Promise Me Nothing (Hermosa Beach Book 1)

by Jillian Liota

  Smiling, I wrap a towel around my waist and head out to the living room, wondering if something changed and she doesn’t have to work.

  “You don’t have to… knock,” I say, my voice cutting off and my smile falling when I open the door and see Lucas standing there.

  He barges past me into the house, going straight for the liquor on the caddy in the kitchen.

  “I told you to stay away from her,” he spits, pouring himself a few fingers of his favorite whiskey. The guy really is becoming a bit of a lush. “And I come by this morning to talk to you about Ivy and I see her leaving?”

  He takes a sip and glares at me.

  “It’s not what you think,” I say, though as soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize they don’t sound right.

  What I meant to say is that it’s different than what he fears. Because I know he assumes I’m just screwing around with her, that I don’t really care.

  But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  If anything, she’s becoming someone I care about too much.

  “Oh really? So you’re going to tell me you’re not fucking my sister?”

  I grit my jaw, hating the way he makes it sound. But I won’t lie to him. So I shake my head.

  And he laughs, something bitter and angry. Then he tips back his whiskey and downs a third of it.

  “I can’t believe you would use her like that.”

  His words are angry, his finger pointing in my direction, and I can’t help myself when I say, “Oh, you have no idea the ways I’ve used her.”

  It’s a nasty thing to say, and I regret it the minute I allow my baser instincts to control my mouth, but it does the intended job.

  Lucas clenches his fists, rage overtaking his features, and I can tell we’re just a few well-placed barbs away from coming to blows. We’ve only fought one other time. Back in high school. And that was over something stupid. Teenage hormones.

  This, though… I know he means well. That he doesn’t want me to mess up his sister’s already fragile heart, especially when considering why he brought her here in the first place.

  But I can’t help how I feel about her. Can’t make myself stop this endless plummet into something deep and beautiful. That’s what loving her feels like.

  I nearly choke when I think the words in my head, bring my hands up to rub at my face, the uncertainty and fear surging through me. I’ve never said that to anyone before, outside of my family. And even though it should scare the shit out of me, it doesn’t. If anything, it raises my spirits.

  And I know I have to convince Lucas that he needs to let this drop. That his fears about me and Hannah are unfounded.

  Or at least, aren’t as bad as he’s imagining.

  “I brought her here for a reason,” he spits. “There was a plan. I can promise that it didn’t include you getting your dick wet. And when you run off to London at the end of summer, guess who gets stuck cleaning up your mess.”

  At the callousness of his words, I see red, my logical mind flying out the window.

  “Fuck you, Lucas!” I shout, jamming a finger into his chest. He bats my hand away, his nostrils flaring. “I was against this from the very beginning. So don’t try to rest the blame on me. It was you that made up the excuses so I’d bump into her. It was you that said I needed to be the one to spend the most time with her.”

  “That’s not how it was.”

  “That’s exactly how it was. You brought Hannah here. You were the one who was so sure that if she met Ivy, felt welcomed, thought she had a family here, that she’d be that much more likely to help. And then what did you do as soon as she got to town? You bailed. You spent all your time with Otto or Lennon or who-the-fuck-ever, going off to surfing competitions and disappearing. And you left me to handle your stupid fucking plan. So I handled it.”

  He just shakes his head, the anger rolling off of him in waves.

  “Nothing else to say?” I taunt.

  We stand in silence for a second, just glaring at each other, our chests heaving like we’ve been running for miles.

  And that’s when I realize what I’m seeing on Lucas isn’t anger.

  Well. It is.

  But it’s different.

  Because mixed in with that anger is pain. And if I know him at all… regret.

  “Look,” I say, dropping my arms and resting my hands on my hips, trying to sort out what to say to deescalate this. “We all have feelings involved in this. Much more than I ever would have thought if you’d told me this was going to happen. But this is where we’re at.”

  Lucas continues to glare at me, and I can tell he’s trying to hide how he feels. But I can see the pain of guilt around the edges. The emotions he feels because we both care about someone who was supposed to be a means to an end.

  A way to possibly change Ivy’s life forever.

  We just never really thought through the fact that bringing her here would change all of our lives, too.

  “When you told me about Hannah and Joshua…” I shake my head. “I mean… that was years ago. Almost a decade. We were just kids ourselves, okay? I think we both wish things had worked out differently. And I’m truly sorry that I talked you out of contacting her back then. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good relationship with her now. It doesn’t mean the only reason Hannah is here is because we need her to help Ivy. Not anymore.”

  He sighs, downs the rest of his drink, sets it on the counter.

  But before I can say anything else, make my final plea, I see something.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement. The front door slowly being pushed open. The blare of sunlight illuminating the room and the outline of someone standing in the doorway.

  Hannah.

  Hannah is standing in the doorway.

  Why is Hannah standing in the doorway?

  All I can see is the expression on her face.

  The pain and disbelief in her eyes.

  Her almost ashen skin.

  “I forgot my phone.”

  It’s the only thing she says, her eyes connecting with mine for only a brief second, then flitting to Lucas, a hint of fear and sadness mangled in with rock bottom devastation.

  And like an idiot, I’m so stunned by her presence that I just stand there, my mouth gaping, surprise etched in my every atom of being.

  She’s here.

  Right now.

  Listening to everything I just said.

  How is she here? She’s supposed to be gone.

  Then suddenly, she is. Her figure disappears, the sound of her tennis shoes plunking rapidly down the wooden stairs outside as she races away from us.

  Finally getting the movement of my body back under control, I rush out behind her, nearly tripping down the stairs as I try to hold my towel in place around my waist.

  “Hannah!” I shout as I come flying out of my gate.

  When I look to the left, I can see her figure pedaling away in the distance.

  I kick my garage door. “Fuck!” I yell, startling a woman walking her dog.

  I don’t even apologize, just race up the stairs two at a time.

  Heading into my bedroom, I grab my phone and call her, cursing again when her phone starts to ring on her side of the bed.

  Her side.

  I could fucking cry right now.

  I sit on the edge of my bed and put my head in my hands, wondering if I should do just that.

  How did this happen?

  “I’m assuming she heard everything we said,” comes Lucas’ voice from the door to my bedroom.

  “No shit,” I grit between clenched teeth.

  We’re both silent. There isn’t really anything to say. I don’t even know the first thing to do.

  “Fuck,” I whisper.

  “Yeah.”

  I look over at Lucas and see his expression looks just as crestfallen as mine. He looks like someone died.

  And to be honest, I’m pretty sure that whatever she heard? It killed
something inside of her.

  Because the way she looked at me? It killed something inside of me.

  “I thought we’d have more time, that I’d be able to tell her…” I trail off and look at Lucas.

  He sighs. Comes and sits next to me.

  And then we sit in silence.

  I don’t know what Lucas is thinking about, but I’m replaying our conversation, trying to remember what I said. What might have wounded her the most.

  My comment about using her?

  The fact she was only brought here to help Ivy?

  “Where do we even go from here?” Lucas asks, clearly feeling as helpless as I do.

  I shake my head. “No fucking clue.”

  I get dressed quickly, grab both of our phones, and leave my house with one purpose in mind.

  Find Hannah and make her listen to me.

  Convince her to forgive me for all of the ways that I’ve clearly fucked this up.

  My first stop is Bennie’s, but I’m not surprised to learn that she got another server to pick up the shift she had picked up from Eleanor.

  Lucas calls and says she’s not at home, though her bike is there, which means she couldn’t have gotten far.

  “Unless she took a cab somewhere,” Lucas interjects.

  “Where the fuck would she go?” I say over the phone.

  “Uh, I don’t know,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “The airport? The bus station? A hotel? Back to Phoenix? The last thing she wants right now is to talk to either of us. So one of us should probably wait here for her.”

  My stomach plummets at the idea that she might have left. For good. I can’t imagine she would do that though. Hannah isn’t impulsive. She’s measured. Thoughtful. Careful. A decision like that would take time to make.

  Though I can understand how overhearing your brother and your boyfriend talking about all the ways they lied to you might cause some uncharacteristically irrational behavior.

  “You stay at your house. I have to keep looking. But call me if you hear from her or see her, okay?”

  He agrees, and we hang up.

  And then I go on a completely fruitless search, knowing I’m not going to find her on my own.

  The Wave.

  Harbor’s.

  Mary’s.

  I check the sand dune.

  Even the yacht club.

  I call all of my friends, let them know we’re looking for her.

  As the hours continue to pass with no sign of her, I head back to Bennie’s at the Pier, my mind resigned to the fact that I won’t be able to fix this just by trying to track her down.

  But my trip back to Bennie’s isn’t in search of Hannah.

  It’s to talk to Ben.

  He meets me in the loading bay and hands me a beer, clinks his bottle against mine before taking a seat next to me on the grimy steps leading up to the dock.

  It’s amazing how quickly and desperately I feel in need of my brother’s advice.

  The one man that I’ve considered a coward for years.

  The man who seemed to be afraid and alone all the time.

  Knowing how affected Hannah is probably going to be by what she heard, I need the wise words of a man who has had to deal with painful and bitter issues in relationships. The advice of a man who has truly hit rock bottom before, and seems to have found his own unique way to recover.

  Because really, as Ivy’s other brother, he might be the only one who will understand both my love for Ivy, and how much I love Hannah.

  “That is… quite an unfortunate turn of events,” he says to me after I finish relaying to him the entirety of the morning.

  “So now, I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where she is. Do I just wait? Sit around while she might be out there, hurting?”

  “Do you really have any other choice?”

  I sigh. “That’s not what I wanted you to say.”

  “What did you want me to say, Wyatt? You came to me for a reason, and it isn’t because I’m someone who sprays bullshit and rainbows when things are horrible. You came to me because you know I’ll tell you the truth.”

  When I look at him, he must see the pain on my face, because he flinches.

  “So tell me the truth,” I say, dangling the mostly empty bottle between my fingers. “How do you see this turning out? Do you think she’ll forgive us or…”

  “Honestly? I don’t know how you can come back from this. Lucas? Probably. He’s her brother. They’re blood. He’s literally the only family she has right now. But you?” He shakes his head, tilts his bottle back and takes another swig. “You’re one of the reasons she was stuck in foster care. Can you imagine what her life might have been like if she and Lucas had hit it off when she was younger?”

  My stomach turns over and an iron fist squeezes my lungs.

  “You’re not to blame for what happened to her parents or her brother,” Ben adds. “But I can see how she’ll have a hard time getting over the rest. Because shit.”

  “So that’s it?” I ask, shaking my head in disbelief. “Those are your wise words?”

  My brother pauses, seeming to go off into his own mind for a moment, a small and painful smile coming across his face.

  “You want wise words? Here they are. You will never know what might happen if you don’t give everything you have to convincing her that you love her, and that you’re worth forgiving. And I mean everything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hannah

  My legs have never felt like this.

  Like anchors.

  Like chains.

  My lungs are throbbing, my head aching as I continue to plow forward.

  I don’t even know how long I’ve been running. But I’d have to guess I’ve been out here for at least a few hours.

  And I know I’m probably doing actual harm to my body.

  That my muscles are going to rebel against this absolute wreckage I’m putting them through.

  I didn’t stretch.

  I didn’t warm up.

  I haven’t prepared.

  And yet I’ve run longer than I’ve ever been able to in my life. My best guess would be that I’ve finally achieved my goal of running a half marathon. Though this isn’t how I ever envisioned it happening.

  Because I’ve been running to find the bliss. The nothing. The absolute blankness that I can usually get to when I’m in pain or hurt or sad or just stressed.

  But I can’t find it.

  I’ve been pushing and searching and I just… can’t find it.

  I slow myself down to a walk, my chest heaving, my muscles protesting as I shake them out.

  Running the full length of The Strand that leads from Hermosa up to Playa del Rey, the road Wyatt took when we went on his motorcycle… I drop down to a squat and brace my head in my hands.

  There’s an empty place in my chest, something hollow and sticky and painful that didn’t used to be there a few hours ago.

  Or maybe it had. But it was much smaller.

  Until the bomb that exploded and left a much larger wound behind.

  I keep playing it over and over in my mind, as if somehow I can rehear it, not hear it, change what was said. But I know that’s not the case.

  Because how do you change the words you have no idea the ways I’ve used her. What else could that mean other than exactly what I heard.

  “You brought Hannah here,” he’d said. “You were the one who was so sure that if she met Ivy, felt welcomed, thought she had a family, that she’d be that much more likely to help.”

  It makes me feel like everything I’ve ever learned about Lucas, about Wyatt, about this town, this place that I started to feel like I might be able to find a place in…

  Was it all a lie?

  Was it all some big promise that was meant to fall through in the end?

  I feel like I can barely breathe as I collapse in the grass at a small park at the end of the pathway, but it isn’t just from the running. It’s from this
undeniable sense of having been a pawn in someone’s endgame. My only role here was to be used.

  The tears rush forward, sobs gasping from between my lips.

  And the thing that kills me the most is that I probably would have helped anyway.

  Whatever is wrong with Ivy? I might have been able to help without the secrecy. Without the lying.

  Without what happened with Wyatt.

  I clutch my stomach, feeling like I might heave up everything inside of me.

  Was that all a game too?

  Was everything he told me just another part of this lie?

  I don’t know how this happened. How everything fell apart like this.

  It feels like the world is closing in. Like, as much as I try to hold everything together, everything I thought about my life is like dry sand spilling between my fingers too quickly for me to recover. And the more I try to keep things going, the faster it falls apart.

  How can they do something like this. Lie. Manipulate. Steal.

  Because that’s what Wyatt did. He stole something from me. And I don’t just mean my heart or my virginity or even my first love.

  He stole away my already fragile belief that anyone could ever promise me anything and actually mean it.

  I finally get home a few hours later, my body feeling broken and battered, possibly even bruised.

  Lucas comes flying off the couch when he sees me.

  “Where have you been?” he asks, his face etched in concern, though I’m too tired to muster up even a fraction of interest. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  I ignore him, walking straight past where he stands and heading up the stairs, slowly, one step at a time.

  He hovers behind me as I crawl up the stairs, finally speaking when I stand in the open doorway to my bedroom, his voice sounding broken and strained. Though I really don’t care.

  “Hannah, please let me explain.”

  “Don’t,” is the only thing I say, my voice rippling with exhaustion and my body fighting off a new wave of tears.

  And then I close the door, sliding to the ground with my back against it.

  The good thing about the pain I’ve put my body through with this run is that most of my attention is focused on where I ache. I know I’m going to be feeling this for a while.