Promise Me (35 page)

“Do you wish you could have fought back?” I asked him, knowing how many times he’d threatened to do just that. It was ironic how my worst fear was exactly what he dreamed about.

He nodded. “Of course, I do. Although I know it wouldn’t have done any good. My dad always got the best of me. I was too small to make a difference, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wish that hadn’t been the case.”

I felt my brow crinkle in confusion. “What do you mean he always got the best of you?”

Jack sighed again. “He used to hit me, and he was rough with me,” he said resignedly. “And I just took it. I let him hurt me. I never fought back or even defended myself.”

“Jack!” I said, my eyes getting wide. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

“I wish I could, but it happened for years. He always yelled, he was rough in the way he would grab me or push me, but then one day, he punched me. Things went downhill after that.”

My heart was pounding and my blood was practically boiling as I realized he’d lied to me when we were kids. I’d thought his dad had spared him and had only gone after his mother, and although that was horrible in its own right, I’d felt relief for years that he’d never taken his aggression out on Jack. I felt like such an idiot for thinking that.

“Jack,” I said softly as tears for the kid he’d been pricked the backs of my eyes. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know.”

I swallowed back the lump that had formed in my throat as I closed my eyes and shook my head, telling myself I wouldn’t cry. I’d shed too many tears for the boy he’d been, and I didn’t want to do it in front of him.

Jack’s hand reached out and found mine as I opened my eyes and met his gaze. “I’m fine, Kate,” he said softly, probably knowing what I was thinking.

I nodded, forcing myself to pull it together. “I know. I just hate that he did that to you. I hate him so much.”

“I hate him more,” he said softly. Then he let out a huff of air. “Let’s talk about something else. If I don’t get my mind off of my dad, then I’ll never go back to sleep.”

I felt a yawn coming on, but I stifled it. As tired as I was, I wasn’t going to kick Jack back to his own room until he was ready.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked as he let go of my hand.

“Can we talk about the fact that you kissed Taylor Vine tonight?”

“No!” I said, not believing he’d brought that up. “How do you know about that anyway?”

He looked taken aback. “You told me.”

“I did?”

Jack started laughing. “Do you seriously not remember?”

I shook my head “No. When did I tell you that?”

“Geez, how much wine did you drink tonight?”

“I have no clue. Most of the party is sort of fuzzy to me. I hope I didn’t do anything stupid.”

Jack smiled. “Nah, you went on for a bit about how sweet Taylor was, and that was kind of annoying, because he’s a good dude, but he also puts the rest of us to shame with his goodness. I personally think it’s better to have a healthy mix of good and bad – you know, sweet and sour. But aside from that, you were fine.”

“Well, you did tell me to let loose. I was just doing what I was told.”

“Did you have fun?”

I nodded. “I did.”

“Then good for you. And see, the sky didn’t come crashing down as a result.”

“No, it didn’t.”

Jack gave me a coy smile as he said, “So tell me, who was the better kisser, me or Taylor?”

Oh shit.

I felt my cheeks start to heat. “We kissed?”

Talk about a whirlwind of emotions hitting me all at once. On one hand I was thrilled that it had happened, but I felt guilty at the same time, because it was
so
wrong given his situation.
And
I was pissed that I had no recollection of it happening. And of course I had a thousand questions. Who initiated it? What did it mean? And why did he seem so gleeful about it? Wasn’t he concerned about the whole Alyssa factor? Or was there something else I was missing?

“You don’t remember?” Jack questioned, looking a little crestfallen. “I guess it was a long time ago, and given how many guys you’ve probably kissed over the years, I can see how easy it would be to forget one inconsequential kiss.”

It took me a few seconds, but I finally realized that he wasn’t talking about anything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. He was talking about the kiss we’d shared when we were twelve, from the last night I’d seen him.

“No, of course I remember that,” I said quickly. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure what you were talking about.”

“What else would I be talking about?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Sorry, my head’s a little fuzzy.”

“No worries, and you don’t have to answer. I was just kidding.”

I watched him for a few seconds before I said, “It was you. Your kiss was better.”

I knew it was risky, and there was a chance he’d be able to read everything I was feeling in my expression, but either I was too tired to care, or a part of me was hoping he’d figure what was going through my mind. It was awful and wrong, and I was a terrible, evil person, but as he sat across from me there was also a spark of possibility that what I was feeling wasn’t one-sided.

“Was it now?” Jack said, looking sort of proud of himself. “Even at twelve I knew what I was doing, huh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much,” I teased him. “I honestly don’t remember much about the technique, but I also know that when I kissed Taylor tonight it was because I was drunk. I wasn’t kissing a boy I’d had a small crush on for a few months.”

“You liked me back then?” Jack asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

I felt embarrassed to admit it, but I figured if I didn’t tell him the truth at three in the morning when I was slightly buzzed, I’d probably never tell him. When would I get a chance like this again?

“I’d actually liked you for a while,” I admitted.

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “I didn’t really know it at the time, though. I just knew that when you kissed me, it was exactly what I wanted to happen. I figured out later what I’d been feeling all along.”

“I liked you too,” he said after a few seconds, his intense gaze boring into mine.

“Really?”

Now it was my turn to be surprised.

He smiled. “You were the only girl I thought about for a long time – before and after I left Indiana. I had no plans to kiss you that night, but after I did, I couldn’t wait to do it again.”

Wow.

“But then everything happened,” I said, bringing us back to center, because holy shit, my heart was pounding as I thought back to the night Jack had kissed me for the first time.

“Then everything happened,” he echoed. “And I never got another chance.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure you found some cute cheerleader to kiss in no time,” I teased him, feeling the moment weighing on us.

I needed to break up some of the tension in the air. It wasn’t good for what I was feeling. Just hearing him talk about how he’d wanted to kiss me years earlier did nothing for my desires to want to kiss him in the present.

“Not for a few years,” he told me.

“Really?”

“Nope. I always thought you’d be the girl I’d date. We’d be one of those couples who got together when we were too young to know what it meant, but then we’d stay together through high school, I’d take you to homecomings and proms, and I’d be happy because I was dating my best friend. I had a hard time getting past that fantasy when I first moved here.”

Whoa.

Seeing the shocked look on my face, Jack gave me a soft smile. “Don’t feel like you have to say anything, Kate. Just know that you were my first love, and first loves are hard to get over.”

“But you got over it?” I asked, feeling like I couldn’t get enough air.

“Eventually. And then I dated some cheerleaders.”

I knew he was trying to be cute on purpose, but it didn’t work. Everything he’d said was swimming through my mind, and the air around us suddenly felt so thick. The desire to lean forward, to close the distance between us and kiss him, was pushing me to do something I knew I’d regret. He was sitting less than two feet from me, looking tousled and adorable, he was my Jack, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I knew I had two choices. I could go down the joking, playful path. I could follow his lead and get out of this sticky situation, or I could push the joke to the side and risk what would happen if we kept talking about what ifs.

“I think that sounds amazing,” I told him.

“What? Dating cheerleaders?”

I shook my head, hoping I wouldn’t regret what I was about to say. “No, the other stuff about us and proms and being in love. That sounds like something I would have wanted too.”

There, I’d said it. It was out there, and I couldn’t take it back.

Jack was watching me, but I couldn’t read his expression. I had no idea what was going on in his head.

“You know, it really sucks that life took me away from you,” he said after several agonizing moments of silence.

“I’m here now,” I told him, which I knew was pretty much an open invitation to do whatever he wanted. I was such a bad person.

“I know, and I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve wanted to show you my world for so long. I wish you could have been a part of it years ago. Seeing you tonight, you would have fit right in.”

“And then you wouldn’t have had to date all those cheerleaders,” I teased him. “Because that must have been torture.”

He smiled. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t.”

“You know, maybe it’s better this way,” he said, and I hadn’t realized it, but in the past few seconds he’d moved closer to me, leaning forward as he closed the distance between us.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, fully aware of what was going on as my heart started to pound wildly. I knew I had no intentions of stopping him.

“Kate, I want to kiss you,” he said, not answering my question, and it took everything in me not to grab his head and pull his lips to mine.

He was close, closer than he’d been, and whether it was the right thing to do or not, I knew he was going to kiss me. And I was going to let him.

“You do?”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He just moved closer.

His lips were inches from mine when either my conscience woke up or my self-preservation kicked in, but I suddenly knew I couldn’t do it. If I kissed Jack, I’d be the girl he cheated on his girlfriend with, and there was no guarantee it would mean anything but that. He was with Alyssa, and kissing me in a moment of crazy, heated passion wouldn’t necessarily result in what I really wanted.

Listening to him talk, I had become enthralled with all the things he’d seen for us once upon a time, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want them now. But they weren’t available to me. Kissing him, getting caught up in the moment, and doing something I’d regret wouldn’t amount to anything good.

So I pushed him away. I turned my cheek, and I put my hand on his shoulder. “Jack, no.”

As soon as I said that, he froze. “Oh shit.”

I felt such remorse as he backed away from me, mentally kicking myself for denying what I knew would be an incredible moment. All I wanted was to kiss Jack, which was why I knew I couldn’t do it. And that was a harsh reality to wrap my head around.

“Kate, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said quickly.

“It’s fine,” I told him as I tried to not let him see how erratic my breathing had become.

“No, it’s not. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are. I’m not upset. It’s just – Alyssa. I can’t.”

“Fuck,” he said, closing his eyes for a few seconds. “Alyssa.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck,” he said again. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have done that.”

I watched him agonize over what had almost happened, and although I should have felt good about the fact that I hadn’t done something I couldn’t take back, I only felt worse. I knew he was thinking out loud and processing everything that had happened, but the fact that he chose her over me stung like crazy.

Not that I’d expected him to blurt out some grand speech about how Alyssa didn’t matter, and I was the one he wanted, but knowing that the opposite was true was harder to swallow than I’d imagined. It was so stupid, but it was just the way I felt. I’d wanted him to pick me. I hadn’t consciously thought about it, but I knew I’d
wanted
him to tell me that he was in love with me and that I was who he wanted to be with.

I knew then that was why I’d agreed to come home with him. I hadn’t been aware of it at the time, but I knew I never would have accepted an invitation to go home with another guy for the weekend as friends – especially one who had a girlfriend he was supposedly in love with. It was a completely insane notion that just because of our past Jack wanted to introduce me to his family and his friends and show me around his hometown. And after figuring out that none of his friends or family had ever met Alyssa, the idea that he’d invited me home because he felt
something
for me, possibly the same thing I felt for him, had sparked hope within me. I knew I’d agreed to come because I thought there was something more underlying in all that pretense.