Promise Me (8 page)

“Are you enjoying the party, Jack?” one of the blondes cooed at me, pulling me back to the moment as she started to move into my personal space.

“Hey, so I guess you know my girlfriend,” I said, instead of responding to her question.

She mouth turned down as she said, “Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, Alyssa Walsh. I think you all are in the same house,” I said, gesturing to their letters.

Sara instinctively grabbed her necklace and beamed at me. “Your girlfriend is Alyssa?! Aww, we love her. She’s the best!”

“She’s pretty great,” I agreed as I finished the last of my drink. It was time for me to head on home.

“She’s so amazing,” the redhead agreed.

The blond looked irritated, but she was at least trying to hide it as she said, “Yeah, totally.”

“She sure is,” I told them. “In fact, I have plans to meet up with her, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take off.”

“Already?” Sara questioned. “But the party’s just getting started.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m completely lame. I know,” I said, turning to Cullen before any of the girls had a chance to say anything else. “Have fun, and call me if you need a ride.”

He nodded. “Will do, man. See you later.”

As I started to look for a way to get through the wall-to-wall people, I heard Cullen ask, “Did Kate come with you?”

Poor guy. He never knew when to just let it go.

“No, she had to work tonight,” Sara told him.

“Oh yeah? Where does she work?” Cullen asked brightly.

I didn’t hear Sara’s response, because I was too far away by the time she answered. I wasn’t really all that interested in the place her roommate worked anyway. I had more important things to think about.

A few hours later, I got a text from Alyssa letting me know her friend had just dropped her off at my apartment. Micah and Cullen were still out, so we’d have the place to ourselves – a rarity for our cohabitated living situations. But mine was at least better than hers. Lys lived in the AKPi house, and they had a strict ‘No Boys Allowed’ rule. I could visit her in the main rooms of the house, but I couldn’t set foot upstairs. That was why all sleepovers happened at my place – much to the annoyance of my roommates at times.

I turned off my desk light, leaving my notes open so I could easily pick up where I’d left off, and got to the door right as Alyssa was knocking.

“Hey babe,” she said, sounding a little drunk. I was glad she hadn’t driven.

“Hi,” I said as she fell into my arms and giggled. “How was the show?”

“Amazing,” she said as she looked up at me adoringly.

As I reached over her to shut the front door, I felt her hands land on my chest. She let them slide down in what I’m sure she thought was a seductive move, but it was honestly a little rough and clumsy. It reminded me that I was stone cold sober, which wasn’t always enjoyable when she was wasted. I could handle it when I had a nice buzz going, but any other time it kind of annoyed me.

“Lys, don’t,” I said as she started to unbutton my jeans.

“No,” she said with coy a smile as she slid a hand into the front of my boxer briefs, making me jump.

“Come on, babe, not here,” I told her as I tried to pull away from her.

She shook her head as her small hand gripped me in the way she knew I liked. When she started to apply just enough pressure to make me rethink what I’d said, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. My shoulders relaxed and some of the tension I’d been feeling as I’d torn through Microbiology and then had switched gears to Human Physiology ebbed away.

“You’re so stressed, Jack,” she cooed as she massaged me, and I let my eyes close, reaching out to grip the doorframe so I wouldn’t lose my balance.

“I’m a little stressed,” I admitted.

“That’s because you’re so smart, and you work so hard,” she said as her other hand joined the first, and she pushed my jeans down as she sank to her knees in front of me. “I’m so proud of you, babe. Let me show you how proud I am.”

“By sucking me off?” I questioned jovially, looking down into her big brown eyes that met mine with a need I couldn’t ignore.

I watched her tongue dart out to lick the drop of pre-cum that had formed on the tip of my dick, making me shiver.

“Exactly,” she said as her tongue swept across me once more, and I closed my eyes, the desire to lose myself to her ministrations was all I really wanted to focus on.

“We should go to my room,” I told her half-heartedly.

“I’m good here,” she said as she leaned forward and kissed me, her lips wrapping around and sucking just enough that it put my whole body on alert.

Damn, I wanted so much more, and she was kneeling there, ready to give it to me. That was one of the things I loved about her. She knew exactly what I needed, even when I didn’t know. Fuck, I didn’t want her to stop. I wanted her to dive in and suck me until I came, but the very real notion that my roommates could come home at any moment, and they’d probably have girls with them, made me think twice.

“Lys, we need to go to my room. My beautiful, sweet, incredible girlfriend on her knees with my dick in her mouth is pretty much the last thing I want Micah or Cullen to see.”

She grinned. “They’d be so jealous.”

“Yes, they would,” I agreed, as I reached my hands out to her to help her stand. “Which is why we’re not going to let them see any of this.”

Begrudgingly, she did what I asked, and I hauled my jeans up before we headed back to my room.

Alyssa must have been feeling clingy, since she wrapped her arms around my waist as she walked behind me. “I love you, Jack Kinsley. Do you know that?”

I covered her hands with mine. “I do know that.”

“And you love me?”

“Of course I do,” I told her, knowing it was what she needed to hear.

Alyssa hadn’t really been loved as a child. We had that in common, and I knew there were moments when she was vulnerable and needed reassurance. I did what I could to give it to her, hating that she felt that way. She hadn’t gotten the opportunity to have a second family that loved her like I had, and I knew hearing things like ‘I love you’ and ‘We’re proud of you’ and even having your parents, or in my case, my aunt and uncle, be there to witness your achievements wasn’t something she was used to. Lys’s parents threw large amounts of money at her, but they hadn’t ever visited her at school since I’d known her, and I’d never met them. I knew she craved love more than most people, and she looked for validation wherever she could get it.

Before I came along, she’d gotten it through sleeping around. I was fairly certain I was the first guy to take her seriously, and she wasn’t used to it. It took me a while to break her of feeling like sex was something she owed me. I’d never thought of it that way, and I never wanted what we did to feel cheap in any way. I cared about her, and that was why I was with her – not because of her amazing oral skills, although they
were
fairly fantastic.

“And you want to be with me?” she asked me. I had a feeling the alcohol was making her more insecure than usual.

I turned to face her as we walked into my room, taking her hands in mine. “Of course I want to be with you,” I told her, firmly but gently as I held her hands against my chest.

Her eyes got wide as she gazed up at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Lys, where is this coming from?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I just want to know that we’re not going to break up. I know you have temptations everywhere, and I’ve been so busy with AKPi stuff lately. I just want to make sure you’re not getting distracted.”

She was crazy. I’d barely looked at another girl since we’d started dating.

“I’m not getting distracted by anyone,” I assured her.

“You promise?” she asked urgently. “Promise me, Jack. Promise me that we’re okay.”

As soon as she said that, I was a million miles away, in another town, with another girl, and my life was completely different than it was now. What she’d said had triggered a memory I hadn’t thought of in so long, and just hearing those words almost took my breath away.

You promise.

Those two words held more meaning to me than probably any others I’d heard in my life. It was what Kate and I used to say to each other when we were scared or worried or unsure about something. During the time we were friends, we must have said that phrase to each other a thousand times.

You promise you’re alright. You promise you’ll tell me if you’re dad ever hits you. You promise you have enough money to get groceries. You promise we’ll be okay.

We’d promised each other a lot of things, and for years I’d kept every single promise I ever made to her. But the one thing that still haunted me was the time I’d said those words to her and hadn’t been able keep my promise. It was the last night I saw her, the night things went to shit with my dad, and the night before he came back in a rage and killed my mom in cold blood while I was at school.

Kate had been so scared hearing my dad rant throughout our trailer and strike my mom again and again. Then we’d heard him come looking for me. I’d promised her that everything would be okay, that I’d be fine. I broke that promise the next day when I left her, because that day, I was far from fine.

“Jack?” Alyssa questioned, pulling me back to the moment.

“Huh?” I said, blinking a few times as I tried to focus on her standing in front of me.

I felt out of sorts. After not consciously thinking of Kate in so long, for the second time in a month, memories of my life when she’d been my best friend were at the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Why was I all of a sudden thinking about her after I’d forced myself to forget her so many years ago?

I didn’t even know where she was or what she was doing. Hell, it had been almost a decade since I’d seen her. She could be married, although knowing how pragmatic she’d always been, I figured that probably wasn’t the case. She was probably halfway through college, but where had she gone to school? Was she still in Indiana?  What was she studying? Why did I suddenly care?

I had a feeling my past was catching up with me, even though I swore I’d never let it do that. For eight years, I’d done everything I could to keep it at bay.

After I’d left Indiana and had started to recover from my life being ripped to shreds at the hands of my father, I’d forced myself to cut ties with everything that was related to that life. I just wanted to forget it all. And that meant I didn’t reach out to anyone, including Kate, figuring it was better that way.

I’d wanted to move forward. I had a new life that had been gifted to me out of the worst circumstances, but it was still mine. I was going to embrace it. And as much as it killed me to push Kate out of my mind, I did it. She was my old life, and the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of how things had been – even if it was just for the length of a phone call.

But she had been such a significant part of my life for so many years, practically my other half, that I wondered if my brain was trying to tell me that she was someone I’d never be able to truly let go of – no matter how much I wanted to. And I had a feeling that was because after all this time I didn’t know if she was even okay. I’d left her behind without a second glance, and that gnawing feeling in my gut that had been present for the past eight years likely wasn’t going to go away until I knew for sure.

Kate’s life had been almost as bad as mine. She didn’t have to deal with abuse, but she had a father who wasn’t in the picture and a mother who liked drugs more than she liked her kids. Because of that, Kate was practically a mother to her younger sister when she was just a kid herself. And while I’d been living with my aunt and uncle, getting a second chance at an awesome life, she’d likely been in the same place she’d been when we were kids, struggling with the same things she’d fought her whole life.

I suddenly felt like the biggest jerk. My allowance when I’d moved in with my aunt and uncle had been fifty dollars a week. A week! In the beginning, that was a crazy amount of money to me, and I’d socked away almost all of it for fear that I’d need it someday.

But why hadn’t I thought to send it to Kate? She could have used it more than me. I didn’t want for anything once I moved in with Aunt Deena and Uncle Rob. They provided everything I needed and then some, and that money just stayed in an envelope under my mattress until I opened my first savings account when I was fourteen.

Damn, why hadn’t I thought of doing something meaningful with it back then? I felt like such an asshole.

“Jack, where did you go?” Alyssa asked, staring at me in concern.

“I was thinking about this girl I used to know,” I blurted out, not thinking about how that would make her feel.

Alyssa’s expression clouded over. “You were thinking about another girl?”

“No!” I said quickly, but she eyed me skeptically. “I mean yes, but it’s not what you think. She was my best friend when I was a kid. Something you said made me think of her, and I was just wondering how she was doing.”

Alyssa was looking at me in confusion. “Why?”

“Because she had a hard life, and we lost touch when we were twelve. I don’t know what ever happened to her.”