Promise Me (33 page)

“To tomorrow night,” he said, raising his beer bottle to me.

I raised what was left in my glass of sangria and clinked it against his. “Vive la noche,” I said, remembering the phrase from the few years of Spanish I’d taken in high school.

“That’s what I was trying to say,” Jack said, nodding knowingly. “You always were smarter than me.”

“It’s part of my charm,” I said, mimicking him.

He just smirked adorably at me and shook his head.

Chapter Fifteen

Jack

“Jack Kinsley – what the fuck is up?” I heard Trey, one of my best friends from high school, yell over the Sam Hunt song blaring from someone’s car stereo as soon as I got out of my truck.

I was prepared to walk around to Kate’s side and let her out, but she’d already opened the door and was hopping down into the grassy field. I watched her take in her surroundings – the field that stretched out for a few acres to one side, and the tree line fifty feet away in the direction we’d come from, the bonfire in the middle of several trucks that had been backed in to form a circle so we could all sit on our tailgates. Coolers were placed in the back of each one, including mine, and everyone at the party already had a drink in their hand.

Kate and I were late, but as promised, Trey had saved me a prime spot. Outside of our friends from high school who were in town for the weekend, it seemed he’d opened the party up to anyone else who’d wanted to come, and I saw a lot of people I didn’t recognize who were likely friends with Theo, his younger brother, who was a junior.

“Hey man, it’s good to see you,” I told Trey as he met me at my truck and gave me a bro hug. “You doing alright?”

“I’m doing well, my friend. It’s good to see you too,” he said as Kate came around my truck to meet us. “And you brought a lady friend. Is this Alyssa?”

I saw Kate look confused as he said that, but she recovered quickly and said, “Hi, I’m Kate.”

“And I’m Trey,” he said, looking over at me in confusion for a few seconds before turning his attention back to Kate. Then he picked up her hand and kissed it as I rolled my eyes. “Welcome to my annual bonfire.”

Trey always had a smoothness with the ladies that would have made the rest of us look like tools, but he seemed to get away with it. Even Kate was giggling at his gesture.

“I’m glad to be here,” she said, giving him a wide smile.

“You look thirsty. Let me get you a drink.”

“Oh, we brought beer,” she said, gesturing to the cooler in the back of my truck.

“But I have wine. Would you like a glass?”

“Um, sure,” Kate said hesitantly, looking over at me.

“Drink whatever you want,” I told her.

“I’d love some wine,” she told him.

“I figured that might be the case. It’s all Tanya drinks, and she’ll happily share with you.”

“Tanya?” Kate questioned.

“His girlfriend,” I told her.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Trey interjected, “but whenever I’m home it becomes a more fluid definition.”

“Ah, got it,” Kate said. “And where is she?”

Trey turned and gestured across the bonfire. “See that dark-haired beauty swinging her cowboy boots back and forth under the tailgate.”

“Yes.”

“That’s her,” he said, waving to Tanya.

Tanya waved back, and then she smiled and called out, “Hi Jack. Welcome home.”

“Hey Tanya,” I said, because I knew her. She wasn’t one of my favorite people, but she and Trey had dated for three years of high school, so she’d been around a lot.

“I guess I’ll be back,” Kate told me.

“Have fun. Don’t fall in the fire,” I warned her, and she shot me a look that made me smile. I loved it.

Hell, I loved every look she’d given me all day. From seeing her first thing at the breakfast table when she’d looked all fresh-faced and excited for the day I had planned, to the smile on her face as I’d shown her around town, to her look of complete bewilderment when she’d come home to find the pair of cowboy boots I’d bought her to wear to the party. I knew she’d liked them when she’d tried them on, but she wasn’t going to buy them for herself. They were a frivolous purchase, and they weren’t exactly cheap. But she’d looked great in them, and I’d wanted to do something nice for her.

She had no idea I’d bought them, but while she’d been browsing in the flower shop next door, picking out a bouquet for my aunt to thank her for having us for the weekend, I’d ducked into the western store we’d just come from and bought them. Then I’d paid the kid behind the counter twenty bucks to deliver them to my aunt and uncle’s house so they’d be there when we got back. To say Kate was shocked when she saw them on her bed was an understatement.

Then she tried to refuse them, telling me they were too expensive and chastising me for buying them. So I’d acted appropriately contrite, and then I might have lied and said they were nonrefundable, because I really wanted her to have them. I considered drastic measures to be part of the process, since giving her the boots had been the culmination of a perfect day.

I’d shown her every one of my haunts from growing up, including the fields where I’d played little league and football as a kid, the high school, and the doctor’s office where I’d worked for a few summers. I showed her the lake where my cousins and our friends hung out when it was too hot to do anything else but swim, and I dared her to try out the rope swing, but she’d refused, saying it was way too cold. So then I showed her the playground I’d escaped to a lot during the first year I’d lived in town, since I hadn’t gone to school during that time, and I’d needed a place where I could be alone and think and try to figure out how to move forward.

We’d sat on the swings for a while and talked. I’d never found it easy to articulate what that first year living in Texas was like for me, but somehow with Kate it didn’t seem as hard. In fact, nothing seemed as hard when she was around. Even if she hadn’t lived it, she just got what it had been like for me, and she didn’t judge. She just had a way about her that made me feel completely comfortable. I didn’t have that with many people.

As we’d walked away from the park, I’d found myself wondering what Alyssa would say if she knew the full truth about my past, because I hadn’t exactly told her everything like I’d alluded to Kate that I had. I’d wanted to, and I’d planned to two weeks earlier when I knew we had to figure some things out, but in the end I couldn’t do it. I told myself it hadn’t been the right moment, but I was honestly starting to wonder if any moment would ever feel like the right one.

She’d come over because I’d told her we needed to talk, and I’d started with the easy questions first. I wanted to know why she was with me, what she liked about me, and why she loved me. But as soon as I said that, she’d burst into tears. I honestly hadn’t intended on making her cry, and I felt like shit as she started gushing about how much she loved me, telling me all the things I wanted to hear, that I needed to hear. Maybe she’d never said them before, but everything that mattered came out in a torrent of words that hit me again and again in the heart as tears streaked down her cheeks.

So at that point, all I could do was take her in my arms as she’d asked me what my questions had meant and if I was breaking up with her. Every insecurity she felt came through in that moment, and all I wanted to do was tell her we were fine. I wasn’t breaking up with her. She had nothing to worry about. We’d ended up making love, and as we were lying together afterward, I realized I’d never brought up the one thing I’d really wanted to talk to her about.

So I brought up Kate instead. As soon as I said her name, Alyssa got pissed, and she’d tried to pull out of my arms. I wouldn’t let her, because things just felt so tumultuous between us, and I needed them to come back to center. I hated fighting with anyone, so I told her I wanted to tell her the truth about my friendship with Kate.

She’d stiffened in my arms, most likely thinking the worst, but I knew once I told her everything she’d relax. But instead of telling her everything, I told a white lie that was a version of the truth. I said Kate was a friend from middle school, but I also let Alyssa believe Kate was a family friend from Texas, because I told her Kate had moved away before high school and we’d lost touch. I explained that we’d been close, and over the past few weeks we’d been getting to know each other again. And then, just because I was really vying for boyfriend of the year at that point, I told her Kate had a boyfriend in Indiana.

It was a complete fabrication, but I knew it was the only thing that would convince Alyssa that I wasn’t going to cheat on her. It was wrong. I knew it as soon as the words were out of my mouth, but at the same time, it worked, and Alyssa stopped obsessing over Kate. She stopped worrying, she didn’t come to class to check on me anymore and act insane, and she relaxed about Kate and me being friends. It was honestly the best thing I could have done.

Now if only I could have told her the truth about this weekend.
That
explanation had alluded me, so I’d just omitted the fact that Kate was coming home with me. Alyssa knew about my guys’ weekend, but she definitely didn’t know that I hadn’t come home alone – and I hoped she never found out. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain my way out of it if she did, and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if she’d forgive me.

But I’d been desperate. I wanted Alyssa in my life,
and
I wanted Kate in my life. The only way I knew how to achieve both of those things was to lie. But God help me if either girl ever found out, because I’d likely lose them both if that happened.

“Man, she’s hot,” Trey said, bringing me back to the moment where I was watching Kate make her way across the party.

“What?” I asked, looking up to meet his gaze.

He laughed. “Your girl. She’s hot. Although, I thought your girlfriend had brown hair and was named Alyssa. Did you trade up?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I’m still with Alyssa.”

“Then who’s she?” he asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

“Kate’s just a friend. She was my neighbor in Indiana, and she ended up at UT this year.”

Trey raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “And you’re not tapping that?”

“No, I’m not.”

“But you want to?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Not at all.”

“But she’s really hot.”

“Yeah, and so is my girlfriend.”

Trey scratched his little stub of a goatee with one hand as he looked at me thoughtfully. “But you’re here this weekend with her,” he said, gesturing to Kate.

“As friends,” I reminded him.

He shook his head. “That’s messed up, man.”

“How do you figure?”

“That’s just messed up,” he repeated. “And if you can’t see that, then I’m not sure what to tell you.”

“It’s really not,” I insisted. “I wanted Kate to meet my family, and they wanted to meet her. We were really good friends when we were kids, and we’re good friends now. But we’re also just friends. Everything between us is completely platonic.”

Trey raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “Have your aunt and uncle ever met your girlfriend? Because I know I haven’t, and you and I are tight. You’ve never brought her to guy’s weekend before either. Hell, have you ever even brought her to Grantly?”

“No, but don’t read into it. She was busy with sorority stuff this weekend.”

Not a lie technically, because Alyssa and her friends were spending the weekend at a spa after their initiation was over. I was having a guys’ weekend, and she was having a girls’ weekend. Okay, I guess my guys’ weekend was the guys plus Kate, but in truth the weekend wasn’t meant to be gender specific. It was about a group of my best friends getting together, and to me, Kate fell into that category as much as the rest of them.

“Whatever, man. You’ve got issues.”

“Screw you,” I told Trey as I hauled myself up on the back of my tailgate and reached to grab a beer from the cooler. “Where’s everybody else?”

I took a drink of my beer and turned my hat around backward, settling into the rhythm of the party. I’d missed field parties. They’d been the norm in high school, but I hadn’t been to one in a while.

“They’re around. Sammy and Luke were playing beer pong last I saw them, and Darren and Denny were hitting on the Wilson twins.”

“Are they even legal yet?”

“Just turned eighteen last week, so Dare said they were fair game.”

“He’s such a dog,” I mumbled as I took another swig of my beer. It was ice cold, just the way I liked it. “Go round everyone up. Tell them to come hang. I rarely get to see you assholes anymore.”

Trey shrugged. “Hey, you had ample opportunity to hang last night, but it sounds like you preferred to be at home with your lady friend.”

“What can I say, I like her better than you guys.”

“Dick,” he said with a smirk as he started to turn away. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll get the guys over here, and we’ll have some bro time – unless Kate won’t be cool with that.”

“I’m gonna to punch you,” I threatened him, and he just laughed. “Kate’s cool. She’ll fit right in. Trust me.”

Trey threw his hands up. “Then that’s awesome. The more the merrier.”

Something in his tone told me he didn’t believe for a second that Kate and I were just friends. Well I’d show him, just like I’d shown everyone else. We were friends, nothing more, and there wasn’t anything wrong with us being friends.

Just then Kate looked up from where she was talking to Tanya and smiled at me. I raised my beer to her and smiled right back, hoping she was having fun. Seeing her across the party reminded me of what high school should have been like for us. I wondered how long it would take me to get past that. At least she was here now, and she seemed to be having fun. And I was having fun watching her enjoy herself. I didn’t even mind that Taylor Vine, a kid who was a year younger than me and a freshman at Rice, had come over to talk to her. He was a cool guy. Maybe they’d hit it off.