Keep This Promise

by Willow Winters

  Not able to sleep, and knowing I’d made a fool of myself, I thought I’d sneak out, leave him a note, and let him decide if he still wanted me. If I was worth still being around or with, or whatever it is that we have going on. I wanted to make it easy for him because I knew what I was doing, and it wasn’t fair to him not to tell him.

  That was the conclusion I came to at four in the morning as I breathed in his masculine scent one last time and felt the warmth of his hard chest at my back. I closed my eyes and savored that moment, memorizing it, just in case it would be the only moment I had like that with him. Of all the things that have happened between us, that’s the one I wanted to hold on to.

  Where he took from me what he needed, and I took from him what I needed.

  With a deep and slow breath, I carefully crawled out of bed, taking my time and being as quiet and gentle as I could so I wouldn’t wake him. It wasn’t until my first foot hit the floor that I winced and seethed. It hurt more than I realized.

  He woke up instantly, reaching behind him to turn on the lamp. He’s so fucking beautiful. It’s an odd word for a man, but it’s true. With sleep still in his eyes and his stubble longer than usual, he looked groggy but sexy as fuck. Maybe it’s the way the light hit him, or maybe it’s the hormones and lack of sleep, but I’ve never been more attracted to a man before. I don’t think I ever will be either.

  “You all right?” His voice was laced with sleep and accompanied by the bed groaning as he sat up.

  “Lie back down, I’m fine,” I whispered as if he was being ridiculous, although my heart pounded knowing I was trying to sneak out and failed.

  I thought it through right then. He’d turn out the light and lie down, I’d go to the bathroom to clean up. After a while, when I thought he’d fallen asleep again, I’d sneak out and let him text me. I didn’t want to risk taking the time to leave a note and making it more awkward than it already was if he caught me.

  I could walk to my house from here and at this time of day, no one would be up. There would be no one to bother me on the short walk home.

  “You aren’t sneaking out, right?” Bastian questioned. “’Cause I want to wake up with you in the morning.” He said it so definitively, so sincerely.

  If there was ever a moment where I knew I was his completely, it was then.

  And that was over twelve hours ago.

  Now I’m alone in his house wondering what to do with myself, other than snoop through his shit. Which has been a rather disappointing endeavor.

  My phone pings as I close the last drawer in his dresser, finding nothing but a pair of his pajama pants. They’re flannel and smell like him, so I slip them on and with my baggy t-shirt, I couldn’t be more comfortable.

  Sprawled out on his bed, I check my texts and bust out laughing. I’d texted Angie, Sex is better than masturbation.

  And she finally responded. Tell me who, you whore!

  I feel the blush rise to my cheeks, but the butterflies in my chest and belly are more prominent.

  I consider telling her, but I’m not ready to share him, so instead, I tell her it has to wait till Monday. I assume the slew of texts afterward are from her, but I lie on the bed, staring up at his ceiling and wondering about how Bastian got to be the way that he is rather than answering them.

  Every thought that comes only makes my heart hurt more for him.

  The texts don’t stop coming and as I remember every detail I know about Bastian and the way he was in high school, they annoy me more and more.

  Grabbing my phone off the bed where I tossed it, I’m ready to silence it until I see the most recent text.

  Did you hear about Mr. Adler? They found him dead.

  My blood runs cold and I swear I feel it all drain from my face. Angie’s still messaging me and threatening to do all sorts of stupid shit if I don’t confide in her right this second. But I couldn’t give two shits about her right now. Mr. Adler was next on the list. I feel fucking sick.

  The message is from an unknown number. My fingers shake as I text the person back with the obvious question. Who is this?

  Breathe, just breathe. I have to keep myself calm even as I start to shake from the adrenaline coursing through me. The fourth person on the list. Right in a row. One. Two. Three. Four. All found dead.

  My phone pings and I look down to see a new text from the unknown number. All it reads is: That doesn’t answer my question.

  I can’t stop trembling as I stare down at my phone.

  Who else would text me? No one. No one else. The only other person who has my number is Marc because I had to give it to him.

  I didn’t mean to frighten you.

  Another message comes through and my heart beats faster. The front door is locked, I know it is, but still, I climb out of bed and check it. It’s hard to even swallow with my heart in my fucking throat.

  Who is this? I text back and then add, I’m not frightened. It’s fine, I just hadn’t heard that Mr. Adler had died.

  * * *

  I almost write more. All lies though. Lies meant to deceive. Something to make it feel casual, normal even. Something that would prove I’m not terrified. But all that’s running through my mind is that the person on the other end is a killer. The killer the cops have been looking for and failing to find.

  I repeat over and over that I’m not crazy, I’m not paranoid. I remind myself what Sebastian said, that I’m scared and looking for answers. Which I am. Four in a row. It’s a fucking hit list.

  “Fuck,” I grip my hair and clench my teeth before calling Sebastian. My throat’s tight as I stand in the middle of the living room, vaguely aware that I’m on the brink of a panic attack.

  I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.

  I don’t know what to think. Other than someone has a copy of that list, or made the same list, but how?

  Voicemail. It goes to voicemail. An hour ago, I felt untouchable here; now I feel like I’m in a cage, unable to go anywhere and so easily seen by anyone who could be watching.

  Please call me. I text Sebastian as another text comes through.

  I shouldn’t have texted you.

  Who is this? I ask again, but no reply comes. Not then and not thirty minutes later when I’m huddled in a ball on the sofa, wondering if calling the cops is even an option. There’s no news at all that Jeff Adler was found dead. Not on the news online and not a hint of it on any social media.

  Is he even dead? And if he is, and the person who texted me knew, but no one else…

  The number is still silent an hour later when I leave a voicemail on Sebastian’s phone. I wish it wasn’t real. I wish I could blink and the messages would be gone. I would rather know I truly am crazy than to be living this nightmare. I don’t mention any of it in the voicemail to Sebastian, I just beg him to please come back or return my call. The second I hang up, I lose it.

  It’s a slow spiral of a breakdown, and maybe that’s what the person wanted.

  I text the unknown number again and beg them to tell me who they are. And I get nothing. For hours, I have nothing but my own fear and a random text that was designed to inflict it.

  Someone wanted to hurt me.

  There’s only one person I think of over and over again who could be behind this and it proves I’m insane.

  It can’t be my mother, but when I dig through my purse and find the list, a list no one else knows about, I can’t think of anything other than her and the nightmares.

  My mother is dead. It’s not her, I tell myself over and over, resting my cheek against the flannel fabric on my knees and rocking back and forth. It takes everything in me to calm myself down, telling myself that I’m safe here with Sebastian. Whoever it was is an asshole. Someone who overheard me at the butcher shop maybe. Someone playing a cruel trick on me.

  Whoever it is can go fuck themselves.

  The anger and hopeful explanation are all that keeps me together. Just barely. I’m holding on by a thread and watching the clock tick by, won
dering where Sebastian is and why he hasn’t messaged me back.

  For hours.

  Sebastian

  “Where were you?” Chlo asks before the front door is even closed. Her voice is filled with accusations that make my body freeze.

  Her eyes are bloodshot as she peeks up at me above her knees on the sofa. It’s not too late yet. Past dinnertime, but it’s not so late that she should be coming at me like this. Unless she knew something.

  What the fuck happened? It’s all I can think. My movements are slow as I toss the keys on the table and kick off my boots, taking her in as she watches me. My heart’s hammering and I’m fucking confused. This isn’t my Chloe.

  “I was with Carter, they don’t get good reception out there,” I tell her and hope she accepts it as the truth. “What’s wrong?” She can’t be mad that I left her alone all day. There’s no fucking way that’s it when I know for a fact she was going to leave me last night.

  “Someone texted me,” she says in a quick breath and then closes her eyes to swallow. “I’m being stupid,” she says while shaking her head, her eyes closed tightly.

  “What’d they say?” I ask her, trying to hide the adrenaline and rage that mixes in a deadly concoction. I walk carefully to her, watching as she rubs her eyes. Sitting close to her and pulling her into me, I try to calm her down so she’ll just talk to me. And she lets me, which is already a relief. “Just tell me what happened,” I say, and the words come out even and calm. Deadly calm.

  “I feel like… Bastian.” Her words are choked as she buries her head in her knees, pulling away from me.

  The only thing I focus on is keeping my hands on her. She’s here with me. My Chloe Rose is right here, and I’ve got her.

  “Whoever it was just wanted to freak me out, but I don’t know how they know about the list unless they overheard at the butcher shop. But I didn’t say the names out loud, did I?” Her words come one after the other, stumbling over each other, but the second she’s done, she breathes in deep and rubs her eyes. “I know I didn’t.” She answers her own question before I can say anything. My blood is hot with rage, wanting to know exactly who messaged her and why the fuck they’d get in my way.

  Still not looking at me, she apologizes. “I’m sorry.”

  Frozen and struggling to push the command through clenched teeth, I repeat my question, “Who texted you?” If they’re fucking with her, they’re fucking with me.

  “They said Jeff Adler’s dead. I don’t know who it is. I don’t…” She doesn’t finish. Instead, she shakes out her hands and grabs onto her knees, burying her head so she doesn’t have to look at me.

  My blood runs cold. He’s next on the list. She knows it. I know it. Only two left.

  With a deep exhalation, she finally looks up at me and she apologizes again. “I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice is soft. “I feel like I’m being crazy, but I’m scared.”

  She has no idea how ridiculous those words are coming from her mouth.

  “I saw,” I tell her, knowing she needs to be told enough so she thinks it’s okay. That everything is okay. “On my way back from Carter’s, there’s a bunch of people around the site. Looks like a car hit him.” Her mouth drops slowly as I give her the partial truth.

  “What? No.” Her first reaction is denial and she reaches for her phone, but I take it from her, hellbent on finding the number and who it belongs to. “I looked, no one was saying anything.”

  I don’t respond to her and she stays stiff at my side as I look up the number and put it in my own phone. Nothing. Reading the texts, I know who sent it. I just don’t know why and every thought that comes up makes my knuckles turn white as I try not to break the fucking phone in my hand.

  Anger is a deadly thing.

  “He’s dead.” Her voice shakes with fear and it’s that sound that pulls me back to her.

  “It was an accident.” I’m firm with her, pulling her in closer to me. “Word gets around.” I start coming up with an explanation. “I think people know you’re freaked is all, Chlo.” I feel her eyes on me, but I can’t look down at her. If she looks into my eyes, she’ll know I’m lying.

  I have to stand up and start walking to the bedroom, stripping down and making it look like I’m anything but on the brink of tearing this place apart.

  “People know what?” she calls out and I hear her get off the sofa to come after me, her footsteps echoing down the hall.

  I need to calm the fuck down. If for no other reason than to calm her down, so she stops thinking about it all. She can’t do anything to fuck this up.

  With my jaw hard and my back stiff, I turn to her slowly, seeing her prettily framed in the doorway. I force a small smile to my lips. “It’s no one, Chlo, but it’s okay. I’d be freaked out too. Whoever it was, wasn’t thinking.”

  I have to hide my shock at how well I just lied. How easy it came out. Desperation is an ugly thing.

  Her distraught expression slowly fades, replaced with hesitant relief. Her lips stay parted as she lets my words sink in, slowly believing the little lies I’m feeding her.

  And it fucking kills me. What I’m doing to her destroys everything in me.

  “Come here,” I tell her as I tear my shirt off over my head and toss it carelessly on the floor. My three steps take up the entire space of the room as I go to her, wrapping her in my arms and kissing her temple. Her fingers wrap around my forearm and she looks up at me, eyes wide and wanting so badly to believe what I’m telling her.

  “I’m sorry you got spooked, but it’s nothing. An accident.”

  “Another coincidence?” she questions me, but her tone isn’t a question. My heart thrums and a chill spread over my body.

  “It was an accident,” I repeat, making my tone a little harder and staring into her eyes until she believes me.

  “I don’t know… that text and--“

  I huff, cutting her off and staring past her. She squirms in my periphery and I’m a fucking asshole. I’m an asshole for making her think this is all in her head.

  “This isn’t how I wanted tonight to go,” I say softly, thinking about last night and how easy it was to get lost in her. If I could live in that moment, I would.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles and her warm breath flows over my skin.

  Glancing down at her, I feel like the prick I am. “It’s not your fault,” I whisper in her hair and then plant a small kiss on her crown. She’s so warm in my arms, so small and fragile in so many ways. “I get it, Chlo, but I promise you it’s nothing.”

  She stares deeply into my eyes for what feels like forever and I whisper against her lips, “It’s all right, just have faith in me.”

  She kisses me tenderly, softly, and slowly, even though the pain and worry are still etched in her eyes.

  “Come on, let me tell you a story.” My hand splays on her back as I lean out into the hallway to turn off the light and then take her to bed.

  She crawls in slowly, climbing on top of the sheets before pulling them back and sitting cross-legged where she slept last night.

  “My grandmom used to do this thing late at night when she’d come home from work.” I latch onto the first story I can think of, so I can occupy her thoughts with something else.

  She leans forward slightly, waiting for more and eager to hear what I have to tell her. The way she looks at me with her beautiful blue eyes does something to me and I have to look away.

  “Back when I was real little,” I say and swallow the lump growing in my throat, “I still remember it.”

  I settle into the sheets next to her, kicking off my jeans first and flicking on the lamp to cast some light onto her face. When I get into bed, I slip off my watch and it clinks as I set it on the nightstand.

  “I never met her,” Chloe Rose whispers as she lies down like I’m doing, getting closer to me, and letting me put my arm around her so she can rest her cheek on my chest. Just knowing I have her like this, knowing I can ease her fears and she trusts me
… it’s everything.

  “She worked real late, at least it was late for me.”

  “Where’d she work?” Chlo asks as I remember how I used to wait up every night for her, but sometimes I couldn’t do it.

  “At the diner past Walnut. She was a waitress up till the day she died.”

  Chloe nods and her hair tickles against my chest when she does, but I love it. It brings a comfort that rolls through my chest and I reach up to let my fingers slip through her hair.

  “So, I’d wait up every night I could and if I did, she always had something for me. She always had a little gift.” My words make Chloe perk up to look at me.

  “Like what kind of gift?” She seems far too interested in that detail and it makes me smirk down at her with a huff of humor slipping through my lips.

  That bright blush I love to see colors her expression and she finally looks like she might be getting over the text messages, thank fuck. “Sorry, I was just thinking you know how I’d like to get you something for being so nice to me,” she confesses and then lets her finger trace up my chest. “I don’t know what you like though.”

  My chest rises as I shrug and say, “You don’t have to get me anything.”

  “I’m fully aware that I don’t have to. That doesn’t change the fact I want to get you something.” She gives me a soft smile as she adds, “Thank you, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For this,” she tells me with that sadness and fear returning to her eyes. I can’t respond, knowing what I’m doing, but I don’t have to. She kisses my jaw and tells me, “Ignore me, keep going. I like hearing stories. Especially if they’re about you.”

  “You sure you’re not going to interrupt as soon as I get going again?” I tease her and instantly feel her smile against my chest. That makes it all right. It makes it all right because she’s smiling now and that’s what matters.

  “Time will tell,” is all she says, and I love it. I love all of her.

  “So, my grandmom, she’d come home and put her purse down, and I’d get all excited.” I glance down at Chlo and get back to running my hand in her hair as I remember what it used to feel like. “I never slept in my room, always the living room so I could hear her when she got in.