Promise Me This (2 page)

Jessie

My phone hummed with a text from a friend. I turned away, avoiding Dex’s nosy gaze. He probably thought the message was from some new guy and I preferred to keep it that way.

Dating other employees at the shop was discouraged but not strictly against the rules. Dex had pursued me for a long while last year. I’d admit I found him charming and liked the attention, but didn’t want to step on any toes.

There was one time when I finally gave in, went for a drink and let him kiss me, but I knew it was all wrong. Dex on the other hand, wanted more, and it’d been an awkward few weeks of letting him down easy. I vowed to never date anyone at the shop again.

Customers were a different story, but still a bit tricky. That’s how I’d met the last guy I’d been seeing. He was Lila’s customer and had been to the shop a few times to get a series of skulls inked on his chest. He’d stop at the counter and chat with me for longer than necessary and then finally asked me out.

I had kicked him to the curb though, because he always seemed to have one excuse or another for cancelling plans. Still, he had some rad tattoos and piercings and was sexy and cute, I’d give him that. Not cute in a Nate kind of way—Mr. Pretty Boy with his full lips and eyelashes that fanned across those damn sculpted cheeks.

But I didn’t need some screw-up in my life, not when I was putting myself through college, one or two classes at a time, and nearing the finish line. I needed to get my fine arts degree, if for no other reason than to make my dad proud. He would have loved to see me graduate. Mom’s been cheering me on too, of course, but she knew what college had signified to him, since he’d never finished university himself.

My dad’s old buddy who worked freelance for several magazines advised me to get my portfolio together to send his way when it was ready. Then he’d see about getting me a gig. If I was good enough, I might get some more work thrown my way or even a full-time grunt job, just to get my foot in the door somewhere.

Even though these guys at Raw Ink were my people and we looked out for each other, eventually I needed to move on to a career that I loved. Or maybe I’d just do both. It would be hard leaving the shop behind.

While I was busy texting, Cory and Dex started a game of quarters with a couple of regulars who had sat down at the other end of the table. These two were forever playing something—flip the cup, euchre, Avery’s five fingers game, truth or dare, you name it.

Apparently already bored with the quarters game, Cory slammed down his cup. “Never have I ever . . .”

I rolled my eyes and Avery groaned. Here we go again.

Cory’s eyes zeroed in on Nate and then lit up. ”. . . Jumped off the side of the bridge.”

“You ass,” Dex said. “Had anyone in this group jumped off a bridge, they wouldn’t be here to answer your question.”

But then suddenly Nate raised his beer to his lips and took a long sip to disprove his point.

“Nate?” Dex said, his eyes alight with amusement.

“It’s called bungee jumping,” Nate said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Dude, you forgot that my friend here has no fear of death,” Bennett said. “Pretty sure he’s done it all.”

“Oh, I fear death,” Nate said. “But if that’s the way I had to go, flying sky high, with my heart practically clawing out of my chest, I’d take it. It’s the other ways of dying that scare the shit out of me.”

My ears pricked up at this revelation. I knew he enjoyed those adrenaline-rush activities but I never really wondered why or how he felt about them.

“Well fuck, I guess you’re right. The alternatives aren’t much better,” Cory said. “Drowning, being burned at the stake, getting the living shit beaten out of you.”

Something dark crossed over Nate’s features before it quickly passed.

“See my point?”

“So if I said . . .” Dex rubbed his fingers along his chin. “Never have I ever jumped out of an airplane?”

Nate picked up his beer, took a hefty sip, while everyone around the table busted up laughing.

“My turn.” A smile burst from my lips, because it was so fun to mess with Nate, especially when he was looking all smug. I’d have him guzzling his drink down in no time flat. “Never have I ever . . . gotten it on with somebody in the bathroom of Zach’s Bar.”

Nate narrowed his eyes at me. “Nice,” he said, before gulping down more beer.

Then he leaned over to whisper, “You’re just trying to get me drunk, so I’ll give you a peek at the monstrosity between my legs.”

I snort laughed. “You wish.”

His eyes held mine for a bit longer than was comfortable and I wondered if he was getting tipsy. I felt a tingle descend down my spine like cold fingers. What in the hell was that about?

Avery cracked up as two other guys at the end of the table also took sips.

“I’m proud to not have raised a cup to my lips,” she said and then high-fived me.

“Yeah, me too, babe,” Bennett mumbled.

“But I’d get it on in the bathroom with
you
,” she whispered loud enough for me to overhear. Bennett’s fingers curled around her neck and he pulled her forward into a steamy kiss. I looked away as my cheeks heated up. These two were too sexy for their own good.

Bennett had been a virgin before he’d met Avery but the guys at the shop rarely razzed him about it—in fact, I think most were in awe that he could last that long. It wasn’t something he’d kept hidden, and given the shop owner’s past history with Avery, everyone pretty much kept their traps shut.

We were a tight-knit group and I was lucky to have even gotten this job. It was hard enough lining up an artist’s job in this town and these guys didn’t play. They took on very few apprenticeships, but the requirements to work the front of the shop were just as rigid.

Oliver required his front desk staff to have at least one tattoo so we could counsel new customers about the experience. My tattoo, along with my prior office management experience and no desire whatsoever to become a future artist, was what sealed the deal.

I was told in no uncertain terms that my job duties were to be only as described. If I was pretending to want to work the front of the shop only to get my hands on an apprenticeship or to get up close and personal with the artists, I’d be out on my ass faster than it took to fire up a tattoo machine.

“Well, if we’re gonna go there, it’s my turn next,” Zeke, one of Cory’s motor-head friends who had been sitting at the other end of the table, said. “Never have I ever . . . been handcuffed while doing the deed.”

All the guys laughed after he added, “But I’d
like
to be.”

Nobody around the table moved until Cory finally raised his glass. Then I shrugged and stretched my beer to my lips.

Again there were chuckles from the group and in my side view I saw Nate’s eyes practically pop out of his head. Suddenly it seemed too crowded beneath the table, so when Nate shifted his leg against mine, even if by accident, I nearly crawled out of my skin. Holy Christ on a cracker, I had no idea why I was feeling unexpectedly overheated being near my perfectly square friend.

“Oh, this is getting good. I’m going to flip it on its head,” the friend sitting across from Zeke said. “Never have I ever cuffed someone during sex.”

Another snicker around the table sounded after he added, “But I’d definitely consider it.”

Again, Cory lifted his glass and then his eyes shot to mine. I shook my head. “Nope. Been the handcuffee, but never the handcuffer.”

Avery’s eyebrows lifted as she playfully elbowed her man. “Apparently, we need to get more kinky to keep up with this group.”

Nate looked to be deliberating something, darkness shadowing his eyes, until finally he raised the neck of his beer to his mouth for a sip.

One of the guys whistled but Nate kept his eyes cast down, as if embarrassed by what I’d think after that bathroom incident.

A line of heat stretched across my cheeks. Little did he realize that he’d only intrigued me
more.

Nate

Driving to my mom’s house for dinner, my thoughts turned to Jessie again. As soon as she admitted to having been handcuffed the other night at the bar, my fantasies had gone wild. Shit, part of me wished I had never been part of that conversation. The group had gotten stupid with that game before, between drugs of choice to favorite sexual positions, but even those exchanges hadn’t done to me what this one had.

I was comfortable with keeping Jessie as my buddy, because she’d never allow me to get close anyway. When her phone pinged with a text, most likely from her latest boyfriend, I got this funny feeling in my stomach like I always did. I wanted to protect her, like a good friend should. No way did I want her with any hard-asses—especially ones who might take advantage of her. I knew she could hold her own, but maybe my mom had thought so at one time as well.

And maybe when you spent a lot of time with a monster, it changed you. Made you afraid, sucked out your goddamn soul.

But sitting across from her that night at the bar made me edgy and horny and hard as fuck. I hung out longer than normal just so I could get my dick under some semblance of control, but it only made things worse each time our legs accidentally brushed beneath the table.

Who was I kidding? A girl like Jessie—the way she’d talked to the guys from the shop? She wasn’t going to take any shit and certainly not from a guy like me, which was why I never hooked up with anybody in front of her before.

She’d give me the business, already did in her own way, and I liked having her as a friend. But I could tell she loved it when I gave it right back. We could ping-pong off each other and I could explore a healthy way to be around a girl. For once.

Still, since that night at the bar, I hadn’t gotten any kind of release except from my own damn hand while I imagined her beneath me, tied to the fucking bed. And every time she’d text me with a bridge question this week, I pictured us way up high on that blue viaduct getting it on for the entire world to see.

I turned the corner into the Waterford Development and then pulled into the shallow driveway up to the house. I grew up in what someone like Jessie might consider a huge-ass mansion. We all drove nice cars and had high-end gadgets but I’d give it all up in a heartbeat if my mom finally announced that she’d leave my dad’s ass.

As it was now, the tension was at an all-time high when we were all in the same room—it was almost like Dad knew that since I’m an adult, I could take him down with one punch. That we were all just toeing the line to keep up appearances. But having my asshole brother there only fueled the fire.

My father still travelled quite a bit for business so tonight it was just the three of us. My mother often arranged dinner for my brother and me when he was gone, probably because cooking helped her relax. She seemed more like her true self when she wasn’t under my father’s thumb.

I always made sure to show up early so my brother, Luke, didn’t do some stupid shit like egg her on or make her cry. He was turning into my father with every passing year and it twisted my stomach inside out to witness it.

Especially since it had always been me and Luke who had cowered together on the edge of our beds listening to the fights, the anger, the crying. Now, it was as if that experience had hardened him as much as it had softened me. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. But suddenly the two of us were as different as night and day.

Luke pulled in behind me in his ridiculous mini-Hummer like he’d been off to war or something. Those cars were stupid as shit and only made him look like more of a meathead than he was. He was in his senior year at Rockwell University and was on the winning football team. He was a linebacker and huge as fuck. I thought I was built—but then I’d visit him in the weight room at his private Ivy League school and feel small in comparison.

He walked through the garage behind me and mumbled, “Gotta make this quick, picking up Anna in a couple of hours.” Anna was his latest girlfriend and I’ll admit it, their relationship made me nervous. Every time he’d bring her around, I’d check for signs of intimidation or manhandling. Anything that would give a clue that he’d finally crossed that line. I had no proof, just a niggling feeling and a mind-numbing dread that plagued me regularly.

My mother stood in the kitchen nursing a tall glass of wine. Her blond hair was up in a messy bun, so I knew she’d been working in the garden. She loved planting fresh herbs and root vegetables.

“Hi, Mom.” I took two strides forward and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you’re cooking smells good.”

“It’s chicken divan.” Mom was a fantastic cook and was always trying out new recipes. Before she married my father, she’d been a chef for a catering business. I figured if she ever left this marriage she’d have no problem finding a job again.

“You know,” I said. “There was a sign in the window at this culinary school on Front Street. They were looking for someone to teach cooking lessons to a kids’ group.”

My mother’s back became rigid. She had never been allowed to work outside of the home. Only to volunteer for charities or women’s groups.

“What the fuck does she need a job for?” My brother’s voice boomed a little too similarly to my father’s. Luke always seemed angry when it came to my mother. I didn’t know what the hell that was about, though I had my suspicions. I knew he saw her as weak, and probably saw all women that way.

But I thought my mother was strong to have survived all that she had. I just wish she had that final bit of strength it would take to ultimately walk away. The problem was that she still loved my father–-at least whatever fucked-up version of love she thought she felt.

But fear was not love, that was for damn sure.

“What the hell, Luke? Keep your voice down,” I growled and balled my hand into a fist. “Mom used to be a chef in another life, remember? Maybe she’d enjoy doing it again.”

“C’mon man, a cooking school?” he said as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “That would be like taking a step down.”

I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Listening to my brother speak was like a precursor to the way his life would lay out before him. How in the hell had he travelled so far off course?

“Boys, that’s enough,” my mom said in an exasperated voice laced with anxiety.

She was always afraid we’d get in a fistfight like we used to on many occasions growing up. Dad always encouraged it, said it would toughen us up.

I grabbed the red wine off the counter, filled up a glass, and chugged some down. If I had to spend more time with Luke, I’d need it. “When does Dad get back in town?”

“On Thursday,” my mother said quietly, almost reverently, and that made my stomach lurch.

I studied my mother’s tight smile, pale skin, and her light brown irises, same as mine. The little lines that had begun to form around her eyes and forehead, probably brought on early because of him. Her slightly crooked nose and forefinger, all telltale signs of how much of a monster my father had been. I knew she’d taken his wrath for us too many times to count and I wondered what deep-seated fear or need or principle kept her chained to this house and this marriage, now that we were grown.

The rest of the dinner was peaceful. My mother liked to deflect attention from herself so she always asked tons of questions to keep us talking. My brother could go on for hours about his damn self, same as my father. So she inquired about football and classes and about Anna—definitely about Anna. And I could see the same thought process, the same questions I had about how he was treating her, how they were getting along, ticking through her brain.

After Luke took off it was just my mother and me and we sat at the kitchen table playing a game of rummy. This was our thing. We’d play cards and talk about
almost
anything under the sun.

“So what do you think of Luke’s new girlfriend?” she asked, straightaway. I could tell it was something that was concerning to her.

“She seems nice.” I shrugged. I didn’t say what was on the tip of my tongue. That she seemed too nice for him. But my mother knew the score and probably had the same thought. “I just hope he—”

“Honey.” She cut me off before I could get my sentence out. Maybe it would’ve been too painful for her to discuss, to admit about her own child. Which is one of the reasons I kept myself in check. I didn’t want to see that same look in her eyes. “I can’t wait for the day you bring a girl home.”

I shook my head and smirked. “Sorry to disappoint you, Mom. I’m not sure if that’ll ever happen.”

Sadness filtered through her eyes. She was innately attuned to me, aware of my struggles, but she rarely spoke of them out loud. “Why would you say that?”

“Mom . . .” I laid down a pair of aces and looked her in the eye. “I think you know why.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her hand reaching across the table to rest on mine. “If only I’d—”

“Don’t you make any excuses for that bastard,” I said, through clenched teeth.

She inhaled sharply and squeezed her lids closed.

“Why do you stay?” It was a question I hadn’t asked her in years.

When she opened her eyes, I saw moisture gathering in the corners. “Honey, lots of things happened during a very stressful time in our marriage. Raising children is tough. Your father . . . he didn’t handle it very well.”

“C’mon, Mom,” I said, smacking my hand on the table and startling her. Shit, I needed to get my resentment under control. “Are you seriously trying to tell me it’s not still going on?”

She shook her head adamantly. “Not in a while.”

I didn’t know if I believed her. She might say anything not to have me worry.

“Then why are you still . . .” My eyes darted around the house. “. . . sticking around here. Not doing other things that you love?”

Her eyes crinkled in panic. I got her there. She was still being the dutiful wife.

“I like being married to your father,” she said sweeping her hand about the room. “This lifestyle suits me.”

I took a deep breath and attempted to rein in my irritation. “You’re so much more than . . . all of this.”

We were quiet, staring past each other, lost in our own thoughts. I wasn’t sure if or when she’d ever see that. That she had so much more to give. Outside of this house. This community. This marriage.

“What about all of his out-of-town trips?” I had always suspected my father had kept other women. Maybe even took them on these business trips.

“He works hard, Nate,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “You know that—”

“Mom,” I squeezed her hand so she’d look at me. “Let’s be real here.”

“I don’t think so, Nate.” Why did this woman hold her cards so close to her vest? It made me want to shake her and rescue her all at once. “You still love him?”

“Y . . . Yes.” Her voice caught on that word and that alone told me so much. That she struggled to love him. That there was a fine line between love and hate. That she still saw some redemption in him—somewhere, somehow—and I just didn’t get it after all of this time. “Does he feel the same way?”

Her eyes filled with shiny tears. “Of course.” But her words came out like a plea. A hope. A prayer.

“Mom,” I said, squeezing her hands. “I hate to see you cry. I just . . . want you to be happy.”

“Now you listen to me.” She dabbed at her eyes and straightened herself. “I want you and your brother to finish college, find decent jobs, and make it in this world.”

“If that’s why you’re . . .” The idea that she’d stick with him even after we’d become adults made me see stars. “I’d make it on my own, Mom. I’d leave the keys in that damn car out there and walk back to school.”

“Stop it. You’re so close,” she said, gripping my hand. “You deserve the education he’s providing you.”

I stared into her eyes. Would she leave then—after I got my shiny diploma? Or would she find a new excuse to stay?

“What about you?” she asked suddenly.

I blinked slowly at her. “What do you mean?”

“What are you so afraid of, honey?” she asked. “Why won’t you let anybody get close?”

“Like I said before, I think you know why,” I said and she waited me out, her eyes on me. “What if I’m just like him?”

“You’re not,” she responded immediately. Vehemently.

“But what if I am?” I mumbled, my stomach recoiling at the words.

“Honey, there are so many differences between the two of you.”

It was true that my brother was the golden son. He was more like my father—more like his buddy, actually. They’d watch sports together while I was more interested in building Legos. In fact, I had an entire cityscape erected in my bedroom. I’d always loved construction and design, even back then.

This one year, I begged my mom to take me to the Frank Lloyd Wright museum and I marveled at the blueprints and the modern lines of the houses. I always knew I wanted to do something with structures, either building or planning.

I saw there was a program at TSU that seemed to fit my plan. I chose to attend a large university as opposed to a private college, to my father’s dismay. But by then, he was already beginning to lose me. My respect. My fear. And he knew it.

“You dated Bethany for a long time in school,” my mother said. “You were so sweet on her. It could happen again.”

She smiled remembering my high school girlfriend, while I cringed. The summer after graduation, we were carefree and in love, having sex whenever we could be alone. But there was that one night that ruined everything.

We were experimenting with different positions and I got too comfortable, too in the moment. She let me handcuff her, which was so arousing, and during sex, my hand came down hard on her ass, once. Just once. But that was all that it took. She yelped and cringed and looked back at me with surprise and fear in her eyes.

She knew about my father. She was the only one who knew.

Our relationship ended shortly thereafter. Something had changed between us that night. I had let her get a glimpse of what was inside of me and she hated it, was terrified of it. And I knew I needed to bottle that shit up right then and there and never allow it to consume me.