirely blame on the alcohol.
“A woman after my own heart.”
“No.”
“No? C’mon,” Jimmy draws out the -on in an -ahn, “Who says no to a full set, free of charge?”
“Someone who doesn’t want to walk around looking like a preschooler’s finger painting.”
“You don’t appreciate my talented fingers?” He waggles his eyebrows for good measure.
Kim breathes out a tipsy little laugh, “That wasn’t even funny.”
“Tough crowd.” Jimmy says, but both of them are trying to talk around their smiles, sitting with the warm bubbly feeling that a couple beers bring.
“Bad material. You should take classes.”
“I’m a master improvisationalist.” Except it comes out more like improv-uhg-zation-uh-lihscht.
Jimmy lazily swivels his head to watch the massage chair beside him shake, though not due to the controls, but instead Kim’s unrestrained laughter. He can’t help but drink her in. The outside light casts sharp shadows along the lines of her face, eyes scrunching up in humor, and he’s sure he’s got some dopey look plastered all over him, watching her. She snorts a little, and she’s right, it wasn’t really all that funny—but if he can still make Kim Wexler crack up, he’s still got it.
His chest feels lighter than it has in months, the ever-present claustrophobic weight easing—like he’s Indy watching the ceiling close in on him, helpless to stop the spikes from dropping further and further, desperately wishing someone would pull the lever.
He hopes Kim wouldn’t have to stick her hand through a bunch of creepy bugs, though. Gross.
But it’s a pity, really, that she won’t let him do this for her. He knows she’s had a long day, a long week, a long year. Jimmy knows it all too well, the deep ache in his bones, the listless, frantic feeling of treading water, of needing to succeed. Of throwing himself at concrete walls, trying to find a crack, scuffed up and bleeding and calloused. Kim’s been doing it for longer, he knows. Kim seems to have done it all her life, handling it with a steel rod spine and shoulders that put Atlas to shame—so she deserves it, he thinks. More than anyone.
Can’t she see he would be happy to do this? Can’t she see he could control himself, that he doesn’t want anything more than to make her life just a little bit easier, to lift some of the weight—if only for a night.
After she quiets, she takes another pull of her beer, the last one in the pack. He watches it go down; her sharp jaw dropping, lips closing around the rim of the dark bottle, his eyes honing in on the moving tendons in her neck. Beautiful, he thinks, and suddenly feels like a voyeur.
He can’t look away. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but he knows it’s mostly him. Everything about her is so purposeful, so tightly coiled. He used to think of her as partly machine, but that implied a coldness he wasn’t comfortable with. She could be chilly, but that wasn’t her. She was a factory’s heart, burning coal and billowing smoke with embers for eyes, only resting when everyone else was home, powering their ovens and lights and televisions.
“Jimmy?”
Even the way she says his name, housed so familiar in her mouth, makes his body thrum. It reminds him of how lucky he is, how he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand it, because having Kim’s time and attention is like having solid gold by the tons, like he’s won the Powerball twice over.
“Yeah?” He’s drunker than he should be, but honestly, he can’t remember the last time his nights were filled with something other than using his last vestiges of energy to rearrange his sad little cube so that he could collapse face first into bed. No beer, no fun, no Kim.
“Still with me?” she says, lips wet and glistening in the faint light. Her voice is low, rumbling and buzzing in his ears, and even though she was more than an arm’s length away his senses were full of her, like his body knew it had been starved of her company and was now trying to soak everything in.
Beautiful, is all he can think, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and eyes still locked on her.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
O-kay. Maybe it was time to pack it in for the night.
“Yeah, ‘course,” he managed to get out, flashing a smile that hopefully came off as reassuring, but he could feel how loose it fit. He doesn’t like the melancholic feeling that bubbles up out of him from a seemingly endless spring, amplified by the late hour and long seeded emotions.
“Where else would I be?”
Sadness wasn’t a glove that fit him. Or maybe it fit too well, so skintight he couldn’t distinguish it from his own flesh; maybe he had memorized the back of someone else’s hand. He’d like to think he’s not a sad person to be around, the type that drags pity out like a limping dog, but he tries to avoid looking too closely into other people’s eyes on the off chance he’s wrong.
It’s late and he should be sound asleep. It’s late and he should be offering to call her a cab. It’s late and he doesn’t want this pocket in time to come to an end.
“I don’t know, Jimmy. You tell me.”
There is slight humor in her gaze, a shared, delicate thing bridging them together. There is nowhere else, she knows more than anyone. But it’s also open, an invitation to talk, something the inside of him both bristles at and desperately wants to sink into.
“You’re lucky I lost the keys to my penthouse,” he shies away, “Then where else would you’ve gone?”
“I would’ve had my personal chauffeur swing by to pick me up.”
She sounds like she’s built a white-shoe law firm instead of only working in one. Her upper lip curls, and he can suddenly see blue pinstripes in the edges of his vision. It’s too fun when she lets loose like this.
“Not a private jet? Where’s your sense of style?”
“Style? Have you seen the potholes out front? Try making that a runway. No, a private chopper would do it. Send up a flare and woosh,” she says, slurring a little, “Takeoff.”
Jimmy smiles at that, imagining her high above Albuquerque, in the night sky looking down at ants, HHM nothing but a blip on an unnaturally green slope. He wonders if she’s ever flown.
“Would they throw you a rope ladder?” he asks, thinking of Supercop, “Those look like a bitch to climb.”
Kim chuckles, “Not if I dangle off it.”
“Now that’s style.”
He’s missed this. It shocks him a little, how she puts things into perspective. How well he’s ignored the deep ache in his chest, how he’s been starved of light, fun conversation. Chuck does little more than make the divide in him grow wider, with each step towards his door Jimmy feels the years melt off; the man who dumps water into the sink and refills it with motel ice is actually a pimply sixteen-year-old dreading his big brother’s questions about what colleges he’s applying to.
They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, Kim finishing the last dregs of her beer, and Jimmy leans back, watching the fish swim idly. Their scales ripple in the water like sequins, with their long, ribbonlike fins trailing behind, performing an intricate dance as they move around each other.
“Kim,” her name falls out of his mouth, almost too soft to be considered intentional. He doesn’t know where he’s going with this. Or rather, he does, but the question seems to ask too much of her and he doesn’t want to be greedy. A voice sounds in the back of his head—she might not come back if you do that.
She hums in acknowledgement. He can feel her eyes on the side of his face, and maybe for the first time that night he has the nerve to catch them.
“Why’d you come over?” he says, and then realizes how that sounds, “Not that I mind. Really, It’s nice. This is nice. I mean, it’s just—well, you know it’s been a while.”
“I know.”
Kim’s gaze softens and grows sober. He doesn’t know why his skin feels too tight for his body, why his hands itch to do something. Jimmy’s gotten great at lying to himself, of shoving shit in a box and holding it closed and pretending not to realize what’s inside. It’s easier when you don’t know the weight of water, when it becomes so second nature to walk in clothes lined with sand.
He waits for her answer.
She takes a breath, “I don’t know.”
Kim sounds small and worn, thumbing the rim of the bottle. Her hands are pale against the dark glass, and Jimmy can see blue veins running up the inside of her arm.
“That’s not fair to you,” she says with a humorless chuckle, “But it’s true. I wasn’t planning on it.”
“But you drove here anyway.”
For some reason, that’s important to him.
“I did.” She pauses. “Actually, I passed by first. Saw your car. Didn’t know if you’d be awake, if you’d want the company. Stopped at the little corner store with the strung out cashier, and I just decided to chance it. I figured…I figured we deserved this.”
Jimmy doesn’t think so. If he’s one thing, it’s undeserving of her company. But he’s only so selfless, and whatever keeps bringing her back he’ll thank his lucky stars for.
He can’t help but grin, “‘Course we do. HHM’d burn to the ground without you, and I don’t think the universe will run outta public masturbators anytime soon. We got our work cut out for us.”
Kim looks up at him, the hint of uncertainty vanishing. He doesn’t know if anyone else would be able to tell, but all Jimmy wants is for her to feel reassured. Selfishly, so, so selfishly, he wants to be a safe place for her.
Jimmy knows he’s not the most stable person. His track record is far from spotless—and yet, Kim knows that. She knows that, and she’s here, and while he believes he’s something to be ashamed of, that maybe she wouldn’t let herself be seen like this in the cold light of day, what matters is he’s the lucky bastard sitting next to her.
“The good fight,” she says, dipping into an impersonation of their old supervisor, tipping her now empty glass up at him.
Jimmy snorts. Ron always loved to remind them where they sat on the totem pole. But there is a strange pang that comes along with it—simpler times. Except they weren’t exactly simple, but compared to now? Jimmy might’ve been figuring himself out in a strange, stark land, trying not to think about a county jail cell or tarantulas or Chuck sitting next to him like his kid babysitter, but at least things made some sense. He understood the concept of keeping his nose down and letting the whetstone wear it away year after year, even if he wasn’t very good at following it. He used to think it was a death sentence. And things did start to feel concrete after a while; he finally figured how to make a decent pot of coffee in the breakroom without it tasting like used motor oil, he caught onto a handful of Kim Wexler’s favorite movies, and he realized that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be a mailroom clerk for the rest of his time on this rock.
But after that, things got a little less clear. And now, even with her beside him like a living memory, he can’t seem to drag himself out of this. Jimmy doesn’t like acknowledging this, but sometimes…sometimes it hurts to look at her.
So here, he thinks, is where the night has to end. He’s indulged himself enough, and it’s late, late enough that if she doesn’t get home soon, she won’t get much sleep at all.
Jimmy feels torn. He doesn’t like making rules, dictating endings—he’s always let the other person do that. He lets them decide when they’ve had enough, because if you’d let him, Jimmy McGill would run with it.
If you weren’t careful, you’d have to keep him.
But he could soften the blow, lead her to the edge and let her cross it on her terms. A pinch of guilt follows him with the thought; she always has to be the one to leave, because he never will.
The plasticky leather squeaks as he gets up, legs swinging over the empty vat where water should be bubbling, softening his bare feet and draining years out of him. Jimmy stands with swaying legs, mobile again after what feels like hours, the beer warm in chest spreading through his extremities.
“Allow me to get that, madame,” he says, reaching for her bottle.
She huffs, “Madame?”
“My lady?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Your Honor?”
She rolls her eyes, “This better be a straight shot in the recycling, Counsellor.”
“Of course, we all need to do our part to make the world a better place.” He says while trashing the bottles, case and all. The glass clinks together at the bottom, too dark to see.
She still hasn’t moved. Jimmy watches her from across the room, feeling altogether like this moment is out of a waking dream. He wishes he could tell her he misses her, that he thinks about her in between motel ice runs and mind-numbing PD work (if he can even score it), and that he wants her to be a part of his day, every day. But he doesn’t, because she’s across the room. He doesn’t, because he wants to keep her.
“Water?” he asks her instead, ever the gracious host. It should be for her, but really, Jimmy just needs something to do. This liminality could kill him.
She nods, and he fills up a wide mouth cup for her, rimmed with green waves. He thinks Mrs. Nguyen picked them out to match the cucumbers, or maybe they were just the cheapest. Either way, they seemed to enhance the flavor.
“Perks of the digs,” he remarks as he hands her the water, trying not to shiver as their hands graze.
“The digs?”
“It’s important to keep up to date with slang terminology, Kim. You never know when a client might use it. Communication is everything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says lazily, taking a sip, “but this is after hours. Keep your digs to yourself.”
“Maybe I will.” he retorts, overly petulant and sticking out his bottom lip. “You’d come crawling back, I know it. Who’s Kim Wexler without a free round in the massage chair and a fresh coat of paint?”
“No one, apparently.” She says, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, a glimmer in her eyes. He misses being in on the joke, the easy camaraderie of her presence.
“Aw, I wouldn’t go that far.” He teases gently, soaking her in. This entire night has felt like the breath before an end of a sentence, the hesitant air of two people who want to stay when they know they should be going. Any excuse, any half-formed boneheaded thought that can make its way out of Jimmy’s mouth—it’s spoken.
But he’s ran out of things to say. Right now, he’s simply looking at her, and she’s looking back, watching him idly. Her eyes are glass, trained on him standing before her, and he wonders what she sees. Who is he to her?
Who am I to you?
He wants to ask. Has wanted to say for a long, long time, before he’d mostly trained himself out of it. Trouble is, he doesn’t know what answer would make sense, would satisfy him, would even reassure him at all. Jimmy used to think it was a courtesy to her, keeping his mouth shut and his feelings expressed in actions, a healthy amount of plausible deniability, no waves rocking the boat that was Kim Wexler—but maybe now he’s come to realize it’s for him, too. Maybe it is keeping him from an answer that they both can’t bear.
He breathes in, knowing this night is a rare indulgence he’ll be clinging onto for days afterward, if not weeks, and simply says, “It’s late.”
She considers him. Jimmy watches her eyes flash, looking altogether unfamiliar to him for a short moment. Or it’s been too long, and he can’t quite read her like he used to. He swallows under the weight of her gaze.
“It is.”
That, he can read. The ball is back in his court again, but he doesn’t know if he wants to press it. It’s tiring, being the one to draw the line in the sand. He doesn’t know how Kim does it; he takes one look at her and wants to cave.
He scratches the side of his neck, just under his jaw, the tips of his fingers grazing stubble, “Well…It’s, uh,” Is there a delicate way of phrasing this? “Thank you, for the beer—and y’know, the visit. It was nice, really nice, and we don’t get to very often, do we? Ever since—”
“Do you want me to leave?” she cuts him off, but his mouth is running a mile a minute trying to catch up with his mind. He doesn’t want it to end on this note, and he’s trying to keep down the urge to ask her to stay, but that stops him dead.
A sharp “No!” leaps out of him before he realizes how desperate it sounds. He flushes, and prays she can’t see it, “Kim, you…you know I don’t.” I never do. You’re the one that makes me.
She sighs, and Jimmy catches a glint of humor leave her—was she fucking with him?—before steeling herself. His shoulders bunch up in response.
“I know,” she says, but she doesn’t need reassurance. She says it like an acknowledgement, a fact written in the footnotes.
Now he’s the silent one, letting her work through her hypercompetent brain, giving her space. It’s quiet for a minute.
“Jimmy,” she starts, and then says very carefully, “I’m tired.”
“Well,” he can’t keep the smile out of his voice, “you’ll just have to stay, then.”
But really, he shouldn’t offer. An itchy sense of shame overtakes him at the thought of taking her past the rumbling monster of the washing machine into that cramped little cage, falling over himself to pull the bed out. He almost lets out a cynical laugh; it’s sad to think he had a better place to offer with mailroom pay.
“If you want to.” He quickly adds on, turning away from her. And to think, he’s spent how many nights in her bed wrapped around her but he can barely choke this offer out, can’t even look her in the eye.
“I do,” she says softly, and he glances over, “Thank you, Jimmy.”
His heart beats a little faster at her words.
“No problem. Not exactly a five-star hotel, though.”
Kim gets that look, the one he always thinks is going to be pity—humiliating, consuming pity—but it’s too complex to pin down. He fidgets with his hands, feeling wholly undeserving of this level of regard.
It doesn’t have to be. Her eyes say. Not with me.
She is silent, and though people might equate that with closed-offness, he knows the power behind it. He knows it well, because with it he feels the pull to fill it, to over explain himself and fill the gap with more and more words, because that’s where he derives his own control. But now, it takes his breath from him completely, and a comfortable silence envelops them both.
He leads her through the beaded curtain, finally ready for bed.
“Just…uh, wait a sec,” Jimmy says, as if she hasn’t seen how cramped it is, “It’s a process. If I don’t come out in fifteen minutes, assume the worst.”
Kim’s bottom lip pushes up, and she nods, “Gotcha.”
He flashes a weak smile before opening the door, taking a deep breath once it shuts.
Jeez, he winces. It somehow looks worse than when he left it.
Almost tripping over himself to clean up, he begins to haphazardly stack chairs on his desk in a careful balancing act. He then pulls the bed out with a sharp whine of metal, the drab couch cushions leaning up against the wall like a padded cell.
He digs the pillows out from his desk drawers, hoping they don’t smell too strongly of stale air and man-sweat. He should have just let her call a taxi.
Jimmy looks down at the wrinkled sheets, the fraying comforter tucked in around the edges of the thin mattress. He thinks about the last time he was in her bed, some lifetime ago, pressed skin to skin under her warm duvet.
He swallows, feeling a tightness in his chest. The room’s shadows make it feel so much smaller, creeping up around the edges of his vision, sure to swallow him whole. He doesn’t know how long he stares at it, but he can’t help but feel this meager offering sink into his bones, into the very core of him; this is all he has to show for himself.
He hopes it’s enough, at least for tonight. As for him, he hopes he doesn’t fuck up his back too badly on one of the massage chairs in the name of chivalry.
Before he can open the door, he hears two faint knocks, “Did you fall in?”
He pulls the handle, opening it as far as it will let him. He leans on the doorframe, pointing back with his thumb in a casual, lazy gesture, “Nope, she’s all yours. Casa de McGill welcomes you.”
Kim snorts, eyes sharp in the low light. Loose strands of blonde frame her face, hanging over her eyes in wisps of spun gold. Jimmy’s hands itch to tuck them behind her ears, even though that’s something he’s never done before. He can feel himself smile dumbly, because no matter how shitty it is, she’s staying.
“I can’t kick you out of your own bed.”
“Kim, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but uh, it’s about the size of a sardine can,” he laughs a bit self-consciously. If he logics it out this way, he won’t have to think about being pressed up against her, feeling her breathe and shift in the space next to him, “Uno ocupado, y’know? I’ll just take one of the chairs out front, they probably have more cushion anyway.”
She arches an eyebrow, “And get no sleep? C’mon, Jimmy. We both have early starts, and well,” she hesitates for a second, suddenly not as confident, but still finishes her point, “It’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
And promised not to do again.
He didn’t think she’d be this adamant about it, but yeah, if he looks closer—he sees the solid, stubborn edge of a Kim who won’t back down. She’s tired, worn down to the bone, but still arguing with him about what’s fair.
He can’t help but love her.
Which is why maybe this isn’t the best course of action. But as he stands in the silence after her words, he can’t find it within himself to object. Even though his feelings sit on the back of his tongue; he’s a weak, weak man.
“Alright,” escapes out of him, “but don’t complain when you end up falling off in the middle of the night.”
She smiles softly, “No promises.”
Jimmy breathes around the pit of nervousness lodged underneath his diaphragm. He feels it pressing up against his lungs, and if he’s not careful, it may kill him.
He steps back into the hallway, trying not to crowd her. He stares at the crinkled door sign, the yellowing tape holding it all together. James M. McGill Esq, it says. A Law Corporation. The edges of the ripped paper look like grinning teeth, all filled with cavities.
He looks away, trying desperately to not think about a dark closet deep in the cogs of HHM with Kimberly Wexler embossed on it. He’s heard she’s moved up the food chain since then, but he hasn’t seen her new office. He hopes it’s anything but the cornfield. He knows it’s nothing like this.
“Third drawer on the right, if you uh, wanna slip into something more comfortable.”
And what is he doing, offering up his bed and clothes and space knowing she’ll fit, knowing once she’s gone the room will feel colder, emptier. More of a shell than it already was.
She inclines her head in a silent thanks, or maybe just an acknowledgement. As if she knows she’s said it too much and too often, or rather, that she knows she doesn’t really need to thank him. Not for this, not for anything.
The door shuts softly, and he waits. He hears the rustling of clothes, the wooden drawer sticking, being difficult—because of course it is, he got it off the side of the fucking road. Something uncomfortable squirms in his gut, and he turns his eyes to the floor.
Jimmy wonders if she’s taking it all in, alone in an unfamiliar room meant for a familiar person. Wonders what she’s thinking, finally by herself for a minute. If her shoulders are slumped, if the buzz has worn off. But he doesn’t get to think about it for long, because the doorknob jitters, turns, and opens wide.
The first thing he notices is that her hair is down, spilling over her shoulders, strands fraying out like a tamed version of the beast he knows her bedhead can be. It frames her face softly, ends curling near the dip of her collarbone where the neckline runs a little low. And really, how could that shirt have ever belonged to him when she looks like this in it; the faded Cubs logo like a hand reaching through time—he wonders what a twenty-some Jimmy McGill would say if he knew he’d lent one of his old ratty tees to the woman he’d find himself in love with for the rest of his life.
Kim reaches down and pulls the hem away from herself, “No Royals, but…”
“Hey, it’s made it this far.”
It really has. For the first time in a while, he thinks of back alleys in Cicero, of sticky bartops and ice-bruised skin. He’s made this far, and he knows this because his knee barely twinges anymore and the drink on his tongue isn’t Old Style.
He’s surprised it doesn’t look as threadbare as he feels, like if he were to reach out and rub the hem it might crumble, dry-rotted and left out in the desert sun. Kim seems to breathe a new sense of life into it, and he swallows around the sight of her.
Her eyes crinkle around the edges, “Well, I’m beat.”
Jimmy huffs, “What happened to the days of threatening bodily harm over trying to fix your sleep schedule?”
“Whatever you were doing, it was not fixing my sleep schedule,” she says as she turns, retreating into the room. He follows hesitantly, almost a stranger in the place he’s carved out for himself.
“I didn’t hear any complaints.” His words come out pleased, smug in a way he has every right to be, but not overbearingly so. What can he say, those were some good times.
Kim snorts, rolling her eyes. Real classy, she seems to say, but doesn’t deny it. She plops down on the bed where Jimmy thinks—very quietly in his head—is her side. His stomach turns over, a staticky, fuzzy feeling clawing its way out, something he’s felt hundreds of times. It makes him want to reach out and touch her, makes him want to cup her face and draw her into a kiss. It’s the feeling he gets where his skin starts to itch, wanting more than anything to crush his body close to hers, to breathe her in and pretend that the outside is no larger than the four walls around them, that the world is Kim’s arms surrounding him.
She gives him a look like he’s being weird, so he smiles crookedly and shrugs, climbing into bed beside her. As he settles in, he feels too wired to sleep. Every point of contact is lighting him up, the length of their bodies splayed out from end to end.
It reminds him oddly of camping out in his backyard, crowded together with Chuck underneath his mother’s old linens, shoulder to shoulder huddled around an old lantern. His stomach feels funny, and that reminds him of old things too—of sneaking out the front door, feet crunching on freshly laid snow, breath turning white in front of him. Jimmy out in the cold, getting away with it.
Kim turns on her side, breaking the connection. He suppresses a shiver.
He can feel her eyes on him, and wonders what she sees in the shadows of his face. What she’s looking for, if anything. He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing in the low light.
She sure knows how to make a guy sweat.
“Cozy, huh?” he says lightly, staring up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the same pools of water damage night after night. One of them looks like a wonky footprint, the blotch trailing long in-between the panels.
She hums, and he finally braves to turn and look at her.
For a moment, all he can see is blue. It’s dark, sure, but the streetlights bleed through the glass blocks above them, lighting up the shape of her. They are both too big for the bed, and he almost laughs thinking about how they must look from the outside, like two kids fighting over the top bunk. Like two men in a foxhole.
But it isn’t all that funny, because if they were any younger, he’s pretty sure he would have closed the gap by now. Clumsily, with his heart in his throat.
Jimmy feels like an exposed nerve, like she can see everything inside him, all raw and gross and wanting. It’s what makes her a great lawyer, he knows. It’s what made Chuck a great lawyer too, one of the best. Still does.
He exhales shakily, trying not to look too closely at her dark eyes or soft mouth or warm body. It’s as if he doesn’t have permission, not anymore. His pupils flit from place to place, mapping the landmarks of her face in the dim light. The gentle slope of her nose, so close to his own he can feel the little puffs of air ghosting across his cheek. Her strong jaw, dipping into the expanse of her neck, pale and vulnerable. It’s hard to not love everything about her, even though it’s been months since they’ve had a real conversation and even longer since anything else, and now here she is; curled up next to him in bed, like a laid temptation.
Kim is steady as she’s ever been, silently watching him. Waiting, maybe, but it isn’t oppressive—he knows what it’s like when she really presses people, when she lets them hold their own funeral, when she cinches the trap shut around them. Still, he feels the urge to speak, pulled up and out of him by the intensity of her gaze. Talking just to talk, to fill the air with words so he doesn’t have to acknowledge by this time tomorrow, there won’t be a dip in the mattress beside him.
“See something you like?” he tries to joke, a halfhearted smirk creeping onto his face. It comes out choked around the edges, his dry throat stealing the humor from his voice.
“Jimmy…” It sounds like it hurts her to say. Her hand twitches where it’s placed near her side, but doesn’t go any further. He feels it cupping around his cheek anyway, feels her fingers brushing his hair out of his face with too much care. If only he could lean into the heat of her palm, he’d place a kiss on the soft underside of her thumb in gratitude.
“Yeah,” he sighs, smile tinged blue, “Yeah, I know. Goodnight, Kim.”
“Goodnight, Jimmy.”
His mouth wants to swallow the silence, to fill the air with meaningless words—Sweet dreams, he could say, don’t let the bed bugs bite. Anything to lighten this heavy load, this final sentence. But he doesn’t, instead, Jimmy looks at her and keeps looking until the pressure in his chest and the hook in his spine beg him to turn over. Goodnight Kim, claws up his throat, I’m glad you stayed.
He feels small, suddenly, which seems absurd in this tiny bed. A grown man going to work wearing his brother’s clothes, coming home and sleeping on a mattress fit for a toddler. He wants to laugh; he doesn’t know how she’s not, how they both aren’t shaking the room, aren’t bringing the walls down around them.
Jimmy curls up on his side, no longer facing her. It’s like having his back to an open flame, her warmth slowly leaving the front of his body as he stares at the worn wood paneling. He did it to give her some space, not because of the overwhelming weight of her eyes—eyes which were now digging into the back of his head, and the fire is climbing up him, he can feel it, so acute along the swell of his hip and rising to crawl between his ribs—
Until he realizes it’s her hand, tentative and searching. Is this okay, her thumb seems to trace out, the thin blanket doing nothing to shield him from her touch. He shivers, wanting to lean back into her, knowing he should be out there beyond the beaded curtain, trying to get comfortable on lumpy massage chair cushions.
There’s air trapped in his chest. Jimmy doesn’t know what to do with himself, and the seconds tick by in this quiet room, he’s all frozen up and she must take that wrong, because she’s drawing back and he doesn’t want her to leave, not at all, he wishes he could be better and do better by her.
Jimmy catches her hand just as she pulls back, and it’s molten where they’re touching, her hand so small in his own. Slender fingers wrap around his own, and he tucks them up against his side, slotting them back into place. Kim squeezes in his hold, and he squeezes back.
They don’t say a word.
He’s often wondered what would happen if they really talked to each other about this…whatever between them, it’s an old line of thought, something earmarked in the back of his brain, something that snags whenever she’s close like this. Too many false starts, too many gentle letdowns.
He closes his eyes, willing himself to calm the racing in his chest. It’s naked and vulnerable, with her head resting in-between his shoulder blades, the ridge of her nose against his spine. She should know what she does to him, she should feel his heart slamming against his ribs, hear his lungs rattling as he breathes.
Kim shifts, bringing her body flush against his back. She’s so warm. The tension melts out of him, and he surrenders, not caring whatever lines were drawn in the sand—it’s been so long they must’ve smoothed over by now, blown by desert winds. It’s safe here. No one’s watching, and they won’t tell.
Jimmy feels himself drifting off, his breathing evening out, a small smile lining his face at the thought of it matching her own. And while he’s sure she’ll be gone by morning, he’s grateful for the rest of this night, even if he won’t be awake to appreciate every hour.
It would be too much of a good thing.