Promise Me (The Me Novellas) (12 page)

Dex made a face. “Ugh.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It pretty much sucked.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Me, too,” I said.

“
Were you guys serious?”

I dropped the stir stick back into my drink and picked up the glass. It was half-empty now. “I don’t know what we were,” I said honestly.

“Right,” he said, and it sounded like he understood perfectly. “It still sucks, though. To trust someone and then have them break that trust.”

“
It’s funny,” I said. The waiter arrived with our food and I waited until he set down our plates and left before I continued. “I wasn’t really hurt by it.”

“
No?” He sounded surprised.

I grabbed the bottle of ketchup and lifted the top bun off the burger. “No.” I squirted ketchup on the inside of the bun. “I was just mad. Mad that he didn’t tell me, not mad that it happened.”

“Hmm.”

He held out his hand and I handed him the ketchup. He squirted a huge dollop on his bun and then smashed it back on top of his burger. He picked up the sandwich and bit into it and I realized not once did a bottle of hand sanitizer make an appearance at our dinner table. I started to laugh.

“What?” he asked after he swallowed his mouthful of burger.

“
Nothing.”

“
Not nothing,” he said. “Tell me.”

“
I was just thinking that it feels good to be here. Eating dinner. With you. So thank you.”

He cocked his head and smiled. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

I smiled.

He smiled back. “You know, I might know a way that we could eat a lot more dinners together.”

EIGHTEEN

I dropped my burger. “What?”

Dex wiped at his mouth with his napkin. “The meeting I went to the other day.”

Clearly, there had been more alcohol in my drink than I’d realized. Because he wasn’t making an ounce of sense. “What?” I repeated.

He swirled a french fry in the pool of ketchup he’d poured onto his plate and ate it. “The meeting I had yesterday was with a local company. Wave Apparel. Heard of them?”

I shook my head.

“They make suits. Swim suits. Wet suits. That kind of stuff.”

I was pretty sure he was speaking in riddles. “OK.”

“I’ve been trying to find sponsors. Investors. Whatever you want to call it.” He sipped his drink. “I’ve got people lined up to help on the front line, you know? But funding has been an issue.”

“
For your projects, you mean?”

“
Yeah. I’ve been talking to these guys for a while. Laid out a proposal, pitched it a couple of months ago but hadn’t heard anything.” He grabbed another fry. “I wasn’t sure anything was going to come of it so I went ahead and enrolled in some business classes. Figured if I was going to be running my own organization, I’d better figure out what the hell I was doing on the business end of things.”

So that was why he’d been at Mesa, enrolling in business classes.

“But I got a call that afternoon. After I’d gotten my books. The CEO wanted to meet. Didn’t give me particulars so I didn’t know what to expect.”

I sat and listened, my food untouched. “What did they say? Was it what you were hoping for?”

He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

My shoulders sagged a little. “Oh. Well, that sucks.”

A smile tugged at his lips and he couldn’t hold it back. It spread, lighting up his face. “It was more than what I expected.”

“
What do you mean?”

He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. His fingers were warm and rough and I felt a little shock go through me.

“Fifty-thousand dollars, Emma.” His voice shook a little with excitement. “They gave me fifty-thousand dollars.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Are you serious?”

He nodded.

“
Wow,” I breathed. “That’s incredible.”

Fifty-thousand dollars wouldn't do much in San Diego. But in Mexico? Helping the poorest of the poor? I knew just how far that money could go.

“It is,” he said. “And I have plans. Big plans. La Estancia, the place you were? They need a new well. I can do that. I can help them. This little village outside of Cabo? Their clinic has no windows. No screens. I can fix that.”

I nodded, feeling the excitement grow inside of me. “What about loans?” I asked. “Loans for the people who live there. Like what Kiva does?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I want to look into that, to see if we can set up some kind of loan system. There are models out there, models we can follow.”

“
And school supplies,” I said. “You’ve helped build schools but now you could stock them. Make sure they’re well-equipped.”

“
The sky’s the limit,” he said. “Because if we do good work with this, if we show what a difference this small amount of money can make, other companies might follow suit. This could be the beginning of something big.”

“
Absolutely.” On impulse, I squeezed his hand. “I’m so happy for you!”

I was. I was brimming over with excitement. Dex had created something out of nothing, something with the sole purpose of going out and doing good in the world. He’d built it with his own hands—literally—and was getting a much-needed shot of financial support to grow that idea, to see just how much it would blossom.

“Me, too.” His smile stretched from ear to ear. “But, here’s the thing.”

I waited expectantly.

“I need help.”

I nodded my head. “Yeah. Absolutely. You’re going to have a lot of work going on.”

“That’s not the part I need help with,” he said. “I mean the business end of things. I have a mission statement, I have non-profit status. But I’m gonna need help with execution. Figuring out how to budget projects. Have someone help with applying for grants or donations from other philanthropists while I’m working on projects already going on.”

I knew what he was talking about. The money was the shot in the arm he needed, the exact thing he wanted. But it was operation full-force from here on out.

“You have friends willing to help, though, right?” I asked. I was sure he could find people to do the hard labor sort of stuff while he managed the organization.

“
Yes.” He stared down at his plate for a minute. “But what if I said I wanted you?”

My mouth dropped open. “Me?”

He nodded.

“
But you don’t even know me!”

“
I know enough,” he said simply.

I said nothing, just stared at him, my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open.

“Look,” he said. “I know this is crazy. You barely know me.”

“
And you barely know me,” I pointed out.

“
True,” he admitted. “But I know enough. I know the important stuff. You just spent your entire summer living in a foreign country. Not on vacation, but with people. Not because you had to, but because you wanted to. You came back a changed person, right?”

Wordlessly, I nodded.

“And now you’re just sort of…lost. Don’t know what you should do.” He stared at me as he spoke and I couldn’t look away. “I know what that’s like. That was me. Less than a year ago, that was me.”

“
What the hell do you think I can do?” I asked him. “I have zero skills. None.”

He shook his head, smiling. “It doesn’t matter.”

Maybe his drink had been straight rum. “How can it not matter?”

“
Look, I don’t need someone who’s a business wizard or someone with mad accounting skills,” he said. “That stuff can be taught. Hell, if I can sign up for business classes and make sense of what I’m reading, anyone can. Trust me.”

“
I’m not following.”

“
What I need is someone like you.” His voice dropped and I had to lean across the table to hear him. “I need someone with passion. Someone who wants to be there. Someone who wants to help.”

“
Are you…?” I swallowed. “Are you asking me to go to Mexico with you?”

Dex chuckled. “It sounds so sordid when you put it that way.”

I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “No…”

He cut me off. “I need help. And I want someone who is as passionate as I am. Someone who’s lived there. Someone who wants to go back. And I think you do.”

I was quiet. Did I want to go back? Part of me screamed yes. I’d left a little piece of my heart in that country when I’d boarded the plane to come home. But I couldn’t just run away from real life. I had to figure out where I was heading—and not just with a career but with my now ex-boyfriend. Going with Dex would be the easy thing to do. I could take off for a few weeks and help out and it would be great. But then I’d have to come home. And the same questions would still be staring me in the face.

“
I don’t know.”

He pressed his lips together, considering. “What don’t you know? If you want to go back?”

“Yes. I mean, no.” I shook my head, frustrated. “I have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, Dex. I have two classes left. I just got a job. Going to Mexico feels like running away. I’ll come back and I’ll need to find a new job. Those classes will still be waiting to be taken.”

“
It won’t be running away.”

“
Besides, I don’t think I can afford it.” I knew I couldn’t. And I was absolutely certain my parents wouldn’t help finance this trip. They wanted me home. In school. Working. Figuring out just what the hell I was going to do with my life.

He raised his eyebrows. “Afford it?”

“Airfare. A place to live. Food.” I sighed. “I would love to help. I really would. And maybe I can. Maybe over the holidays. You know, save a little and come down and help out for a week or two.” I really wanted to.

He laughed. “Stop. You’re totally misunderstanding.”

“What?”

“
I want to hire you. I want you to work for me.”

“
What?” I repeated.

He fingered the hoop in his ear. “You know. A job. Like, with a salary and stuff.”

I stared at him. I hadn’t expected that at all. My heart raced a little. A job. Dex wanted to pay me to go and live in Mexico and help people.

“
You’re serious?”

“
One-hundred percent serious. It won’t be much,” he cautioned. “But we both know you don’t need much to live on in Mexico.”

I nodded. Rosa and Eduardo managed on a couple of dollars a day. Granted, they barely managed. But I could help change that. I could be the one who helped them find a way to swing the odds in their favor. For good.

“But…”

“
Stop saying but,” he said, grinning. “Just tell me if it’s something you want to do. That you’ll consider. That’s all I need to know. We don’t have to work out the details now.”

I let my gaze drift from him to the bank of windows that separated us from the outdoor patio. It was almost deserted. A couple of tables were occupied, people nursing drinks and chatting. I shifted my eyes to the ocean, to the waves rolling in and breaking at the shoreline. It was the same ocean, the same water  that hugged the coast of Mexico. I thought about Rosa and Eduardo and their gaggle of kids. I thought about the other families I’d met in their tiny little village, the handful of shanties grouped in a half-circle in the clearing carved out of the wilderness. I thought about what they had and what they lacked. And I thought about how much I could do if I were there as more than a visitor. If I was there to help.

It would mean saying goodbye to my family. To Sage. It would mean having to explain myself and I knew it wouldn’t go over well with my parents. They didn’t want me in Mexico. They wanted me here.

But I also knew that this was something I wanted to do. This could be the something—the one thing—I’d been searching for. And I didn’t want to lose that chance.

I took a deep breath. “I want to do it.”

NINETEEN

Dex walked with me back to my car.

“
You don’t have to,” I told him. We’d spent another hour at the restaurant, talking and letting the rum work its way out of our systems.

“
I know,” he said. “I want to.”

The night had cooled off and I was grateful for the sweater I had. I folded my arms and rubbed at my shoulders.

“Cold?” he asked.

“
I’m alright.”

I was pretty sure it was just nervous excitement. For the first time in forever, I felt excited. Driven. Like I had a purpose. I knew I wouldn’t sleep when I got home. I was a bundle of nerves—knowing I’d have to tell my parents, for sure, but also because I had so many ideas running rampant. I’d shared some more with Dex and he’d pulled out his phone, typing notes as we talked. He was just as excited as I was.