Keep This Promise

by Willow Winters

  It’s odd to feel so much, so quickly. To feel that raw loss at the thought of one day getting out of here. I’m so used to feeling lonely that it didn’t take much for me to feel some sort of attachment to him. Although that feeling has come and gone for years and yet every time, I know there’s something between us I’d never have with anyone else.

  It only took that single kiss years ago to know that.

  “I say we just get out of here,” Angie suggests, interrupting my thoughts.

  I shrug at her suggestion. “Marc won’t notice, that’s for sure.”

  I’m not leaving this city any time soon. And whatever I have with Sebastian will more than likely be short-lived. I’m still shocked it’s happening at all.

  I’ll be counting the days until it ends.

  Even knowing that, so confidently certain it will end, I’m still going to give myself to him tonight. I didn’t question it for a moment.

  I was always his to take. And that’s exactly what I want. For him to be my first.

  My breathing comes out shaky as I realize the clock is ticking down to that moment and I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell him or not.

  “Okay, let’s just get out of here.” Angie hops down from her seat, letting it roll backward and carelessly slam into her desk as she slips her ridiculously high heels back on.

  “Why do you even work here?” I feel the sarcastic question slip out before I can stop myself. I feel like half a bitch, but with the nerves of what I’m going to do tonight, I’m not as careful with my words as I should be.

  Angie pauses for a second and then laughs, loud and unrestrained. She shrugs, slipping on the first heel and then the second. “The perv wanted to hire me,” she says and looks up at me as she continues, “and I had to pay my rent.”

  One point for honesty, I suppose. “Fair enough.” I can’t argue with that. Pushing on my thighs, I force myself to stand up and stack the piles, so I can get back to filing tomorrow and not lose my place. As I’m setting a generic glass paperweight on the stack, Angie asks me if I want a ride.

  My heart does a somersault, the weirdest movement as the jitters set through me. It’s been like this on and off all day.

  I’m going to go to Sebastian.

  Sebastian Black is going to fuck me tonight. All the anxiety and nerves mix in the pit of my stomach. Maybe if I keep telling myself it’s just sex, my heart will start believing it.

  “I’m good; I’m going to walk.” I think I do a good job at keeping the nerves out of my voice, but I have to stare at the stack instead of looking at her.

  I can feel her eyes on me though, and when I peek up, looking as innocently as I can at the only woman I’ve ever met who owns her sexuality like she does, she asks, “You sure?”

  That little place between her eyebrows is scrunched and I’m sure she can tell something’s off, but I’m not telling her shit. Not. One. Word. I don’t want advice; I don’t want to hear stories. Worse, I don’t want her to tell me the list of women he’s screwed. She has a habit of doing that whenever a man’s name comes up. She’s a walking encyclopedia of all things sexual and provocative.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I tell her nonchalantly, and her expression tells me that she isn’t buying any of it, but she doesn’t ask again. She grips the doorway once, looking between the pile of papers I refuse to take my eyes from and then back up to my face.

  “See you tomorrow then?” she asks and then adds, “You’re not going to take another mini vacay, right?”

  The smile she gets from me is genuine. “Your concern is adorable,” I tell her and roll my eyes before adding, “but no, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “All right, sweet cheeks,” she says while tapping the doorway, “See you in the morning.”

  “Have a good night, Buttercup,” I tell her and then scrunch my nose at Buttercup. I could have come up with something better, but the more I let it sit, the more I like it.

  I listen to her heels as she walks out and then immediately grab my bag and head out the back, rather than the front. The stairwell is all concrete steps down the back, which is why no one ever leaves this way, but it heads to the north part of the city, where the butcher shop is.

  My fingers feel sweaty as I pull my purse onto my shoulder, the nerves kicking into high gear.

  Every step I get closer to him, I get more nervous about each detail.

  I don’t have sexy lingerie, but I can wait for him naked.

  I didn’t pack all of my makeup yesterday when he brought me back to his place, only my mascara, so that’s all I have to work with.

  I have to clear my throat to get the knot out of it as I get closer. I know he’s working, and he told me to come to him when I was done, so I am.

  Part of me recognizes how… docile I’m being. The only thing that keeps me moving forward and only mildly second-guessing all of this, is how easy Bastian is making it for me. He’s not giving me hard glares until I look away. He isn’t pretending I don’t exist. He isn’t ignoring me.

  Something changed and I don’t know what, but he still makes me feel safe. He always has. I may be crazy in other ways. But I know what I’ve felt for Sebastian for years has merit. There’s something real between us, and that’s not a white lie. And I wish one of us would have the courage to say it out loud because deep down I know that neither of us can deny it.

  I don’t know if they’ll let me stay here now that my uncle’s dead. He died last week and right before my eighteenth birthday. The lawyer said he willed everything to me, but with the debt he left behind, they may have to take the house from me to put into the estate.

  And then I’ll have no one and nowhere to go.

  Those are the thoughts that keep me up tonight even though I know school will come tomorrow. I can’t keep skipping class, so I need to sleep, but I can’t.

  I’m so fucking angry. That’s what I feel most guilty about. I had one person who barely even spoke to me, but he let me stay here, and occasionally it felt like we were family. Uncle Travis was a good man, a trucker his whole life, but he didn’t much like other people. A lot of the time, I wondered if that meant me too. Being alone for so long will do that to you.

  He came home two weeks ago, and we talked about what was coming after high school. Tears flood my eyes again at the thought and I angrily brush them away.

  Even if he wasn’t physically here for me, or even if he never showed me much of anything other than a place to stay, I knew without a doubt last week that he loved me.

  And now he’s gone. It’s not fair.

  I take in a staggered breath and try to calm down as I cling to my pillow. I’ve never felt as selfish as I do now, being filled with anger when I should be mourning him.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Just as I think the question, I hear the floorboards creak behind me, toward the open door to the hall.

  A shiver runs down my spine as my eyes open wider and then narrow. Swallowing thickly, I know it wasn’t just the chill in the air that made the old boards bend in the night. I can hear whoever it is walking closer.

  It better be him, I think bitterly as I reach slowly into the nightstand. My uncle left everything to me, and that means his gun too.

  “You don’t need it,” the deep voice calls out from the doorway just as my fingertips brush the cold metal. Slowly shutting the drawer, I let my eyes close and try to calm the adrenaline racing through my body.

  “Why are you here?” I ask him without turning to face him. My chest aches with a pain I can’t describe. Sebastian used to come all the time at night when I first moved in here.

  “It’s been a while,” I tell him and hate the nostalgia in my tone.

  He’s quiet; he always is.

  He kissed me, he followed me, and then he left me alone.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him and then turn in bed, slowly bringing myself up to sit cross-legged under the covers. “As fine as I can be.” Years ago, when he’d come, he wouldn’t
leave until he believed me when I said those words.

  And I loved him for it. Truly and deeply, I loved him for it. If it had been anyone else, I’d have been terrified, angry and a mix of everything hateful, but it’s not just anyone. It’s Sebastian.

  Tears cloud my vision of his dark shadowy frame in the doorway.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Well gee,” I say sarcastically, bitterly even as I wipe my eyes. “So kind of you to point out the obvious.” It’s been years since he’s visited me and I’m not the same person I was back then. I’ve stopped praying for him to come and wishing he’d slip into bed with me and hold me.

  I don’t want to be held by anyone anymore. Even as I think it, I know it’s not true.

  “Just go,” I tell him and then lie down, turning my back to him and pulling the covers up closer to my face so I can use the soft bedding to wipe at my eyes. “You’re good at leaving,” I add and hate myself for even bothering to speak with him when he merely chuckles. It’s a deep low rumble that fills the bedroom and sends a shiver of want across my skin, igniting something I thought was long forgotten. It seems the hate I have for him leaving me, ignoring me day in and day out isn’t enough to drown out the desire to be held by him after all.

  “Someone told me you might be leaving.”

  “Who said that?” I barely speak the question. My heart does a stupid pitter-patter at the thought of leaving him. My heart is stupid. I listen as he walks into the bedroom. He stops somewhere far from the bed, but I don’t know where and I don’t turn to look at him.

  “Are you leaving?” he asks me.

  “I hope not,” I answer him, and the truth of that answer makes me close my eyes tightly. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, but I need a place to stay. Everyone needs a home, somewhere they can run to.

  “Is it money? Or are you moving somewhere else to be with other family?” he asks me.

  “There is no other family,” I admit, feeling lonelier by the second.

  “So, it’s money?”

  Time ticks by slowly until I answer him, “Yeah.”

  He’s quiet and doesn’t say anything for a long time. So long, I think maybe he’s left me until he says, “It’ll be okay. Go to sleep, Chloe Rose.”

  * * *

  I remember thinking how much I wish I didn’t want him to be here as I drifted to sleep, feeling his eyes on me. But I did. I had no one. And of everyone in this place, he was the only one I wanted. So, if that was the way I could have him, I’d take it.

  I don’t know if he heard me later that night when I woke up and started to cry out of nowhere. I confessed how much I missed him and how lonely I was as I wiped the tears away, still huddled in my spot, gripping the pillow. Or maybe that part was a dream. It’s hard to know anymore.

  Sebastian

  “Well, you only have one more year,” I tell Carter.

  “I don’t have time for it,” he answers me as he bounces the old tennis ball against the worn brick of the building.

  “You don’t have time for school?” I ask him in a tone that’s as filled with disbelief as my expression is. “Remind me again, where is it that you make your money?”

  Carter’s being a dipshit. “You don’t need to start working for Romano. You need to graduate, and you can make that extra cash from the schoolyard.”

  He’s a dealer at Crescent Hills High, only pot but he makes some good cash since he’s the only one with good shit in this area. The only other dealers are past Walnut Street and the highway that runs behind it, but those are claimed territories, one of them being Romano’s.

  “Romano’s never going to hire you anyway since you’re Irish.”

  I feel like a prick reminding him that he’ll never be trusted, but it’s for his own damn good. He should be focused on finishing school and then he can figure out a way to go down south and make some good cash at the fishery on the docks or some other shit. Something better than this.

  “You don’t get it.” His voice is tight and his teeth are clenched. “We have bills.”

  He throws the ball harder at the wall and catches it after it ricochets with a force that sounds like it hurt. “You forget there’s more than one person I have to look after.”

  It fucking hurts every time he brings it up. To me, he’s my kid brother. To him, he’s the older brother taking care of his family. A family I’m not a part of.

  “It’s good money,” I remind him. “Both the fishery and the pot. Romano’s not going to pay you shit.”

  I’m still shaking my head when he looks back at me. “Because I’m fucking Irish?”

  “Because he doesn’t have a need for you.” I’m blunt and harsh and my stomach twists. There’s no room for him in Romano’s territory, but even if there was, I’d lie. He doesn’t have the stomach for this shit. He should be better than me. He is better than me. I get paid to fuck up people who owe money to the wrong guys, assholes who think they can steal from establishments who pay for protection. I get paid to be a villain, a thug, and a version of myself I hate. It used to help with the anger; it made me feel like there was a purpose to it all. But that’s bullshit. I fucking hate who I am, and I don’t want this life for him. I don’t want it for anyone.

  It’s quiet other than the thud of the ball hitting the brick as he considers everything.

  “It’s just one more year, Carter.”

  “A lot can change in a year.” His voice is muted, low and defeated. I know he wants a change because of his mom, but I can’t help him there. I can’t keep her from dying. The rubble beneath my feet kicks up as I walk to the cement steps and face the parking lot.

  “Is that Chloe?” Carter asks me, and I have to get up to look down the street.

  Just the sight of her pulls my lips up into an asymmetric grin. “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “So much for picking her up,” he tells me with a glint in his eyes. I check my watch and see she’s early, then peek back up at her.

  With her jeans hugging her curves, I watch as she walks up the street, not taking my eyes off her.

  “Real quick,” Carter tries to get my attention, so I give him a short hum of an answer to let him know I heard him, but I refuse to look away from her as she walks to me.

  “Can you come with me to give my dad that money?” His question is enough to break the stare I have on her. He adds, “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I answer him with a shrug like it’s no big deal. His mom’s bills are adding up, so I’m loaning him some cash to keep them afloat. But the last time I did that, Carter’s dad laid into him, thinking he stole it and wanting to know from where.

  It’s not really a loan, as I never want to be paid back, but Carter insists I call it that. For only being sixteen with not much to be proud of, he’s a proud kid.

  “How is she doing with everything?” Carter asks to change the subject. I know that’s why he did it. “Is she still freaking out?”

  My gaze is brought back to her as he asks. Nice timing on his part, as she’s just walking up the parking lot.

  “She slept at my place last night,” I tell him. She slept easily and deep like she hadn’t slept in years, waking up with a yawn and a stretch that was so relaxed and at ease. Although the second she saw me, she blushed violently and tried to hide under the covers. “Good morning,” were the first words she greeted me with as she covered her mouth and hid under the sheets.

  Carter’s chuckle cuts off any thoughts of sharing particulars. “So that’s how you deal with it,” he says and nods his head in approval with a wide grin.

  If I had that ball in my hands, I’d throw it at him. But damn if the pride in my chest won’t go away at him thinking I fucked her worries away.

  “Hey.” Chloe gives a hello while she’s still a good ten feet away, walking through the parking lot and to the back behind the shop where we’re standing.

  Thump, Carter tosses the ball at the wall, but I don’t break my gaze from her. She’s
already blushing. Her skin is so beautiful like that, with that rosy tinge creeping up her cheeks and growing hotter every second I keep my eyes on her.

  “I don’t get a hello?” Carter asks jokingly, and for the first time since she’s walked up here, her attention goes to him.

  “What makes you think I wasn’t waiting for you to say hello first?” she asks him, quipping back without missing a beat and with the trace of a friendly smile on her lips. I can see she’s a little tense; it’s the way she is around people. Tense at first, quiet too, but if she wants, Chloe opens up easily and what’s inside is raw and beautiful.

  Carter grins back at her as he says, “Hello.” He pronounces the word carefully, enunciating each syllable and it makes her laugh although that shyness is still there.

  “Are you working here too?” she asks him and the hair raise on the back of my neck. Everyone here works for Romano, but Carter needs something better than this. I keep my thoughts to myself and wait for him to reply.

  “Still in school,” he answers and she’s quick to add, “I always forget you’re younger than us.”

  It’s odd how she says it. Like she knows him or maybe she’s just paired us together like other people have.

  “Were your ears burning?” Carter asks her with his brow raised. “We were just talking about you.”

  Chloe hums a small laugh with her lips closed tight although she can’t hide her smile. “I hope good things,” she adds after a moment of the two of us staring at her and waiting for her reply.

  “Mostly,” Carter jokes with her, but I can tell he makes her nervous by the way her smile slips.

  “Yeah,” she says honestly. “I kind of figured you might be…” her voice trails off and she offers me a small smile although I can see how nervous she is. She picks at the hem of her shirt while she talks. “I might have been talking about you too,” she tells me, biting down on her lip after and looking me up and down.

  “Is that right?” I ask her and she’s quick to shake her head. “No, I’m just playing.”