Promising You (The Jade Series #4) (10 page)

“Why wait? He’s always over at the pool. We should just go over there and get our own photos. Up close and personal.”

They both laugh. I want to turn around and punch them but of course I don’t. But what the hell? I’m sitting right in front of them. They have to know I can hear them.
 

That night, I go up to Garret’s room after dinner. It’s officially spring break and our last night together before I leave to go home. Since I won’t see him for a week, I planned something special for him but I’m going to wait and surprise him with it later.

“Are we watching the show?” I ask him.

“No. Why would we do that?”

“To see what they’re saying about you. Carson said the promos made it look like you were actually going to be in one of the scenes. He said they showed you at Ava’s apartment.”

“How is that possible?”

“Maybe they got some actor who looks like you.” I turn the TV on and flip to the channel. “We should at least watch a few minutes.”
 

The show is starting and some cheesy music plays in the background as photos of the “stars” fade in and out.
 

I lean back against Garret as we sit on the bed. “It already looks bad. I can’t believe so many people like this.”

“I can’t believe you’re making us watch this. It’s our last night together. I don’t want to spend it watching this shit.”

“It’s only an hour and we don’t have to watch the whole thing. And we have plenty of time to do other things later.” I rub my hand over the front of his jeans.

“Hey, don’t be starting that unless you plan to finish it.”

I take my hand away. “Fine.”

He puts my hand back. “Well, go ahead and start so we can finish.”

“We’re watching the show. We’ll do that later.”

He turns my face toward his and kisses me. “We need to start early. We’re not doing it just once.”

“Then I guess I won’t be sleeping tonight.”

Ava’s voice booms from the TV and I look over and see her face, covered in way too much makeup, smiling back at me. She’s sitting in a chair talking right to the camera. “Garret and I were high school sweethearts. We started dating when we were 15. He was my first. Most girls say their first time isn’t great, but mine was. Let’s just say that Garret’s talents go way beyond swimming.”

“Okay, we’re not watching this.” Garret takes the remote from me and turns the TV off.
 

“You need to know what she’s saying about you.” I take the remote back and turn the show back on. Slow, soap-opera type music plays in the background as Ava and some guy make out on her bed. You can only see the back of the guy. He’s on top of Ava, shirtless but wearing jeans.

“Garret, look! They did just what I said they’d do. They hired some actor so people would think it’s you. I was kidding when I said that, but they actually did it!”
 

“This can’t be legal.” Garret gets his phone out. “There’s no fucking way.” He calls his dad as the show goes to commercial. His dad answers and Garret mutes the TV and puts the phone on speaker.
 

“Yes, Garret,” his dad says before Garret even says anything. “I’m watching the show and I saw the scene with Ava.”

“Yeah? So? What can we do about it?”

“Nothing. In that scene, she didn’t actually say your name, so technically it could’ve been anyone.”

“But everyone assumes it’s me.”

“Yes, that’s implied, but that’s not enough for a case.”

“So she just gets away with it?”

“There are only two more episodes after tonight. We’re not going to start a legal battle over this. We just need to get through the next couple weeks. I’ve hired some additional security here at the house until all this is over.”

“Why do you need extra security?”

“Earlier today we had photographers waiting outside the front gate along with some teen girls camped out across the street. I assume they’ll be there tomorrow as well so I’m sending the driver to pick you up. You can’t drive your car. You need to be in a vehicle with dark windows. I don’t want anyone seeing you come home.”

“What time is the driver coming?”

“In the morning, around 9.”

“Tell him to come later. Jade doesn’t leave until noon and I want to be with her until she leaves.”

“You just call him and tell him when to be there. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hangs up and I turn the volume back on the TV. Ava is talking to the camera again, recapping last year’s episodes for people who didn’t watch the original show. It all sounds scripted and not at all how she normally speaks. She mentions Garret again and as she talks, they cut away to some photos of her in high school, including ones of her and Garret together.

“I wasn’t dating her when those photos were taken,” Garret says, annoyed that I’m making him watch this. “She’s lying. This whole thing is a lie.”

“And this is just the first episode. I wonder what she has planned for the other two episodes.”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.” He slips his hand under my shirt. “It’s time to get you naked.”

“But the show’s not over yet.”
 

He shuts the TV off and tosses the remote on the floor, then works his hand down my jeans, hitting the spot that makes my whole body go crazy. “You really want to watch it?”

“Watch what?” I ask.

His cocky smile appears. “That’s what I thought.”

Right after we do it, I get up and start getting dressed.

“Where are you going?” Garret asks.

“We’re going down to my room. Get dressed.”

“Why would we go down there? Let’s just stay here.” He holds his arm out for me. “Come back to bed.”

“Nope. Get up. We need to go downstairs.” I toss his clothes at him.

He laughs. “What’s going on with you?”

“Just hurry up.” I’m dressed now and I sit down next to him and put my shoes on.

“You’re acting very strange, but okay.” He leaves a kiss on my cheek as he gets out of bed.

As he’s getting dressed I try walking around the room without the crutches.
 

“You sure you don’t need them anymore?” he asks, watching me.

“Yeah, it’s still a little sore but I can walk on it.” I stand in front of him. “You ready, yet?”

“Yes, I’m ready.” He smiles and takes my hand as we leave.

We go down to my room and I open the door and pull him inside.

“What’s this?” he asks as he shuts the door and sees the movies and snack foods piled up on my desk.

“It’s Garret night. I picked out your favorite movies and made you a concession stand.”

A huge grin crosses his face. “Why? It’s not my birthday.”

“It doesn’t have to be your birthday. I just wanted to do something special for you and I wanted to do it before I left for spring break. I’ve wanted to do something for you for a really long time but I didn’t know what to do. I never have money so I can’t really buy you anything.”
 

Garret goes over and looks through the movies. I took them from the box in his room. They’re all action films and I don’t really like them but this night is about him, not me. I bought his favorite snacks, too. Buying them used up my laundry money for the week but I’m going home tomorrow so I’ll just wash my clothes at Frank’s house.
 

Garret’s not saying anything.
 

I go up to him. “You don’t like it, do you? I guess it
is
kind of lame. We watch movies all the time, so it’s not that special but I didn’t know what else—”

He takes my face in his hands and kisses me before I can finish.
 

“I love it,” he says, still holding my face. “And it
is
special because you did all this just for me.”

“I got you something, too. Well, I kind of made it and I’m not very crafty so if you don’t like it you can—”

“Wait.” His smile gets even bigger. “You seriously made me something?”
 

I nod, now a little nervous that he won’t like it.

“Can I see it?”

“Yeah. It’s in my dresser.” I walk over and open the top drawer. “Promise me you won’t laugh or say it’s stupid.”

“I’d never do either of those things. I guarantee if you made me something that I’ll love whatever it is.”

I take the navy blue photo album from my drawer and hand it to him. It’s one of those photo albums where you peel back the clear cover on each page and put photos on the sticky surface. I made it into a scrapbook of Garret’s years on the swim team during high school. It’s divided by each year with photos and a list of all his swim meets along with his times and where he placed in each event. I hand wrote the stats on small pieces of paper using different colored pens for each year. Then I mixed the photos with the swim meet stats so that each page is like a collage. That’s where the craft skills come in, and as I said, I’m not at all good at crafts.

Garret takes the photo album over to my bed and sits down. As he opens it up and I see the pages again, it looks like something a kid made. I should’ve asked Harper for help. She’s way better at crafty things.

“Where did you get all this?” Garret asks. He’s still smiling so maybe he likes it.

“I asked your dad for help.”
 

“But my dad hardly went to any of my swim meets. Where did you get all these photos and the stats?”

“Your dad gave me your high school coach’s number and I called him and he emailed me the stats. And your dad had some of the photos and Decker helped me get the other ones.”

 
Garret’s quiet as he flips through each page. When he’s done he sets it on the table next to my bed and says, “Come over here.” I go up to him and he pulls me onto his lap. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“So you like it? You’re not just saying that?”
 

“I love it. Really.” He slips his hand around mine, his other hand wrapped around my waist holding me in place on his lap. “How long did it take you to get all that stuff and put it together like that?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to have a record of all your swim meets. Your dad said you didn’t have anything like that. And I’m making you one for college, too. I’ve already got some photos and all your stats for the meets up until you got hurt. But I’ll do a better job on the next one.” I glance back at the album. “Sorry that one looks so bad, but I warned you about my craft skills.”

“Jade.” He turns my face back to his. “Stop apologizing for it. The book is perfect. I love it. Thank you for doing that for me.”
 

The look on his face causes a warmth to spread through me that goes deep within my soul. He’s happy. Really happy. And I know it’s not just because of the scrapbook, but because of what it means. Garret knows I can’t always express my feelings the way he can. Telling him how much he means to me is still hard for me. But this book I made for him, even if it’s kind of a mess, is my way of telling him how much I care about him, and appreciate him and everything he’s done for me.
 

Now I wish I’d done something special for Garret a long time ago. I’m not sure why I didn’t. If I’m truly honest with myself, I think it’s because I was still afraid to give Garret too much of myself. I was afraid to give him all of my heart because I’ve already had so much pain and loss in my life that I didn’t think I could handle the emotions I would feel if I opened my heart completely to him and this didn’t work out. But I’m tired of being afraid. Garret’s given his whole heart to me and I’m ready to give him mine. In fact, I feel like I already have and I’m not even sure when it happened. Now I just need to make sure that he knows that. Not just with words, but with actions, and tonight was the first step in doing that.

When I look at Garret again, I see him smiling at me. “You’re really sweet, you know that?”

The tough-girl side of me does not like being called that, so I roll my eyes and say, “I am
not
sweet.”

“You’re sweet. Deal with it.” He kisses me, then backs away just enough to look at me. “That took a lot of time and effort and it was really nice of you to do that for me.”

“It’s just a photo album. It’s not that great.” I glance away but he turns me back to him.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t put yourself down like that.”

“I didn’t.” I try to look away again but he cups my cheek with his hand, forcing me to face him.

“Yeah, you did. And I don’t want you to do it anymore.”

“I didn’t say anything about myself. I was talking about the album.”

“Yeah, but you did something really nice and then I tell you that and you get all uncomfortable, like you don’t believe me.”

“Because doing this one little thing doesn’t make me nice. Or sweet. If I
were
those things, I would’ve been doing stuff like this the whole time we’ve been dating instead of waiting until now.”

He sighs.
 

“What?” I ask, not sure where this is going.

“Why do think all these bad things about yourself when none of them are true?”

I don’t respond because I’m not sure I know the answer.
 

His hand is still cradling the side of my face and I feel his thumb brush my cheek as our eyes meet.
 

“You’re so many good things, Jade. You’re thoughtful and caring and whether you like it or not, you’re sweet. And when I think about the hell you went through as a kid and how you got through that—” He stops. He seems frustrated. “You’re a fucking amazing person, Jade, and it pisses me off when you can’t see that.”

His words make me smile but also make me tear up a little because nobody’s ever described me that way. Nobody’s ever said I’m thoughtful or nice or caring or anything like that. Most people would probably describe me as being the opposite of those things because I shut people out and keep them at a distance. But I don’t want to be that way and I’ve been trying to figure out how I even got like that. I think it’s because I tried for so many years to do nice things for my mom so that she’d like me, maybe even love me, or at the very least stop yelling at me. But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, she never changed. And so I gave up trying to make her love me. I gave up trying to make
anyone
love me, but then Garret came along and loved me without my having to do anything other than just be me.