Promise Me (31 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, my manners coming through in full force.

“Oh, call me Deena. And come here,” she said as she stepped forward and embraced me, pulling me into a tight hug. “It is so nice to meet you after all these years.” She pulled back and appraised me. “Jack has told us so much about you, but he did not tell us how gorgeous you are. Welcome to our home. We’re so excited that you’re here.”

“I’m excited to be here,” I told her, feeling overwhelmed but completely comfortable at the same time. Jack had been right. His aunt was totally down to earth.

“Come on,” Deena said, linking her arm through mine. “Come inside. We have a lot of getting to know each other to do, and I’ve got snacks.”

“Thank God,” Jack said from behind us. “I’m starving.”

“You put those bags upstairs first, and I’ll get Kate something to drink. And then your uncle wants to show you his new pitching wedge. He’s been out back messing around with it all afternoon. You can come grab something to eat afterward.”

“Yeah right,” he scoffed.

Deena gave him a knowing look, and he gave her one right back. They seemed to be speaking the same language, but it was one I didn’t understand.

“I know what you’re up to, and I’m not letting it happen,” Jack told her.

Deena just turned and smirked at him. “Don’t defy me, young man,” she said teasingly.

He shook his head. “You’re impossible. I know you just want to get Kate alone so you can talk about me.”

Deena scoffed. “That is not the case at all.
You
are the last thing we want to talk about, isn’t that right, Kate?”

“Uh, I guess,” I said, not sure what my role was and just trying to go with the flow as we stepped across the threshold and into a massive foyer.

I fought the urge to gape at my surroundings, because they were really impressive.

“See, she doesn’t want to talk about you either. I just want to get to know her, and you already know her, so you don’t need to be there.”

“Whatever,” Jack grumbled playfully. “Just don’t give away any trade secrets, Kate.”

“No guarantees,” I told him, and he smirked at me.

I watched him head up a staircase to our right, and then he was gone.

“I’d love to give you a tour of the house,” Deena told me. “But that can wait. Let’s have a few cocktails and some snacks first.”

“Oh, I’m not twenty-one,” I told her, just in case she assumed I was.

“Are you driving anywhere tonight?”

I shook my head.

“And are you going to tell Sherriff Brice that I served alcohol to a minor?”

“No.”

“Then we’re good. You do drink, right? I don’t want to pressure you if you don’t.”

“No, I drink,” I assured her.

She smiled. “Good, because I make some mean sangria.”

“Sounds great,” I told her as she led us through the house to one of the biggest kitchens I’d ever seen.

“Have a seat at the bar,” she told me as I looked around the room. “That’s where the boys usually camp out when they’re home.”

Enough appetizers to feed ten people were spread out on the bar – chips and salsa and guacamole, little taquitos with dipping sauce, veggies and dip, a cheese and fruit tray, and a pile of hot wings. A pitcher of the sangria she’d mentioned was on the island in the middle of the kitchen next to a silver tub full of beer on ice. The whole scene looked like something out of a magazine spread. I was shocked to see that Deena had gone to all that trouble just for me.

“Please don’t think I make a habit of serving alcohol to minors,” she said jovially as she poured two glasses of sangria. “I usually don’t, but Jack will be twenty-one in six months, and I figured this was a special occasion, so what the hell. And I’m not naïve to what my kids do at school. I know the alcohol flows freely at that frat house of theirs and that they’ve all had fake IDs at one point or another.”

“Yeah, I know,” I told her, unable to hold back my smile. “I sort of refused to serve Jack the first time he came into the restaurant when I was working.”

She laughed as she put a glass in front of me. “He told me about that. Good for you. Those boys need to be told no every now and again – especially Pete. I’ve never liked him very much.”

“Me either,” I agreed, realizing fairly quickly that I was going to like Jack’s aunt. She seemed fun, cool, and completely normal. It was no wonder he was close with her.

“Make yourself a plate,” Deena said, gesturing to the food.

“Oh, okay,” I said, grabbing a red paper plate and loading a few things onto it.

“You’re going to have to eat more than that,” Jack said, suddenly materializing behind me, his voice in my ear, making me jump and shiver at the same time. “It’s all delicious, and Aunt Deena likes when people eat her cooking. She’ll be offended if you only nibble a few things.”

“Oh, I will not,” his aunt told him, and then she turned to me. “Don’t listen to him for a second. Eat as much or as little as you want.”

But apparently Jack wasn’t interested in listening to her, because he started dropping more food onto my plate. With only a few centimeters separating us, I could feel the heat from his body as he stood behind me. It made my heart start to thump in my chest, and I had the very real urge to sink back against him.

“Okay stop,” I told him when my plate started to overflow, glad for the distraction.

“Just one more chicken wing,” he said, dropping it into the middle of my plate

“You’re impossible,” I said, turning to face him.

He grinned at me. “These taquitos are just so good,” Jack said as he leaned forward, pressing against me as he shoved a taquito in his mouth and groaned. “So damn good.”

“I thought you were supposed to be going out back to play golf?”

“I am,” he said after he’d chewed and swallowed. Then he reached over me and grabbed a beer from the tub, popped the top and took a big swig. “I just wanted to make sure you were making yourself at home.”

“I am,” I assured him, because honestly with an aunt as friendly as his, who wouldn’t.

He took another drink of his beer and winked at me. “I don’t get carded here.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved him playfully just as he ducked out of the way, laughing. He backed up a few steps, smiling at me before he turned and headed out to the backyard.

“He’s been so happy since you came back into his life,” Deena said, and I felt heat flood my cheeks at the thought that she’d been watching our little exchange.

Could she tell the affect Jack had on me? I hoped not, but I knew I’d have to be more careful. I didn’t want her getting the wrong idea.

“That’s good to know. It’s been great getting to know him again.”

“I’m sure it has been,” she said, and there was something in her tone that held an innuendo.

I had a feeling she could read me like a book, and I really hoped she didn’t say anything to Jack. Things were going so well with us. The last thing I needed was for him to think I was interested in him.

“He likes having you around,” Deena said. “And I like seeing him happy.”

“I do too,” I agreed.

As long as she didn’t ask me about my feelings for Jack, I figured I’d be good. I knew I’d have a hard time lying to her, and I really, really didn’t want to tell her that I’d developed a mild crush on him. It couldn’t go anywhere, and I knew that, which was why telling someone he was close to was the worst thing I could do.

“So tell me about yourself,” Deena said, leaning back against the island and taking a drink of her sangria. “Jack’s told me so much, but I want to hear it from you.”

“Oh, there’s not much to tell.”

She waved me off. “Nonsense. I know how important you are to him, and because of that I know you’re special.”

I felt my cheeks get hot again, so I took a sip of the cold liquid, hoping it would calm me down. Flattery usually embarrassed me, but flattery from Jack was on a completely different level.

“I don’t really know what he’s told you,” I mumbled.

“Never mind what he’s told me,” she said as she leaned back against the island. “Just tell me everything. Do you have a boyfriend?”

Okay, so it was going to be that kind of a conversation.

“Uh, no, I don’t,” I told her, hoping Jack wouldn’t stay outside for long.

Thankfully he came back in less than twenty minutes. His Uncle Rob came in too, so I got to meet him, but I wasn’t sure the damage hadn’t already been done. His aunt had a way about her that got me talking, and before I knew it I was telling her all about how I’d decided to go to UT, what I was studying, and what I wanted to do after graduation.

She told me about her marketing firm, and then she offered me an internship for that summer, throwing me for a complete loop because she barely knew me. Yet she seemed okay with offering me a job based on what Jack had told her about me, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to say no. The last thing I wanted was to go back to Indiana. I had so many bad memories of growing up there that I wanted to put as much separation between my hometown and me as possible. The option to stay in Texas, especially after she told me Jack was going to be working at a clinic in Houston over the summer, was exactly what I wanted.

Aside from school and work talk though, Deena had gotten me to open up about the fact that I wasn’t dating anyone, and there wasn’t anyone I had my eye on – I’d lied about that one, because really, what could I have said. She also got me to talk about what Jack had been like as a kid. I’d been hoping she might reciprocate and tell me what he was like when he first moved to Houston, since I wasn’t sure he’d told me the whole truth, but he and his uncle had come back inside before I could ask her.

When Jack came back into the house, after grabbing another beer, he came up behind me and put his arm around my chest, pulling me back against him and tucking in next to me with his head even with mine. “What did you say about me?”

I looked over to find him only inches away, staring at me with amusement dancing in his hazel eyes. “I’ll never tell you,” I said teasingly.

He laughed. “Allow me to remind you of your loyalty to me. I know how deep it runs.”

I shrugged. “She gave me alcohol. My loyalties shifted.”

Then I grabbed a chicken wing from the plate to my left and shoved it in Jack’s mouth so he couldn’t say anything else. He pulled back from me laughing and taking a bite off of the chicken wing before settling onto the barstool next to mine where he loaded up a plate of his own.

Everyone seemed to settle in after that, and the rest of the night was spent with easy conversation, really good food, and a lot of laughter. It was the exact scene that had always reminded me of what being around family should be like. His aunt and uncle were really cool, and they seemed to be a family that ribbed on each other as much as possible. I liked that.

It was after nine when Deena said she was going to head up to bed to watch some TV and asked Rob to go with her, giving him a pointed look that he seemed to understand. Then they were gone, leaving Jack and me alone on the back porch. I leaned back in my chair and looked out toward the back of their property. Even though I could no longer see as far as the tree line, I knew their yard extended for at least two hundred feet, and then it was just woods. Jack and I had walked back there earlier when he’d given me a tour, showing me all around the inside and outside of the house. He’d alluded to the fact that their property went back much further, and there was a trail through the woods that led to a lake he and his cousins swam in throughout most of the summer. I’d wanted to go back there, but he said it was too dark. He’d promised to take me the next day though.

“What time are we meeting your friends tonight?” I asked him.

He leaned back in his chair. “We’re not – not tonight. We’ll hook up with them tomorrow. Trey’s having a bonfire at his grandparents’ house.”

I looked at him in confusion. “But I thought this was your guy’s weekend?”

“It is,” he said, shrugging. “I just don’t feel like going out tonight. I wanted to hang with you, and I didn’t think you’d want to do what they had planned.”

I looked down at his phone. I’d seen a few texts come through since we’d been sitting outside, but he’d ignored them all. I wondered how many of them were from Alyssa, or if they were all from his friends.

“Why not? What are your friends up to?”

“Right now they’re at the football game, and later they’re going to make the party rounds.”

“And you didn’t think I’d enjoy that? I like football.”

Jack looked at me in confusion. “You do? Have you even been to a UT game this year?”

“No, but that’s because I’ve worked every Saturday that the Longhorns have been at home. It doesn’t mean I haven’t wanted to go to the games.”

“Interesting.”

“Besides, I’ve watched almost every episode of
Friday Night Lights
. I think it would be kind of cool to see Texas high school football in action.”

Jack laughed at that. “Then I’m pretty sure you’d be disappointed. Our team was never that good, and we didn’t have nearly as much drama on the sidelines.”