Promise Me (9 page)

It wasn’t like I could explain everything to Alyssa in its entirety. She had no idea that I’d had a different life before moving in with my aunt and uncle. She had no idea my name had been Johnny Evans for twelve years of my life, and she had no idea that I’d ever lived anywhere but Texas. I’d never told her what had really happened to my mom or that my dad was in jail. She thought I lived with my aunt and uncle because I’d lost my parents in a car accident. She didn’t know the truth. Neither did my best friends, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Alyssa said, blowing off what I’d said, because she had no idea what she was talking about.

“I feel like maybe I should try to track her down just to be sure.”

“Jack, are you serious?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

She shook her head. “She’s probably fine. Trust me. And if she’s not, there’s not much you can do about it.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, and a part of me figured she was right. But what if she was wrong and there
was
something I could do?

Seeing the look on Alyssa’s face though, I knew it would be better if I didn’t broach the subject anymore with her. I’d have to let it go. She wasn’t going to be open to hearing about my reasons for reaching out to an old friend. And I guess that was fine. It was my business anyway, and the last thing I wanted to do was drag her down my hell of a memory lane.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I told her, telling myself I’d revisit the thought in the morning with a clear head.

I was exhausted from a long week and a full night of studying. Maybe I just needed some sleep.

“I am right,” Alyssa said, wrapping her arms around me and smiling up at me. “And I know one more thing I’m right about.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, humoring her. “What’s that?”

She smiled. “That you are still way too tense, and you just need to lie back on the bed and let me work my magic.”

“You want to finish what you started?” I asked her as I pulled her close, forcing myself to stay in the moment.

She nodded. “Of course. I hate when you’re stressed. I want to make it all go away.”

I knew that wasn’t likely to happen, but I took a deep, cleansing breath anyway. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”

Hell, it was worth a shot.

“I figured you’d say that,” she said as she led me over to the bed. “Get comfortable. I’ll make you feel so much better.”

“Come here,” I told her, grateful for the way she could pull me out of my head.

I knew I could easily get stuck there, and Lys was so great at bringing me back to center. Maybe it was the fact that she was so damn sexy, or maybe it was just that she knew when I was teetering on the edge of sanity and needed to take a breather, but I was glad to have her in my life. She got me, and I figured that wasn’t an easy thing to do. I wasn’t exactly a simple guy when you peeled back the layers.

I might have appeared that way to people who barely knew me or who saw me from the outside looking in, but I knew better. You didn’t go through what I had and come out unscathed and worry-free. Too many things still plagued me, and taking charge of my life had really been the only thing that had ever worked. But sometimes it worked against me. It was times like that I was glad Alyssa was there to pull me back from the brink.

I leaned down and kissed her. “Thank you,” I said softly.

“For what?”

“For being you. You’re kind of the best.”

She smiled. “I love you too, Jack.”

Then she pulled me over to the bed. Within a few minutes I’d pretty much forgotten my own name. I knew it was better that way. Too many things swimming through my mind was dangerous for my psyche. Sometimes it was better to let them all go for a little while.

Chapter Five

Kate

“I’m
so
sorry,” my friend Kirby said when she met me at the service bar.

“For what?” I asked her as I loaded four beers onto my tray.

“You got the jocks in your section.”

“The what?” I asked in confusion.

It was my third week on my own at Ray’s BBQ, and I was still trying to figure out my rhythm. I’d thought the weekends were busy at the Chili’s where I’d worked back home, but it was nothing like what I’d experienced over the past few days. It felt like every time I turned around, I had a new table. I’d barely been able to take a breath all weekend. I’d assumed my day shift on Sunday would be less hectic, but with football on the TVs and specials on the ribs we were famous for, so far my day had been insane.

Kirby, who’d trained me my first few shifts at Ray’s, had told me what to expect once football season started, but I guess I hadn’t believed her. But she’d been great the few times I’d gotten in the weeds, and she’d even made me stop to take a few bites of a pulled pork sandwich around one, since she could tell I was getting light-headed. I’d have to remember to eat a bigger breakfast when I worked on Sundays in the future.

“You got the jocks,” she repeated.

“Is that some restaurant term I’m not familiar with?” I questioned. “Because it sounds kind of like a disease. Is my section infected?”

She laughed. “I knew I liked you, and yes, you can sort of think of it like being infected. The jocks are the worst, and we all hate when we have to wait on them.”

“Oh, jocks,” I said in realization, finally getting that she was talking about people. “Like guys who play sports. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

I started to make my way to my section, all the way at the back of the restaurant, sidestepping other servers and customers who were passing by. The place was seriously packed.

“Well, I’m not sure they play sports,” Kirby said as she followed along behind me, “but they look like they do. And these six remind me of the jerks from my high school who thought they ruled the world because they played football.”

“Ah, got it,” I said, remembering Kirby laughing at me when I’d commented on how big of a deal football seemed to our customers.

She’d told me it wasn’t just our customers. It was everyone in the state of Texas. She said football was like a religion. Then she told me to watch
Friday Night Lights.
Apparently I’d understand it then.

I’d told her I’d watch it, but I hadn’t exactly had much time to binge-watch any shows since I’d gotten to UT. Between work and school, I didn’t have a lot of free time. And Sara loved reality TV, so that was what was usually on when she was home.

“So what’s the deal with these guys?” I asked Kirby.

“They’re just loud and obnoxious, and they’ll totally flirt with you the whole time you’re serving them. They come in every Sunday. We all pretty much hope and pray they won’t get sat in our section. I’m assuming you got stuck with them because you’re new. And I actually feel kind of sorry for you, but at the same time I’m glad it’s you and not me. One of them has a thing for redheads, and he always makes a point to let me know it – again and again and again.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her, because what she was describing didn’t sound all that bad.

I’d handled worse more than a few times, and dealing with flirting had sort of come with the territory when I’d been bartending at Chili’s. I knew how to handle guys who’d had a few drinks and wanted to tell me I was hot. Most of the time they were harmless and just wanted attention.

“I’m not sure you’ll be saying that after you’re done with
them
,” Kirby warned me.

“Do they tip well?”

“Yeah, they do. They’re rich boys, so they all have their parents’ money to play with.”

“Well, I won’t say no to a good tip.”

“You might,” she warned me as I reached the table I’d gotten the drinks for.

They were two couples, and all four of them were wearing Cowboy jerseys. The guys seemed to be glued to the TV closest to them.

“I’ll be fine,” I told Kirby as I set the drinks down in front of each person and smiled at them. “Have you all decided what you want?”

“I think we’re ready,” one of the women told me as I heard someone call out, “Hey sweetie?”

I didn’t think it was directed at me, so I didn’t turn around, and focused my attention on the woman who was ordering.

“Hey blondie?” I heard a few minutes later as I was taking the order of the last man at the table.

“Told you,” Kirby said as she passed by me.

I turned to look at her in confusion.

“The jocks don’t like to wait,” she said, winking conspiratorially at me. “Call me if you need help.”

I figured she was over-exaggerating. From what I’d learned about Kirby, she sort of thrived on drama. She was nice though, and she was fun to work with, so I took the bad with the good. If nothing else, I was glad to have a girlfriend in a place where I’d only met guys. Especially since Micah and Cullen seemed to have alternative interests where I was concerned. I needed some platonic friends in my life who weren’t going to try to sleep with me if an opportune moment arose.

I wanted to put the order in for the couples, but if ‘the jocks’ had already been in my section for a few minutes, I didn’t want to make them wait any longer without an acknowledgement. That was the first way to kill a tip before an interaction even started, and with as hard as I was working, I figured I might as well have something to show for it.

So I took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face and walked over to the table of six guys who were looking at me impatiently.

“Six minutes,” the dark-haired guy closest to me said when I greeted them.

“Excuse me?” I questioned.

“Six minutes. That’s how long we’ve been waiting.”

“I apologize,” I told him. “It’s really busy today.”

He looked at me skeptically for a few seconds before his eyes left my gaze to sweep down and then back up. “Ordinarily, I’d be pissed, but you’ve got killer legs, so I think we can let this one go. And if everything else is satisfactory, I might not lower your tip.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, wanting more than anything to say something that would wipe the smug smirk off his face. He would have been good looking if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a total pompous asshole, but he seemed like one of those guys who knew just how hot he was, so he figured he could get away with acting like a complete douchebag.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, letting just a little sarcasm slide through. I couldn’t help it, and as soon as I said it, I heard a few of his friends chuckle.

“You’re feisty,” the guy commented. 

“I’ve been known to be,” I said, figuring I’d already committed to pushing his buttons. Why stop now. It might be the only thing that got me through the rest of the interaction intact.

“I don’t always like feisty,” he told me.

“Well, then you probably won’t like me,” I told him, and then I shifted my gaze to his friends.

It was then that I noticed one of my neighbors. Not Cullen or Micah, because I had a feeling they’d never let a guy talk to me the way he was. It was Jack, the guy from my Macroeconomics class. But even though I’d been introduced to him and had a conversation with him, and he’d said hi to me a few times as we’d passed by each other in the breezeway between our apartments, it didn’t seem like he recognized me, even when I smiled at him.

“I like her,” a guy with red hair and freckles said with a smile, and I looked over at him.

“Thank you,” I told him, figuring if Jack was friends with these guys then maybe I didn’t really care if he remembered who I was. “I’m Kate, and I’ll be your server. Can I start you off with some drinks?”

Each one of them ordered a beer, so I had to check all of their IDs. As Jack handed me his, I remembered what Cullen had said about him being a sophomore, and even though I knew that didn’t mean anything, since not everyone started college at eighteen, the second I saw his license, I knew it was fake.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept this,” I told him.

“Why not?” he asked, his tone all innocence.

“Because I know your name isn’t Bryan Fisher.”

“Yes, it is.”

I smiled at him, hoping he wasn’t going to cause a scene. “I’m sorry,
Jack
, but I can’t serve you.”

His face fell when I said his name, and I almost felt bad for him until the dark-haired guy put his hand on my arm. I looked down at it in surprise, since I wasn’t someone who liked to be touched by people I didn’t know. I gently tugged my arm away, making him chuckle, and when I met his gaze, he was smirking again.

“Listen, sweetie. I know you’re new here, but we come in every Sunday for ribs and beer and football. It’s sort of a tradition. No one’s ever denied us before. You’re not going to be the first, are you?”

“He’s not twenty-one,” I told the guy. “So, yes, I’m denying him, and if I’m the first person to do that, then I’m sorry. I guess no one ever looked that closely at his ID.”

“How do you know who I am?” Jack asked me in that sexy accent of his, and I tried to ignore how much I liked the sound of it as I looked up at him.

He was watching me expectantly, and with innocence in his light hazel eyes, he looked even sexier than I remembered. I took pause for a few seconds, almost like I couldn’t help myself, and drank in his features. I decided it was his eyes that made him so attractive. There was something about them that made you want to believe whatever he said, which I knew from experience probably meant he couldn’t be trusted.

“I just know who you are,” I told him, feeling like if he couldn’t give me the courtesy of remembering who I was, then I wasn’t going to tell him how he knew me. I’d let him figure it out on his own the next time he saw me. “Now, can I get you something else to drink?”

“He’d like the Coors Light that he ordered,” the dark-haired guy told me.

“I get that, but it’s not going to happen,” I told him. “We do have a really great sweet tea. Maybe he’d enjoy that.”

“I want to speak to a manager,” the dark-haired guy said, but before I could tell him that I’d be happy to get my manager, the guy to his left spoke up.

“Leave her alone, Pete. I’m hungry, and it’s not worth making a scene over.”

“Screw you, Logan. If you’re not going to stick up for your cousin, then I will.”

Logan sighed. “Jack’s not twenty-one. I’m not going to even try to fight this. Get over it,” he said definitively.

The dark-haired guy, Pete, looked like he wanted to say more, but for whatever reason, he kept his mouth shut.

“Order something else, Jack,” Logan told him.

Jack took a deep breath, apparently respecting his cousin enough to listen to him. “I guess I’ll have a sweet tea.”

“You got it,” I told him with a smile, and then I walked the five feet to the closest computer to ring in their order along with the one for my other table.

“Dude, why do you have to be such dick?” I heard one of the guys at the table ask, assuming he was talking to Pete.

“I’m not a dick,” Pete defended. “I just figured that the mentality of the THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT would apply here.”

I knew he’d raised his voice for my benefit, but what I didn’t think he realized was that it only made me what to spit in his food more than I already did.

“Don’t be an ass,” I heard Logan tell him. “Just because she’s new doesn’t mean she should break the law.”

“It’s one drink,” Pete scoffed.

“Pete, I’m fine,” I heard Jack assure him. “I have to study tonight anyway. I probably shouldn’t get hammered.”

“You always have to study. Life’s too short, man. Live a little,” Pete grumbled at him.

“Hey, so not to change the subject,” one of the other guys said. He lowered his voice, but I could still hear what he said next. “Can we take a second to acknowledge the fact that the new waitress is totally smoking hot?”

“She’s an uptight bitch,” I heard Pete grumble, and I tensed up.

It seriously took everything in me not to walk back over to their table and smack him across the face. What an asshole.

“Maybe so, but she’s fucking hot,” one of the guys whose voice I didn’t recognize said. “I’ll bet that feistiness of hers is awesome in bed.”

I sighed, figuring what Kirby had said about them might be true. They were kind of pigs, but then again, I was fairly sure they thought I couldn’t hear them. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

“I’d totally hit that,” one of the other guys said. I thought it might be the redhead.

“I do like her ass in those shorts,” Pete agreed, and I saw him turn toward me out of the corner of my eye. “Maybe I’ll ask her out.”

All the guys at the table laughed, and some of them told him to go for it.

As I finished ringing in their drink order, I turned to them. “I’d never say yes,” I told Pete with a smile, and then I turned to walk away, hearing his friends rib him as I went, a small smile creeping up on my face.