Promise Me (12 page)

She was sitting in her seat with her long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she was writing on her iPad. I stared at her for a few seconds, drinking in her features, memorizing the curve of her nose and how she bit her lip when she was thinking. I drank in the concentrated expression on her face, and as my eyes swept south, the smooth, tan skin of her bare shoulders and arms. She was like a sight to behold, and I couldn’t look away.

My heart started to thump in my chest as I made the decision to talk to her. Then my feet were moving, bringing me closer and closer to her. Fear, excitement, and sheer happiness warred for top billing inside me, causing my adrenaline to spike and a feeling of invincibility to wash over me. Rational thought went out the window, my feet took me where they wanted to go, and in my head I told myself I had nothing to lose.

It was the farthest thing from the truth, but my resolve was gone now that she was just a few feet away. I knew I’d never be able to let go of the fact that she might be the Kate I’d known once upon a time. I needed to know for sure. I told myself it was just about knowing, and once I knew the truth, I could walk away if it was too hard. I told myself it would be easy to do that. I just hoped I was right.

Kate looked up at me in surprise when I reached her, and then recognition dawned on her face. “Hi Jack,” she said cheerfully.

I felt a weird warm feeling spread throughout my chest as she said my name.

“Hey,” I said, my voice sounding gruff. I cleared my throat. “Mind if I sit? My girlfriend bailed on me in favor of sleeping in.”

Normal, easy conversation. Nothing to lose.

Kate smiled. “Of course, although if I were you I’d start to wonder if it was personal.”

“Excuse me?” I said as I took the seat beside her.

“Well, first Micah bailed on you, and then I noticed that the other two girls you were sitting with stopped coming after the first week, and now your girlfriend is a no-show. Maybe it’s you. Do you need a shower?”

She’d noticed me before I’d talked to her at Ray’s. Why did that give me a little thrill? I couldn’t explain it, but I knew I needed to play it cool or she’d know something was up. So I just laughed and stuck my arm up to sniff. Then I leaned toward her.

“What do you think?” I asked, knowing I smelled like my aftershave and the soap I’d used in the shower that morning.

Kate feigned like she smelled something bad and leaned away from me, holding her nose. “Yup, that’s it. It’s you.”

“Damn,” I told her. “That sucks to find out so late in life. No wonder I don’t have any friends.”

“Aww, poor you,” she teased, knowing I was joking. “Although, having met your friends, I’m not sure I’d claim them either.”

“Hey, Logan’s cool. Don’t insult him. He’s my best friend.”

“According to my friend Kirby, he likes to grab the asses of redheads.”

“Yeah, that happened,” I said begrudgingly, remembering that day all too well. Logan had been beyond drunk, and he’d grabbed the waitress’s ass – the same waitress I’d asked to tell me Kate’s last name. I’d figured they were friends when I’d seen them talking, and I sort of hoped she wouldn’t hold it against me that my cousin was an idiot. “If it’s any consolation, when he sobered up, he felt really bad about what happened.”

“I’m sure he did,” she said sarcastically, seeming to not believe me.

“He did!” I defended. “He even apologized to her the next week. Did she tell you that?”

She shook her head. “No, she didn’t.”

“See, you can’t trust everything she says,” I teased her.

“I think I can trust her just fine,” she defended. “And I sort of have to, considering she’s my only friend here.”

“What about your roommate?”

“You mean my sister?”

They
were
sisters. I knew it!

“Oh, is she your sister?” I asked, trying to keep my composure and not blurt out the questions that were burning in the back of my mind.

“She is. We’re two years apart, and we’re friends – sort of – but she’s got her own things going on here.”

“Like the guy she spent last night with?” I blurted out, realizing too late that I probably shouldn’t have said anything.

Kate looked at me in confusion. “How did you know about that?”

Crap.

“I uh, I saw Sara last night at the Sigma Delt house, and then I ran into her outside my apartment this morning. She was wearing the same clothes . . .”

I let my words drift off at the end, feeling a little guilty for ratting Sara out. That is until Kate let out a sigh that sounded like relief, and I saw her shoulders sink a few inches.

“So, she’s home?” she asked.

“Yeah, she’s home.”

She nodded. “Good.”

“Were you worried about her?”

She looked at me, and in a second I knew it was her, my Kate. I’d seen that look too many times to count, and it was so surreal to see her doing it now. That vulnerability and concern and sheer helplessness that she’d looked at me with so often when we were kids was right there, and I felt the overwhelming urge to comfort her because of it.

Fear wasn’t even a factor. I felt nothing but pure elation at knowing that my friend who’d felt lost to me forever was sitting right next to me. Damn, it was good to see her.

Kate sighed again, completely oblivious to the fact that I was about to burst at the seams with what I’d just learned.

“I shouldn’t have been worried,” she said softly. “But it’s the first time she’s ever stayed out all night.”

“She’s a college freshman,” I said, trying to play it off like I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, when in reality, I knew exactly what Kate was feeling.

She’d practically raised Sara. Hell, most of the time she’d been more of a mother to her than their own mother had.

Kate nodded. “I guess.”

Damn, I wanted to hug her so badly. I wanted to hold her and tell her that I got it. I knew how close she and Sara were, I knew about their past, and because of that, I knew it couldn’t be easy for her to let Sara live her life. I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but I knew how weird it would be if I did that. Kate had no clue who I really was and how much I knew about her relationship with her sister. In her mind, we barely knew each other.

That was when I decided to tell her the truth. The information already wanted to burst out of me, and it felt like I wouldn’t be able to hold it in for a second longer. I knew once I told her, everything would be okay. Hell, it would be better than okay. It would be
right.

But when I opened my mouth to speak, before I could get the words out, Professor Hall cleared his throat and started class. In a second, the moment was lost, along with my nerve, and I turned to face the front of the room, a million emotions coursing through me.

I should have said it. I should have told her.

Fuck, I should have done
something
.

Although, as I tried to concentrate on the lecture, something in the back of my mind told me that maybe keeping quiet was for the best.

What if Kate wasn’t happy to see me? What if she was pissed that I’d walked out of her life years earlier without so much as a goodbye? What if she couldn’t forgive me for not calling or writing or emailing? What if she hated me?

I sighed, for the first time in years not sure what my next move should be. Usually I didn’t struggle with confidence – not since I’d gotten to a point where I knew my height and stature could intimidate anyone who threatened me. And I’d never had an issue talking to girls.

But this wasn’t just a girl, and it wasn’t a bully threatening me. This was Kate, my Kate, and she’d always meant more to me than anyone else, even when I hadn’t realized it. Even when I’d consciously pushed her out of my mind, she hadn’t gone far. She’d always been there, the person I felt most connected to, and now that she was sitting next to me, I knew trying to pretend otherwise was fruitless.

I wanted her in my life. I wanted to get to know her again. And I wasn’t going to be okay if she didn’t want the same things. Shit, I couldn’t lose her again.

I snuck a look over at her, trying to do it covertly, and sucked in a breath when I realized just how beautiful she was. I hadn’t noticed before, but now that everything was different, all I could see was just how freaking gorgeous of a woman she had grown into. Kate had always been pretty – at least I’d always liked the way she looked – but seeing her with curves and breasts, and noticing the sexy way she bit her lower lip while she listened to the professor speak, it was kind of hot as hell.

“Did you have a question?” Kate whispered, catching me off-guard as she leaned closer to me but kept her eyes on the professor.

I was suddenly assaulted by her perfume or the scent of her hair or something that was just her, and I wanted to breathe in deep and savor it. She smelled incredible.

“No, no questions,” I told her, surprised I could say it in a steady voice.

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why were you staring at me?”

Shit. She’d caught me.

“I like your hair like that. It looks nice,” I said in a hushed whisper, hoping it didn’t sound too creepy. I’d had a hard time coming up with anything else that would excuse why I’d been staring, since I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Kate turned to look at me in surprise. “Are you flirting with me?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Not at all. I have a girlfriend.”

Shit, I had a girlfriend. I had to remember that. Why was my head going to all these bad places? Alyssa would kill me if she thought I was flirting with someone else. Or even that I thought another girl was hot. In fact, knowing about her abandonment issues, I made a clear point
not
to do that when we were together. I didn’t want her to ever think I was checking out another girl, even though I’d been completely checking out Kate.

I tried to tell myself it was because of everything I’d just learned about her, but a part of me knew that wasn’t the whole truth. She was beautiful, and I very much wanted to lean closer to her when I definitely should have been scooting away.

“Good,” Kate whispered, turning back to the front. “Because that would have been weird.”

“Yeah, it would have been,” I agreed. “Good thing that wasn’t what I was doing.”

“Good thing,” she agreed.

Fuck, I was in trouble. What the hell was happening to me?

* * *

“You seem distracted,” Charlie, my ‘little brother’ told me as he chucked the basketball at me..

I narrowed my eyes at him and threw it back, harder than I probably needed to, making him grunt as he caught it. But then he smiled and tossed it toward the basket.

“I’m not distracted,” I assured him. “How do you even know that word anyway?”

“I’m eleven. And I read a lot.”

“What are you reading now?” I asked him, changing the subject as he tossed the ball to me and I stepped back for a three-point shot.

I missed. I missed a lot, but basketball had never been my sport. I’d played football and baseball when I’d first moved to Texas, and I’d been good at both, so I’d stuck with them all through high school. Charlie liked basketball, though, so that was how we’d spent a lot of our time together over the past year since I’d met him.

We’d been paired up when I’d joined Big Brothers when I moved to Austin. I’d always done volunteer work, knowing there were too many kids out there who needed support and guidance and usually just someone to talk to, but with sports and school and family stuff, I didn’t have the time to dedicate to one specific kid when I’d been in high school. I’d made room for it in college, though, and I loved hanging out with Charlie once a week.

His mom worked in a nursing home, and she had the late shift on Thursdays. So I met him after school, and we hung out until she got home. Basketball monopolized a lot of our time, but I also helped Charlie with his homework, I made sure he got dinner, and we talked a lot – sometimes about big things, and sometimes about frivolous crap that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of life.

It was just important that we had some sort of a connection, since Charlie’s dad wasn’t in the picture. I remembered being eleven, and even though my life was really different than his, we had more in common than I think he realized.

“I’m reading the Percy Jackson series again. I like it,” he said shrugging. “But don’t change the subject. What’s going on?”

I eyed him skeptically as he pushed his glasses up his nose and went to retrieve the ball that had bounced away after I’d missed my shot.

“Nothing’s going on,” I told him, knowing I was busted. If Charlie could see that my mind was elsewhere, then it would be obvious to most people.

Charlie just rolled his eyes. “You’re lying. I can tell. Is it a girl?”

I laughed. “A girl? You’re crazy.”

It was totally a girl, and I was a complete liar.

“It’s a girl,” he said knowingly.

“Dude, it’s not. You know I have a girlfriend.”

He made a face. “Yeah, Alyssa. I know.”