Promise Me Nothing (Hermosa Beach Book 1)

by Jillian Liota

  “Don’t ever do that again. The pier is not safe after midnight. Anyone still lurking around is either plastered at one of the bars or homeless.”

  Then it’s my turn to glower. “You know, homeless people aren’t usually dangerous, and saying stuff like that doesn’t help.”

  His expression softens. “Hannah…”

  “Did I tell you that I lived in a homeless shelter for a year?”

  Lucas grits his jaw and looks down at his hands.

  “When I was fifteen, I was assaulted by one of my foster dads. When I got relocated to a new home, one of the girls there made my life a living hell, so I alternated between sleeping at a shelter, crashing on the back porch at my friend Sienna’s and using the hammocks at the YMCA. That’s the year everyone started calling me Homeless Hannah.”

  When he looks up at me, I can’t read his expression. But I can tell that he’s pained by what he hears. This isn’t simple empathy, or commiserating about a troubled past.

  Lucas is upset.

  “You never know what someone’s circumstances are, and assuming the worst won’t ever get you anywhere you want to be.”

  He lets out a sigh and twists his hands together. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

  “It’s not your fault, Lucas. It’s just life.”

  He gives a small shake of his head, though he stays silent.

  I feel bad for continuing to share little bits of my life with Lucas. It clearly upsets him on a much deeper level than I was expecting. Sometimes I wonder if I should lie about my past. Make it sound fluffier, more filled with fun times and not so riddled with pain.

  But then I think about the girl who had to go through those experiences, the younger me, who felt like she never had a voice, and I just can’t give in to society’s expectation that she stays silent.

  So if a moment comes up where something painful needs to be talked about? I need to do it.

  For her.

  “I have to work today. But do you want to come meet me after my shift? We could do another bike ride or something.”

  Lucas wrinkles his nose. “I’m surfing in a charity event for the holiday weekend,” he says. “That’s what I was coming to tell you. I have to drive up to Malibu with Otto. I’m leaving at around noon and I’ll be back Tuesday morning.”

  “Oh,” I say, my shoulders dropping even as I try to hide my disappointment. “Okay.”

  “Do you want to come with?”

  But I’m already shaking my head. “I can’t. I have to work all weekend. Hamish said there are no exceptions.”

  “You don’t need that job, you know.”

  I glare at him and he gives me a soft smile.

  “God, you’re so stubborn. And so independent.”

  “I’m glad you’re finally grasping that.”

  He laughs, nods his head, then stands and heads for the door, but turns and looks at the mug on my nightstand.

  “Do you not like coffee?” he asks.

  I give him a small smile and scrunch up my nose. “Not really.”

  “What’s your morning drink, then?”

  I lift a shoulder. “Juice. Or tea.”

  “Ah, so that’s why I keep finding tea bags in the trash. I thought maybe Thalia was sneaking into my Earl Grey, but it’s you.”

  I smile. “Definitely me.”

  Lucas takes one more sip of his coffee. “I’ll drive you to work today. That way I can say bye before I go.” He pauses. “You sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself this weekend.”

  “Yeah. I’m a big girl, you know. I’ve handled worse things than what will probably be a bunch of loud drunk people on The Strand.”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. “When I get back, we’ll spend more time together. I know you said you don’t want to be coddled, and I promise that’s not what I’m doing. I just… sometimes I get distracted. I really have been meaning to spend more time with you.”

  “Lucas, you have a life,” I say, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. It’s the one thing I’ve been reminding myself whenever I’ve felt a little hurt at how little time we’ve actually spent together in the handful of weeks that I’ve been living here. “I wasn’t expecting you to be available to me 24/7. I love that I’ve been invited to hang out with your friends a few times.”

  He gives me a nod. “Well, I’m going to make sure I have a different kind of schedule when I come back, okay?” He steps forward and gives me a brotherly kiss on the crown of my head, a new gesture of affection that has me smiling in its wake.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to leave for work,” he says, then leaves the room, shutting the door softly as he goes.

  I stare after him, my eyes still focused on the door long after he’s gone.

  Sometimes, Lucas can be these two completely different people. Like last night. He’d seemed so distant. Drunk, which is one of my least favorite things.

  And then there are other times when he seems like this really genuine guy with all these emotions he doesn’t know how to deal with. Like he was never taught how to process and feel and that it’s okay to be upset and cry and be disappointed.

  Not everything has to be a party.

  Not everything has to be a great time.

  That’s not how life works.

  I snuggle back into my bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe another hour of sleep will help me deal with whatever else is going on in my brain.

  Lucas drops me off at work with a hug and a promise to check in with me over the weekend, wanting to make sure I’m okay being in the house alone.

  Part of me delights in the fact that he’s being protective. It’s a component of my soul that didn’t get nurtured as I grew older and had a good amount of freedom because no one was paying attention.

  However, the pieces of me that are very much an almost twenty-two-year-old adult is not a fan of his nosiness.

  So I shoo him off on his trip with assurances that I’ll text him if there are any problems.

  Then I get to work. A long, grueling shift that’s proving Hamish’s predictions about an overwhelmingly busy holiday weekend to be true.

  And it’s only Thursday. I can only imagine what the rest of the weekend will look like. And I’ll definitely know at some point since I’ve been scheduled to work shifts on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

  I’m just hopeful that the tips will make up for the exhaustion I’m surely going to be feeling soon.

  It isn’t until I get off that I realize I have a text from Wyatt.

  And I also can’t help the stupid smile on my face when I remember what it was like to press against him, to want him closer.

  Wyatt: How’s your day going?

  It’s simple and short. And I’m sure a teenage me would have obsessed over it for hours before responding to make sure just the right thing was said.

  But this version of me is tired of bullshit and doesn’t play games the way most girls do.

  So I flick off a quick reply.

  Me: Long. Split shift. Just got off. You?

  Heading out to the back, I reach my bike just as I hear a motorcycle coming up behind me. I look over, smiling as Wyatt’s very fancy, very loud bike rolls up next to where I stand.

  Then he cuts the engine, drops the kickstand, and pulls off his helmet.

  If I could swoon, I would. Because seeing him yank off his helmet, then toss his head and run a hand through his hair? It’s the stuff you see in movies.

  And then he gives me that grin. The heart-stopping one. The heart-pounding one.

  The thrill of being near him rushes through my body.

  “I texted you a few hours ago, you know,” he says, his voice teasing and playful. “Should I take offense that you haven’t gotten back to me yet?”

  “No, don’t, I didn’t see it,” I reply, then flush. “I mean, I just responded to you.”

  He nods. Sets his helmet on his leg and rests an arm on top of it. “You free tonight?”

 
I grin.

  “That’s why I was checking in. I wanna take you on a night ride.” And then he reaches back and unclips a second helmet from the back of his bike with the ease of someone who knows what he’s doing. “You in?”

  “Absolutely,” I reply, no hesitation as I take the helmet from his hands. I push it on my head, tuck my plastic bike helmet into my backpack, and climb on behind Wyatt, this time with a bit more grace than last time he gave me a ride.

  I might seem overly eager. But I’m not entirely sure that I care. At least not enough to change how I respond to him.

  I snuggle in close, my hands holding him tight on his stomach, and press my body flush against his. I love feeling the warmth of him, that feeling of body heat that no blanket or pillow or heater can replicate.

  He turns the engine on, or whatever he does, and then we roll slowly down the alley, out towards the main street.

  “Hold on, sweetheart,” he calls back to me, giving my hands around his waist a light tap. And then he revs the engine and pulls onto Hermosa Ave, beginning our journey to wherever he’s planning to take us.

  We spend a while driving along the water, a long stretch of road that takes us up the coast, under the planes leaving from and landing at LAX. When we hit a dead end, we turn and head down new stretch of road, though this one is much busier.

  I know I should be watching as we ride, taking in the scenes, the Los Angeles nightlife. But I can’t help it when I rest my head against his back and close my eyes, just enjoying the feeling of being pressed together.

  Eventually, we come to a final stop and I’m forced to open my eyes and look around.

  I laugh, pulling off my helmet.

  “Donuts.”

  “Yup.”

  “We drove for thirty minutes so you could take me to get donuts.”

  “The best donuts.”

  “Ah, well… see, you should have led with the word ‘best’ and I would have nodded in understanding,” I tease.

  He smiles and helps me climb off his bike.

  “So where are we, anyway?”

  “Santa Monica. We drove through Venice Beach on our way here.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of Venice,” I say as we get closer to the pretty pink building that looks to be filled with an absolutely obscene amount of sugar. “That’s the place with all the crazies, right?”

  He chuckles. “Yes, though it really is a fun place to spend a day. The big cities along the coast are Hermosa, Marina Del Rey, Venice, Santa Monica, and then there’s a bit of a stretch until you hit Malibu.”

  “Hey, that’s where Lucas is.”

  Wyatt pauses. “What?”

  “Lucas went to Malibu this weekend. He’s surfing in a charity event.”

  He nods and opens the door for me, and I’m assaulted by the delicious smell. Our conversation halts as we bend over and peruse the offerings. I’m tempted to buy a dozen, but I know I’ll have no way of taking any of them home, and eating them all tonight just isn’t an option. So I settle on two. A long, twisty maple bar, and a round chocolate covered in coconut. Wyatt grabs a huge bear claw and a coffee.

  Then we head to the tables in the back, a little courtyard with overhead fairy lights and wooden benches. It’s a quirky little place, and I love it.

  “So what’s your plan for the weekend?” Lucas asks, ripping the paper bag open so our donuts have a makeshift plate. “With Lucas gone, I mean.”

  I lift a shoulder and pick up the maple bar. “It doesn’t really matter. I work the entire weekend, so I wouldn’t have been able to do anything fun anyways.”

  Then I take a bite of my donut, the tasty maple and sugary sweetness hitting my tongue in a burst. I close my eyes on a moan. “Oh god, Wyatt. This is amazing.”

  I open my eyes again and find him frozen, his eyes heated as he watches me.

  “Sorry. I’m a loud eater.”

  He smirks, then bites into his own pastry. He nods as he chews, letting out his own noise of appreciation, then sets it down and reaches over to take a sip of his coffee.

  “So what do you do, Wyatt?” I say, pulling another piece of donut off and popping it into my mouth. “Where do you work?”

  He holds his cup loosely between his fingers. “Well, I used to work for a startup business in San Francisco. But recently, I’ve actually started working for Otto’s company.”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t know he had a company.”

  Wyatt’s eyebrows lift. “Oh really? He and Lucas are business partners. I just thought you would have known.”

  I laugh. “Lucas and I have been trying to get to know each other, but there’s still a lot we haven’t gotten to yet.”

  He nods.

  “So what is it?” I stretch my legs out below the table. “The company, I mean.”

  “It’s called Elite X. It’s a social club.”

  I laugh. “I have no idea what that even means.”

  Wyatt smiles over the brim of his coffee cup. “It just means we get people together to do stuff that they’re all interested in doing. Otto calls it ‘curated experiences’. That’s what the X stands for. But I guess the best way to explain it is that people pay us to give them an awesome time. We do group functions, like whiskey tasting at an exclusive club. Or small gatherings with celebrities. But we’re looking into expanding into travel experiences, because that’s what the market is looking like right now. And that’s where I come in.”

  “What’s a travel experience?”

  He takes another bite of his bear claw, then licks his lips, my eyes drawn to the motion. “So, an example of something we might offer is a Wine at Night Tour through Italy. People who go on our tours will visit places that are normally crowded with tourists during the day, but they will get an exclusive tour and wine tasting at night.”

  My mouth drops open. “Oh my gosh, Wyatt. That is so cool. So what do you actually do?”

  “I just started working with them, even though I’ve been involved with it since it was a start up. I’m moving to London at the end of the summer to find partners. Basically, I’ll be setting up the international part. Hiring people, finding the locations and special experiences people will want.” He shrugs, like that doesn’t sound like one of the coolest jobs ever.

  “And you know how to do all that? God, I can’t even imagine where to begin.”

  Wyatt smiles. “I have a business degree from UC Berkeley. It’s one of the reasons I decided to head up to San Francisco recently. It was a bit of a vacation, but also an opportunity to work for my friend’s company, get a little bit of the experience I needed for this next step, which Otto has been planning for a while.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  Instead of acknowledging my compliment, he takes another sip of his coffee, then offers it to me. “Want some?”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not really a coffee person. It tastes like dirt to me.”

  He laughs, his head falling back, his deep chuckle echoing in the quiet area behind the donut shop. “Of course you’re not into coffee.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But you’re definitely not like other girls.”

  My smile slips just a smidge. I can’t help it. I wonder if there will ever be a time when something like that doesn’t bother me. When someone saying that I’m not like everyone else will sound like the compliment it probably is.

  But instead, all I can hear is you don’t fit in, again.

  “Hey, what did I say?” he asks, his expression concerned.

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  He rests his hand over mine on the table. “Hannah.”

  I sigh. “It really isn’t anything. It’s just… when you say that. About me not being like other girls. I just have a complex about it. I’m trying not to, because I know you probably meant it as a compliment or something, just like Paige and Lucas have when they’ve said things like that, but…” I shrug. “I spent my entire life not fitting in and I�
��m just ready for that not to be the case anymore.”

  Wyatt watches me as I share this with him, his eyes unreadable.

  I tilt my head back and look up at the sky through the fairy lights. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a Debbie Downer about…”

  “Hannah.”

  I drop back to look at him.

  “You’re not being a downer. You’re being real. And I appreciate that. I really do.” He pauses, looks down at his half-eaten bear claw. “I used to feel like I didn’t belong either. Has Lucas told you that Ben and I were adopted?”

  My mouth opens a little bit in surprise.

  Wyatt laughs. “I’ll take that as a no. Yeah, we were babies, given to my parents by two high school teenagers that weren’t in love and were just too young. I’ve always known. It was never a secret. But for years, I wondered if I would fit anywhere without understanding where I come from.”

  He picks his coffee back up, probably to do something with his hands more than anything else, because he doesn’t drink from it.

  “So when I was thirteen, I went in search of them. Wanted to see them through my own eyes. Ask the questions every adopted kid wants to ask. But when I got there, I chickened out. Came straight back home.”

  “That’s not chickening out, Wyatt,” I say, reaching forward and resting a hand on his wrist. “You were a kid. It was so brave of you to try and get answers. To want to understand a past you might have had if things had been different.”

  He swallows, and his nose flares. The emotion he’s feeling right now is so deep, so strong. “Is that how you feel about your own past?” he asks. “What things would have been like if life hadn’t been so… unfair?”

  I puff air out of my nose, an awkward non-laugh at such a serious question. “I try not to think about what life would have been like if my parents had lived. But I do wonder about Joshua. I had an older brother, and he died when I was twelve.” I swallow, something thick and tasting sourly of guilt making the next words hard to voice. “He died in an accident at work, one of three jobs he had because he was trying to make enough money to get custody of me.”