Promise Me (17 page)

I winked at her. “That was my intention.”

“Oh yeah, was it your intention to get me reprimanded by my boss the other night?”

“You got in trouble?” I asked, my amusement fading away.

She shrugged. “Jeremy might have pulled me aside and kindly suggested that I not invite my boyfriend into the bar each night that I’m working. I guess some of the servers complained that you’ve been monopolizing my time, and I’ve been slow to get their drink orders out.”

“Boyfriend?”

“His assumption. I told him we’re just friends, but he said it didn’t matter. He said he’d gotten a few complaints, and he had to talk to me about the issue.”

“The issue being me,” I said, feeling guilty. “Now I feel like a jerk. It honestly wasn’t my intention to distract you from your work.”

“You’re not the issue,” Kate said quickly. “You never really distract me. I’m an excellent multi-tasker, and I haven’t missed one drink order since you’ve been coming in.”

“Well, Jeremy’s a dick for accusing you of that,” I said, getting angry that anyone would say Kate ever slacked off. I’d seen firsthand how she busted her butt when she had to.

She waved me off. “It’s fine. I think some of the servers are jealous that I’m the new girl and I get to bartend a few nights a week. It’s a coveted position. I’m honestly not concerned. I get glowing surveys from the regulars on a weekly basis.”

I sighed. “Just let me know if it gets worse. I’ll stop coming in.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said quickly. “You’re my salvation on slow nights.”

That made me smile. “Yeah?”

She nodded emphatically. “Yeah, and I’m actually hoping you’ll be my salvation tonight. This material isn’t going to suddenly become enjoyable, so I’m counting on that Jack Kinsley fun and positivity to get me through the next few hours, even though I think it’s a long shot to hope for that.”

I felt my smile get even wider.

“I’m the best guy to study with,” I promised her. “It
will
be fun. And I’ll make sure we take a lot of breaks.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

“Ah, so much pressure,” I said jokingly.

“Are you not up to the task?”

“I’m up to it,” I said confidently. “Let the fun begin.”

“I’m pretty sure I was using ‘fun’ as more of a loose term in this case,” she said sarcastically.

“Oh, how much you doubt me. I’m going to enjoy proving you wrong so much.”

“I hope you
do
prove me wrong,” she said with a challenge.

I just shook my head and smiled as I opened my book.

* * *

Two hours later, I closed my notes and sighed. Tossing my notebook to the side, I leaned back onto my elbows, appraising Kate. “I think I might be done.”

She raised her eyebrows at me in question. “I thought you were a machine when it came to studying. Are you seriously quitting already? We’ve only gone over half of our notes.”

I knew we still had a lot more to do, but I also knew I could spread it out over the weekend. I’d been lying about not understanding the material, and I had no doubt I was going to ace the test. I’d just needed a reason to get Kate to study with me. It was dishonest, but I was having fun, and so was she. I figured the way we got there didn’t matter so much.

“I think you might have been right earlier,” I told her. “This just might be the most boring class ever.”

She smiled widely. “I told you so, but we also don’t have a choice but to get through it. And if you want to get into medical school, you can’t have a crappy grade in an undergraduate business class.”

I sighed. “You’re right. I know. We’ll keep going, but I need a serious break.”

“How about an ice cream sundae break?” she offered, and just the thought of that had my stomach intrigued.

“Is that an option?”

She smiled as she got to her feet. “Of course it is. I always have stuff to make sundaes.”

“You do?” I questioned, thinking she might be the coolest girl ever.

“Yeah, well, growing up we didn’t really have money for things like dessert, so now that I can afford it, I kind of eat it whenever I can.”

“I think I might love you,” I called after her, making her laugh as she made her way to the kitchen.

“That’s your stomach talking,” she told me as she started to pull things out of the fridge and cupboards and set them on the counter.

“Want some help?” I asked her, honestly hoping she’d say no. I felt way too comfortable in my reclined position on the floor.

“Nah, I’m good. I’m a pro at this. You’re not allergic to nuts, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. In fact, you can pile them on my sundae.”

She smiled. “Will do.”

“So tell me,” I prompted, looking back at her while she worked. “Besides, ice cream, what other splurges have you made since you’ve come into money?”

I was taking a chance that what I was asking was accurate. She hadn’t told me many concrete details about her life back in Indiana that would let me know what it was like from the time I left up until she came to UT. I knew she’d worked at Chili’s, she’d gone to a community college for two years, and she’d had a boyfriend who she dumped before she moved. Other than that, she seldom mentioned anything about her old life. And I was dying to know everything.

Kate laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly say I ‘came into money’.”

“So you made your millions in the stock market. I get it. Either way, I’m curious.”

“No stock market,” she said as she swirled whipped cream on top of both sundaes and dropped a cherry onto each. “I also didn’t win the lottery. I just had the opportunity to spend my pennies on frivolous things instead of spending them on necessities.”

“Necessities? What do you mean?”

I had a feeling I knew what she meant, but I wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to know that she trusted me enough to let me into her world – no matter how bleak it might have been. I knew what that world was like, and I’d never judge her for it. But she always seemed so guarded about telling me anything, which made me think she was afraid of exactly that.

She looked up at me as she started to put the ingredients for the sundaes away. “You don’t want to hear about that,” she said, trying to keep a playful air.

“I really do, Kate,” I said seriously.

“Why?” she asked as she grabbed a sundae in each hand and two spoons and walked back into the living room. She set mine in front of me and handed me a spoon as she returned to the spot she’d been in all night.

“Because we’re friends,” I told her. “And friends know things about each other. You’re always so vague about, well, about everything. I just don’t get it.”

I took a big bite of gooey sundae deliciousness as I waited for her to respond.

She sighed. “Jack, we’ve only been friends for a few weeks.”

“Yeah, and in that time I’ve told you all about my family, my friends, what I like to do for fun, and I even told you about that unfortunate incident with a pick-up truck and a lake that I got grounded for. You’ve told me squat.”

Kate laughed lightly, but I could tell she was still guarded. “I actually enjoyed that story. Will you tell it again?”

I shook my head. “Quit trying to change the subject and tell me something real.”

She sighed. “Jack, you have the perfect life. My life, at least before two years ago, was kind of crappy. Forgive me if it doesn’t excite me to share the intimate details of it with you.”

“What made it so crappy?” I asked her, and she looked at me in exasperation as she took a bite of her sundae. I knew I was pushing her, but I couldn’t help myself.

“It just wasn’t good. It wasn’t terrible. I had my sister, but that was pretty much all I had.”

“So you were homeless?” I asked incredulously, my mind taking what she’d said and imagining the worst.

She looked at me in confusion. “Homeless? No. Why would you think that?”

“Because you said you only had your sister.”

“I was exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. We weren’t without basic necessities, and my mom was around – sort of – but we were pretty much dirt poor. Back then I worked as much as I could, and I used every dollar I made to pay the bills.”

“Did your mom not work or something?”

“You are so nosey,” Kate told me in frustration that I pretended was laced with amusement at how adorable she found my curiosity.

“I am,” I agreed. “By nature, I’m curious. Sue me.”

“Maybe if I become a lawyer, I will,” she threatened playfully. “I might not be able to handle a business degree if all of the classes are as dull as Macro. I think the law might appeal to me more.”

“I actually think you’d make an excellent lawyer,” I told her. “Either that or a professional poker player. You don’t give anything away.”

That made her laugh. “Well, it’s not like I have any deep, dark secrets to hide. We just struggled to make ends meet for a long time. My dad wasn’t around, and my mom had her own issues. We had a lot of hard times until two years ago.”

“What happened two years ago?” I asked, practically salivating for any nugget of information she would throw at me.

“My mom married my stepdad. He was well-off, and he wanted to take care of her. So he did, which took the burden off of me to be the sole provider for our family.”

“That was a good thing, right?” I asked, because she didn’t look convinced that it was.

She hesitated, but then she nodded. “It was, actually. At first I was skeptical, because it felt like Dan sort of came out of nowhere. He and my mom met in rehab. I was just glad she was finally getting help. I didn’t think she should be dating someone who was also an addict, but she was never one to do things that made sense. In this case it ended up okay though.”

“That’s good,” I said, saying as little as possible, since I’d known Kate’s mom was an addict when we were kids. It sort of pissed me off that she hadn’t gotten clean until two years earlier. It was a shitty thing to do to her daughters, but I guess better late than never.

“Yeah, it was good,” Kate said with a smile. “My mom’s happy, and Dan’s a really great guy. He welcomed Sara and me into his life without question after he and my mom got married. And I hate to say it, but the perks that came from being his stepdaughter were pretty amazing.”

“Like what?” I prompted.

“I don’t know. Lots of things. The food we ate, the fact that we had a cleaning lady, and even the house he bought for us all to live in. To me it was huge, and for the first time since I could remember, I couldn’t hear everything my sister said through the wall that separated our rooms.”

I watched her smile, seemingly lost in thought as she lifted a spoonful of ice cream and chocolate sauce to her lips.

“So did you burn that shitty trailer to the ground when you moved out of it or what?” I asked, realizing only after I’d said the words that I’d completely lost my head.

I said a silent prayer that Kate wouldn’t remember that she’d never told me about living in a trailer, but as I saw her expression twist in confusion, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“How did you know we lived in a trailer?”

I had no idea what to say. I was stunned, not believing I’d slipped up. I tried to think of something to say, because there were ways I could have known. Sara could have told Cullen or Micah, and they could have told me.

“Micah told me,” I blurted out, going with that.

“How did
he
find out?” Kate asked, and I could see storm clouds in her normally bright blue eyes.

“Sara told him, I guess,” I said, hating that I was lying to her. I was just too much of a chicken-shit to come clean.

Kate shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t have done that. Sara doesn’t talk about our past. She’s more embarrassed about it than I am. She likes to pretend that we’ve always lived at Dan’s house.”

“Well, maybe she slipped up,” I ventured.

Kate shook her head. “Why are you lying to me, Jack?” she asked harshly, not even bothering to refute what I’d said.

“I’m not lying,” I insisted, wishing I was a better liar. I knew I got all shifty-eyed when I wasn’t telling the truth, and my voice went up a few octaves.

“Bullshit. What did you do, go behind my back and look into my past? Did you already know everything I just told you or something?”

“No,” I said sincerely, because
that
was the truth. “I’d never do that. I’m just – Kate, can we forget I said anything?”

“No,” she said quickly. “What’s going on, Jack?”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds to block out the light from the lamp on the side table that was suddenly giving me a headache. Fuck, I’d just wanted to spend time with her, study, and maybe learn a little more about her. I had no intentions of having this conversation tonight.

“I might know more about you than I originally let on,” I mumbled, feeling like I didn’t have another option.

“What do you mean?” she asked warily.

I sighed. “I guess I know someone who used to know you.”