Today's Promises (2 page)

As I sifted through the tattered, chocolate-smudged debris, my intention being to deposit all the trash in the little pail by our toilet, I got to thinking about the nightmare Jaynie had had that morning, just before dawn.

After I’d rocked her till she was no longer sobbing, she’d excused herself to go to the bathroom, where she spent an exorbitantly long time.

It only took me a minute to put two and two together.

I didn’t mention anything to her that morning. And I still haven’t.

Shit, I understand. Hoarding food doesn’t sound so weird once you’ve experienced true starvation. And starve we did at our last foster care home, especially during the final two months.

Remembering the hard times, I promptly helped myself to a candy bar that morning, despite the fact Jaynie had, minutes before, yelled into the bathroom that our landlord, Bill Delmont, who also happens to be our employer, had breakfast waiting for us downstairs in his sandwich shop.

But enough of all that.

I’m brought back to the present when I hear Jaynie drop something in the bathroom. Scrubbing a hand down my face, I’m torn over how best to help her. It’s hard to help someone, I’ve found, when your own life is a freaking mess.

I hear Jaynie tearing open a candy bar, and I mutter, “Fuck.”

Rolling to my back, I rest my arm over my eyes. I’ve eaten plenty lately, but my stomach, as if on cue, begins to rumble. It’s like all this thinking about starving has reminded me of what it actually feels like to go days without food.

We are still both
so
fucked-up. Will we ever heal?

“Fuck it.” I throw back the quilt and head toward the bathroom. “Jaynie…” I rap on the door, once, twice, three times. “Let me in. Please.”

The door opens slowly, revealing my broken girl. She stands before me, a half-eaten candy bar in one hand and chocolate smudged all over her chin.

“Busted,” I say. I’m trying to tease her to lighten the mood, but it sounds lame and pathetic.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

I reach out and, using my thumb, wipe away evidence of her binge. “Don’t be silly. There’s no need for apologies. I was only kidding around.”

“All right, Flynn.”

When my stomach growls again, there’s no hiding I’m in the same boat as her. We’re like Pavlov’s freaking dogs, I swear.

“Hey,” I say softly, “think you could spare one for me?”

Smiling for the first time since I caught her red-handed—or chocolate-chinned, as it were—her deep green eyes sparkle.

Pulling me into the bathroom, she says, “Just get in here, Flynn.”

We spend the next ten minutes gorging on chocolate. And the reason is simple—when you’ve lived the lives we’ve lived, all within eighteen short years, you don’t take chances.

You cover your bases. You live prepared. You eat when you can since you never know when the food might run out, or when it will be withheld from you.

The bottom line is that you absolutely
must
be ready for things to turn bad, because they always fucking do.

“Hey, can I have another?” I ask as I polish off candy bar number three.

Jaynie hands me five more and then wisely suggests I look for a spot to hide four of them.

“You know,” she says, shrugging, “in case my stash ever runs out.”

“I’ll find a good place,” I promise her. “And then I’ll let you know where it is.”

“You do that, Flynn,” she replies, her eyes holding mine. “But after you tell me, don’t let anyone else know where you hid them. Like…ever.”

I nod, agreeing to her terms. Hell, it makes perfect sense.

What can I say—old habits die hard.

Jaynie

B
ill Delmont, who saved my ass the night I showed up at his door sopping-wet last October, has turned out to be a godsend.

Bill understands the downtrodden since he’s led a rough life of his own. He was once homeless, but the tide eventually turned for him. He now calls himself a successful businessman. And he is, too; he owns the sandwich shop in Lawrence where Flynn and I work.

He’s a really good man, the kind of guy who makes it his ongoing mission to give back. That’s why he was quick to give me a job at the Delmont Deli, only an hour after I arrived.

He helped Flynn when he got here, too. In fact, it was the very next morning, during a big, delicious breakfast Bill had prepared, that he offered Flynn a job manning the counters and cleaning up around here.

Flynn accepted. He and I divvy up shifts, usually working on alternating days. We were hoping to work together to make double the wages, but a sandwich shop this small, located in a tiny West Virginia town, is not nearly busy enough to justify two employees behind the counter at any one time.

It happens sometimes, but not on any regular basis.

That’s why this afternoon, while I’m working my shift, wiping tables in the front of the shop, Flynn is at the counter in the back, perusing the local want ads in the newspaper.

Bill offered Flynn use of his computer to conduct a search for higher-wage and more-hours employment, but he declined. He believes he’ll have better luck with the local paper.

When I asked Flynn why he thought the paper would be a better option than checking online, he told me, “Not too many guys searching for the type of work I’m looking into have access to a computer. Some companies post jobs online, sure, but a lot of the local places know that to get a ton of applicants, they better damn well invest in a good old-fashioned want ad.”

“Makes sense,” I replied, nodding.

After I finish wiping down the last of the tables, up by the big picture window facing the street, I head to the back of the shop.

Plopping down on a plushy chair behind where Flynn is still perusing ads, I ask, “Any luck?”

Spinning his stool to face me, he rubs his hands down his face. “Eh, I don’t know. There aren’t as many listings as I’d hoped.”

“No good leads, then?” I ask, deflated.

“Actually,” Flynn says, perking up, “I did see an ad for a pretty decent construction job. It’s Monday through Friday, nine to five. Good wages too, babe.”

“Well, that sounds promising,” I cross one jean-clad leg over the other. “Where is this promising new job?”

Flynn lowers his gaze, like he knows I’m not going to like the answer. “Uh, it’s over in Forsaken,” he says.

I make a face. I
don’t
like that answer.

Forsaken isn’t far, but it happens to be the town we ran away from. And frankly, I have no intentions of ever going back. I don’t want Flynn hanging out over there either, whether it’s for work or whatever reason. He was stuck in that blasted town the entire time Mrs. Lowry was blackmailing him.

“That place holds too many bad memories,” I mutter.

“Jaynie…” Flynn peers over at me, growing frustration clear on his face. “We could still live here in Lawrence. You’d never have to step one foot in Forsaken if you didn’t want to.”

“And I don’t,” I scoff, shaking my head.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?”

“Well, for one, how do you intend to get to work all the way over there every single day? It’s not like we own a car.”

“And we’re not
ever
going to own a car, Jaynie. Not if I can’t land a job paying more than working the counter in this place.”

I sigh, accepting the truth. “You do have a point,” I reluctantly admit.

Even though I hate, hate,
hate
the idea of Flynn working over in that wretched town five days a week, his argument for taking the job is valid. We’ve discussed it numerous times, and the fact remains that unless we plan on living in the single room above the sandwich shop forever, and unless we intend on relying on public transportation indefinitely, we need more cash coming in.

Flynn’s previously somber expression turns hopeful now that he sees I’m slowly coming around, albeit begrudgingly so.

“So here’s what I’m thinking…” he begins.

I can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he works out a plan. It’s endearing, one of the many qualities I missed about him the past four months.

“Until we’ve saved enough for a car,” Flynn goes on, “I’ll just take the bus. There’s one that heads over to Forsaken every morning and returns every evening. It couldn’t get any easier, Jaynie. Almost like it’s meant to be.”

Oh, he’s laying it on thick. And I’m not surprised.

Flynn won’t do this unless I support him. It’s the way we work. And for all the wheels and cogs to run smoothly in this relationship, we also don’t hold each other back. Despite my own misgivings, which are really my own damn issues, I buck up and make myself muster some enthusiasm for Flynn’s plan.

It’s the least I can do after everything he’s sacrificed for me.

“Yeah,” I say, my smile forced but present. “Once we have a car, even if it’s some old jalopy, you can use that to get to work. I’d imagine that’d save us a lot on bus fares in the long run, right?”

“There is that,” Flynn says, shooting me a winning smile.

I smile back.

Damn, I am so easy, always won over by Flynn’s charm. And how could I not be? The guy may have been dealt a bad hand in some aspects of life—like losing his brother at his dad’s hands and ending up in foster care—but he sure is blessed in the looks department.

He wows me every day with his beauty, inside and out.

“So,” he goes on, oblivious to my inner fawning, “you’re absolutely sure that you’re fully onboard with me applying for this job?”

“Yes.” I stand and go to him.

Wedging my body between his strong thighs, clad in faded jeans, I reach out and touch his shirt. It’s the same steel-gray color as his eyes.

As I give him a good once-over, I notice something. “Hey, you’re wearing the same clothes you had on when I first met you.” I narrow my eyes, but all in good fun. “Did you plan that to win me over if I bailed on this Forsaken job thing?”

“No, no way.” He shakes his head, the ends of his sandy-brown hair brushing the back of his tee.

“Your hair is darker,” I say, touching his face. “And this scruff on your jaw grows in thicker than it used to.”

“Faster, too,” he adds.

“Yeah,” I murmur.

I don’t mention all the other changes, some due simply to better nutrition. Flynn’s gotten much taller, and he’s stronger than the day I met him—
much
stronger. Working construction while he was stuck in Forsaken has given him broad shoulders and far more muscle mass.

I’m changed as well. I’m still thinner than I should be, but I do have boobs and an ass, finally.

Not starving sure does make a difference in a person’s appearance.

“Oh, the lives we’ve led,” I whisper.

“And to think we’re only eighteen,” Flynn replies.

Sighing, I admit, “Some days I feel so much older, Flynn.”

“Yeah, babe. Me, too.”

Placing my hands on his shoulders and feeling all the hard muscles flex beneath, I tell this man, “I love you so much, Flynn O’Neill.”

“I love you even more, Jaynie Cumberland.”

I touch my nose to his. “Mmm, I don’t know if that’s possible.”

With his hands trailing down to cup the curve of my ass, he murmurs, “When’s your shift done?”

Wrought with innuendo, I know Flynn wants me.

As for me… Well, I pretty much want Flynn all the time. And now is no exception.

“I have one more hour to go,” I say, brushing my lips suggestively over his.

He releases me and slips from the stool. Brow raised, he starts backing away. “Meet me up in our bed the second you’re done?”

“Yes, okay.”

“Good. Let me
show
you just how much I love you, Jaynie-girl.”

I let out a little groan. “Gah, Flynn. You can’t do that to me. Not now. Not when I have a whole other hour left.”

“It’ll go fast,” he says, winking as he spins around and heads for the stairs leading up to our apartment.

“It better,” I call out.

I spend the next hour counting down the minutes till four o’clock.

At 4:01 on the nose, I race up the stairs.

Five minutes later, Flynn starts to show me just how much he loves me.

And… Damn, I have no words.

He shows me again at 4:35, and then again at 5:04.

Oh, and once more at…

Oh hell, I think you get the picture.