Promised Gifts

by Elena Aitken

  * * *

  Nick read the itinerary and then read it again. He really should have paid more attention to it earlier. He sank into the chair by the window and looked again at Missy’s closed bedroom door.

  After the dinner was over, Missy dragged her feet about going back to the room, and she tried to be sneaky when she went to the front desk to request a new room, but Nick noticed.

  It was strange, but he was a little hurt that she was so bothered about sharing a suite with him. It’s not like they were sharing a room, after all. And really, they’d been friends for most of their life; it shouldn’t be a big deal.

  But it was.

  He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a big deal for him too.

  Nick thought he would be fine, but when he saw Marissa standing there, everything he thought he’d feel went totally out the window. Apparently not even eight years was enough to make those feelings disappear. She was even more beautiful than before, and something about the easy way she laughed tugged at something low in his gut.

  He pulled his gaze away from her bedroom door and back at the itinerary. She’d already been in there over twenty minutes. But there was no way she’d gone to bed. They had too much to do. This wedding was definitely an action-packed weekend.

  There was no help for it; he was going to have to knock. He put his paper down, took a breath and stood. His hand was poised over the door, ready to knock, when it opened.

  Missy stood in front of him in sweatpants and tank top, her hair up in a ponytail. Her face had been washed and she looked...gorgeous.

  “I was just about to see if you were in bed.”

  That did not come out right.

  She looked at first shocked and then she laughed. “Were you now?”

  “Not like that.” Nick held up his hands and laughed along with her. “I was just looking at the plans for the weekend and I thought maybe we should organize a few things.”

  Her face relaxed and she moved past him into the room. “Jenny does seem to have every moment planned and accounted for,” she said. “I do like how organized she is, but still...I think I’ll need a vacation when all this is over.” She flopped down on the couch and grabbed the piece of paper from the table.

  Nick had to resist the urge to go sit next to her and put his arm around her to pull her into a cuddle. It felt natural to do so, but at the same time...there was no way.

  He made a point to sit on the other side of the room, in the same chair he’d been in.

  “So what’s first?” Missy read down the list. “Oh yes, it looks like we’re going to be team captains tomorrow for wedding wars. I hope you’re ready to get taken down?”

  “In a tug-of-war?” He laughed. “There’s no way your team is going to beat mine.” He flexed as a joke, but he didn’t miss the way her eyes widened seconds before she looked away.

  It was ludicrous to even believe that Missy was still attracted to him. And even if she was, there was no way she would even like him anymore. He’d done his best to take care of that the night she confessed her feelings to him.

  He still remembered it as if it had just happened yesterday. It was her graduation night, and she’d looked amazing in her black fitted dress, with a slit up her thigh and a dangerously low-cut back. Having graduated a year before her, Nick and Jake were both home from college and, after the Duncans’ celebratory BBQ, had been lingering around as Missy and her friends got ready for the graduation dance.

  When their dates arrived to pick them up, Jake and Nick gave the boys a hard time. Nick focused on Missy’s date in particular. It should have been him who took her to her dance. For almost three years, he’d secretly wished it would somehow be him. But Jake would have killed him. There was a code, and there was no way Nick could break it. No matter what. The Duncan family had been more like a family to him than his own; he couldn’t screw it up by dating Missy.

  And that’s why, when later that night, Missy came home from her dance and found Nick in the kitchen getting a glass of water, he had to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

  She’d looked amazing when she’d walked over to him, and no doubt she’d seen his own desire reflected in his eyes. He’d never forget what she said: “Nick, I know I shouldn’t, but I think tonight is the perfect night to tell you that I’m in love with you. I have been for years.” And then she kissed him. And he kissed her back. And it was the single most amazing kiss he’d ever had, or had since.

  It had taken every bit of willpower he possessed not to pull her close and deepen that kiss, but instead to push her away and—it still made him cringe to think about it—laugh at her. He’d called her a silly little girl and he’d laughed. Nick would never forget the look on Missy’s face as she realized what he was doing. She’d been devastated.

  And he’d done it to her.

  Little did she know that he’d crushed his own heart as well.

  But it had been for the best. Jake would never have forgiven him.

  That had been eight years ago. Looking at the confident woman in front of him now, there was no way he could believe that she could have any feelings left for him, not after the way he’d hurt her.

  “What do you think?” she asked him and he realized he had been lost in his memories and hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  “About what?”

  “The dance.” Missy grinned at him. “Jenny and Jake have been practicing their first dance for months, and she made it very clear that we were supposed to look good on the dance floor as well.”

  “So we need to practice?”

  “I think that’s the idea.” Missy popped up from the couch and grabbed her phone. “I downloaded the song—just let me find it.”

  While she was looking through her phone, Nick got to work clearing the furniture out of the way. He was just pushing the couch back when the song started to play.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He shook his head with a laugh because the song Jenny and Jake had picked for them to dance to had to be a joke.

  * * *

  “I’m pretty sure my brother has decided to use his wedding to play one giant practical joke on me,” Marissa said. “You should see my dress.”

  “Your dress?”

  “You’ll see.” She shook her head.

  “But this song?”

  The song was the iconic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing, a movie Marissa had loved and forced the boys to watch multiple times with her when they were growing up. It wasn’t her favorite song from the movie, but more than once when she was a teenager she’d fantasized about dancing with Nick to it. In fact, more times than she’d like to count.

  But there was no way Jake could know that.

  “I don’t think we have to enact the actual dance from the movie.” She laughed even though she’d imagined it in her head enough times that she could probably pull it off. “We’re just supposed to look...seamless.”

  Nick held out his arms; Marissa hesitated, but only for a second. She could do this. She could handle Nick Slater’s arms holding her close.

  She could.

  She stepped closer and his arms closed around her. Marissa tried not to breathe in the scent of him. He smelled like cedar and orange, just the way he always had. She closed her eyes to keep from looking at him.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice, and he started to move in time to the music.

  They’d never danced together before—unless you counted her dreams, and she didn’t. But despite their inexperience together, they moved around the small living room as if they’d done it a million times and Marissa lost herself in the moment.

  When the song ended, she was dizzy, but not because of the dancing. The feelings that flooded through her knocked her completely off guard. It was one thing to see Nick Slater across the room for the first time in so long. It was another to sit by him at dinner and share a suite with him. But it was a completely different thing altog
ether to be in his arms, dancing to a song she’d fantasized about since she was sixteen.

  She couldn’t help it. It didn’t make sense, and nothing about it was a good idea, but there was no denying it. Even after almost a decade, she was still in love with Nick Slater.

  “Missy?”

  Her eyes fluttered open to see Nick looking down at her with concern on his face. Their faces were so close. Only inches apart really. She could kiss him. She could reach up on her tippy-toes and kiss him, just the way she had before.

  Remember how that ended up?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she answered quickly. “I’m fine. I’m just...I’m tired I think. It’s been a long day.” She pulled out of his embrace and put distance between them. She hadn’t imagined the connection. There was no way that was her imagination. He’d felt it too; he had to. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. Just the way she had all those years ago when she’d been so sure he felt the same way she did.

  But you were wrong.

  The voice in her head was starting to become very annoying.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” he said. “I can get you a glass of—”

  “No.” She wrapped her arms around her, suddenly cold without his embrace. “I should probably just go to bed. After all, I need to be rested if my team is going to kick your team’s butt tomorrow.”

  He laughed and the weird moment was gone.

  Mostly.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself,” he said. “But Team Groom is still going to win.”

  “Ha.”

  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she lifted her hand in an awkward wave and slipped into her room without even saying goodnight.

  The minute there was a door between them, she slid to the floor and dropped her head onto her knees. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly still be in love with him. It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. She was no longer a silly teenager with unrealistic expectations about falling in love with her brother’s best friend.

  She’d dated other guys. Heck, she’d been in love with other men.

  Sort of.

  Not like Nick.

  Never like Nick.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Marissa,” she whispered into her knees. “It’s only three days.” She could handle being around him for three days. Of course she could and then she could go back to avoiding him again for the next eight years. At least.

  He doesn’t love you. Move on. He doesn’t love you.

  It was a mantra she forced herself to say in her head over and over again, when she was eighteen in those days and weeks following her humiliation. She had to get it through her head despite what she thought. Despite all the indications and signals she’d gotten from him. The way he looked at her, the way his hand would accidentally reach out and brush her arm. The way he’d spend extra time talking to her about school and the future. The way he’d go out of his way to take her to work or pick her up from a friend’s house, even if it messed up his plans with Jake. The way, even for a moment, he’d kissed her back and slipped his hand around her so it was resting on her bare back that night in the kitchen when she’d thrown all caution to the wind and declared her love for him.

  Despite all those things that made her think that maybe, just maybe, he loved her too. He didn’t. He’d made that very, very clear.

  “Missy, you’re such a silly little girl,” he’d said. He pushed her away from him and laughed.

  She’d never forget that laugh because it went right to her heart, cracking it in two.

  Marissa remembered standing there, waiting for a moment for him to say sorry and tell her that he didn’t mean it and that he did love her. But he hadn’t.

  So she’d turned and ran to her room to cry her heart out, Nick’s words replaying over in her head on a cruel, vicious loop.

  No. She would not subject herself to that kind of hurt and humiliation again.

  This time she would just keep her feelings to herself.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Nick waited for Missy as long as he could before leaving the suite to go in search of breakfast. He had to stop himself from knocking on her door to see whether she’d like to join him. Somehow it didn’t feel right to disturb her.

  The night before, holding her in his arms and dancing to what he knew was one of her favorite songs from one of her favorite movies of all time, it had felt so...well, it had felt right. But it wasn’t.

  Nothing had changed. Missy was still Jake’s little sister. That would never change.

  Besides, the odds that she still felt the same way about him after so many years were slim. She was a beautiful, successful woman. There was no way she was still hung up on him. Heck, it was entirely likely she had a boyfriend.

  But if she did, where was he?

  Stop it.

  Nick forced himself to stop thinking about Missy in any other term besides little sister and maid of honor, and he focused his attentions on the task at hand.

  Which, as far as he was concerned, was getting some breakfast.

  He found Jake and his parents in the dining room. “Good morning.” He slid into a seat next to Patrice. “Is everyone ready for today’s activities?”

  “The real question is, are you?” Jake pointed a piece of toast at him before he took a bite. “I know Jenny has you and Marissa in charge of leading the teams. Are you up for it?”

  “Brother...” Nick poured himself a cup of coffee. “Anything you need from me, I’ve got it. I am your best man, after all. I have this well under control.”

  “Well, I think it’s so nice that Jenny and Jake have organized so much fun this weekend. It really turns the wedding into a bit more of an event, don’t you think?”

  Nick nodded, although he wasn’t so sure how doing a scavenger hunt and competing in a couple of games was much of an event, but there was no way he was going to say anything.

  “And, it looks like I’m on Team Groom,” Patrice said. “Alan is on Team Bride, so we better make sure we win.”

  She winked at her husband, who blew her a kiss in return.

  Nick had always been envious of the Duncans’ easy marriage. They just seemed to really love each other, and they always had. Unlike his own parents, who seemed to moderately tolerate each other—when they weren’t bickering, that was.

  The Slaters had definitely not been the model of marriage, or family. Or really much of anything except for how to run a successful business, which reminded Nick—no doubt his voicemail was full of angry messages from his father about the cancelled meeting.

  He didn’t care.

  Not really.

  He’d listen to them later and assess the damage then. There wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment anyway. Especially when his best friend was counting on him to help make his wedding an event.

  “Not to worry,” Nick said. “Team Groom is definitely going to beat Missy.”

  Patrice gave him a strange look but didn’t say anything because at that moment, Jenny joined them and said, “I don’t think so, Nick. Team Bride has this locked up. I have full confidence in Marissa on this.”

  “Where is Marissa anyway?” It was Jake who asked him, but all Nick could do was shrug. He didn’t want to tell them that he’d waited most of the morning for her to come out of her room, or that they’d left things awkwardly the night before after dancing together in the living room. So he just shrugged again and grabbed a piece of toast from the plate in the center of the table.

  Patrice exchanged a look with her husband, but nobody said anything else about the matter until it was time to head out to the games.

  “Hey.” Jake grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side away from the group as they walked down the corridor and out to the courtyard. “I just wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being my best man, of course.”

  Nick wa
ved him away. “As if anyone else could possibly do the job.”

  “You’re right about that.” Jake laughed. “But I know it’s probably not easy to do this with Marissa.”

  Nick froze. “What do you mean?” There was no way Jake could know about his feelings for Missy. He’d done his best to hide them for years. It was the one thing he’d never told his best friend. The one thing he’d kept from him to protect their relationship. “Why would it be hard?”

  “Because she’s my sister.” Jake laughed. “And Marissa can be a little...well...she’s my sister, man.” Jake laughed and Nick joined in.

  “You know I love Missy,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to spend some time with her again. It’ll be fun.”

  “It will be fun.” Jake slapped him on the back. “We better go before Jenny docks Team Groom for being late.”

  * * *

  Marissa was ready and waiting in the courtyard long before anyone showed up for the games. In fact, she’d been ready for hours, having woken up extra early to get out of the suite before Nick woke up. After the dance the night before, Marissa decided it would be best to limit any time that she had to spend alone with Nick. It might help with the feelings that, much to her dismay, had definitely not faded in the last eight years.

  It might help.

  So far, it had just given her extra time awake, when all she could do was think about Nick. The games would be good. They would distract her. That’s what she needed: a distraction.

  Except the moment the glass doors opened and Nick, along with the rest of her family and a handful of other wedding guests, spilled out into the courtyard, Marissa’s stomach did that annoying flip thing it had been doing since the night before whenever Nick was around.

  “There you are,” Nick said when he approached. “Where were you this morning? I waited for a long time but hunger got the best of me and I had to come downstairs.”

  “Oh.” She tried to sound casual. “I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d just get a jump on the day.”

  “You mean you weren’t even there?”