The Promises We Keep (Made for Love Book 1)

by Martin, R. C.

  I sip at my coffee and sink back into the couch as she continues to read and I resume my conversation with my man.

  Me: Miss yours, too. What are you up to?

  We text back and forth for the next hour while he does laundry and I sit lazily with my other half. I nurse my coffee, enjoying it until the last drop, and finish my cake before Addie makes good on her threat to eat what I haven’t touched. It’s just after five when Grayson tells me he has to go get ready for our date. I can’t imagine what kind of date requires two hours of prep time, but the possibilities make me even more excited. I leave Addie with her book and go to play my cello for a while to pass the time. I’m able to lose myself in music for an hour before my anxiousness returns and I’m so full of anticipation that I simply cannot sit still.

  After a long shower, I dry and curl my hair. I know he said to dress like we’re staying in, but I’m running out of ways to kill time. I do, however, skip applying any makeup. When I get around to putting clothes on, I debate between running shorts or yoga pants until I’m about to go crazy and then slip into leopard print leggings instead. I pair them with a simple black spaghetti strap tank top and my long, lightweight, tan boyfriend cardigan that reaches the tops of my thighs. I’m so comfortable that I’m practically dreaming of a good snuggle when a knock sounds at the front door.

  “I got it!” Addie calls from the living room. She’s been glued to the couch pretty much all day, completely consumed in whatever fictional world her current novel contains. I’m surprised she even registered that someone is at the door, I think with a smirk as I slide my feet into my platform flip flops. It’s not quite seven, so I'm not completely sure that it’s Sonny who enters our apartment until I hear his laugh mingle with my sister’s. The sound makes me happy and I grab my purse before hurrying out of my room to join them.

  Sonny looks more inviting than my bed after a long, exhausting day. He’s wearing a baggy pair of green sweatpants, CSU Rams printed in yellow down the side of his leg. The plain white t-shirt he wears fits snuggly around his muscular shoulders, arms, and chest, loosening up around his tapered waist. As he continues to grin down at my sister, he reaches up to run his fingers through his hair and I literally stop dead in my tracks, mesmerized at the sight of him—his muscles putting on a show as they shift and flex with his movements.

  Yup. Hearts all over campus will break because that guy chose me. Thank you, Jesus. Talk about exceedingly, abundantly, and above anything I could ever ask or think!

  He catches me staring and I blush when our eyes meet.

  Seriously, face—we need to have a talk about you keeping secrets. You suck at it.

  “Hi,” I exhale.

  “Hi, sleeping beauty.” His voice makes me want to dissolve into a puddle right here in the middle of the room. “I’m a little early. Is that okay?”

  “Mmhmm,” I hum with a nod.

  “One foot in front of the other, Ave,” Addie teases. “It’s called walking. We learned how to do it ages ago.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah,” I stammer as I do as she says, placing one foot in front of the other until I’m standing beside Sonny. As soon as I’m in reaching distance, he takes my hand in his. When I look up at him, he leans down and pecks my lips, making my stomach do a couple somersaults. “Ready?” I ask, squeezing his hand, suddenly impatient to be alone with him.

  “Yes, I am.” He waves at my sister, who stands admiring us with her novel clutched against her chest. “Catch you later, Addie. Enjoy the rest of your book.”

  “I most certainly will. Thank you. You two have fun!”

  As soon as we’re on the other side of my front door, he stops and grabs my face in his hands before kissing me—for real this time. I lean against him as his mouth opens and he gently sucks on my bottom lip. I can’t help it. My knees are suddenly weak. He kisses me deeper and, for a second, I think I could be quite content if we just stayed right here for the rest of the night. He uses his tongue sparingly, which feels like a tease, but it’s blissfully frustrating and I don’t want him to stop. I’m breathless when he finally pulls away from me. “If this is what you look like when you and I have plans to stay in, maybe we should stay in all the time. You look amazing.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, holding him tighter around his waist. “Comfy suits you quite well, too.”

  He presses a quick kiss on my lips and then my forehead and then in my hair before he grabs my hand, once more. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” I ask as I practically skip alongside of him, still tingling from our kiss. He smirks down at me and shakes his head no. “Note to self, Sonny likes to keep secrets.”

  “Oh, no, no, no—” he insists with a chuckle. “This is a surprise not a secret. There’s a difference. I have no intention of keeping secrets from you.”

  For just a moment, our light conversation feels heavy. I squeeze his hand and promise not to keep secrets from him either. When we stop at Beckham’s SUV, I furrow my brow at him and store our promises away for safe keeping. “We’re taking Hammy’s car?”

  “Yup,” he confirms, opening the passenger side door for me. I climb in, even more curious than I was before. When he slides into the driver’s seat, he flashes a sly grin before he pulls a bandana from his pocket.

  “You can’t be serious,” I mutter, glaring at him in disbelief.

  “One hundred percent, sweetheart.” He twirls his finger, signaling for me to turn around so that he can blindfold me.

  “Now you’re just torturing me,” I huff as I obey.

  “Hey,” he calls out once the bandana is securely fastened around my eyes. I turn my head in the direction of his voice and am rewarded with a kiss. “Just trust me.”

  I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Okay. You win. Can we go now?”

  “Yes, we can go now.” I hear the smile he wears in the tone of his voice and I relax as he begins to drive. Our ride lasts about twenty minutes, all of which he fills with conversation to distract me. I tell him about the girls’ day I had with Addie, Sarah, and Claire before everyone got together the night before. We then talk about our celebratory night out and how much everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. He tells me about his introduction to Daphne and Logan, which makes me like Daphne a little bit more and Logan a little bit less, and then the vehicle slows down.

  “Oh, are we here? Can I take my blindfold off?”

  “Not yet,” he answers, rolling his window down. He speaks to someone and pays for something before we’re driving slowly again. It feels like forever before we stop and he turns the car off, even though I’m sure it’s no longer than two minutes. “Stay here for a second.”

  “Grayson!” I whine. I surprise myself with my impatience. I’m usually not a whiner, but he’s killing me!

  “Hey.” He kisses me. “Stay here,” he commands. I nod and then proceed to listen to him exit from the driver’s seat. I keep my ears tuned in intently as he opens the trunk. There’s lots of rustling and I can’t make heads or tails of what on earth he could be doing. Just when I think I can’t possibly wait another minute, my door opens. I gasp in excitement, eliciting a chuckle from Sonny. He unbuckles my seatbelt and cradles me in his arms before lifting me out of the car. He shuts my door and carries me a short ways. When he places me on my feet, I clasp my hands together and bring them under my chin, trying desperately to contain my giddiness. “Ready?”

  “Are you kidding?” I ask incredulously.

  When he finally loosens the knot at the back of the bandana, freeing my eyes, I hold my breath as I take in my surroundings. The first thing I notice is the picnic he’s got laid out in Hammy’s trunk. The back seat is folded down and there’s a big quilt that is spread out with pillows and a couple extra blankets tucked into the corner. In the center, there’s a vase full of flowers and dinner for two. When I pull my gaze away from the back of the car, I notice we’re in a gravel lot—no, we’re at the local dr
ive-in movie theater.

  “Silence,” he murmurs as he tugs his eyebrows together. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Sonny!” I squeal as I spring up and wrap my arms around his neck.

  He catches me against his chest and engulfs me in an embrace as he breathes a sigh of relief. “You made me nervous for a second.”

  “This is so great,” I tell him, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes. “I had no idea you were so romantic.”

  “Me neither,” he says with a laugh. “I think you make me this way.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “I like you,” he proclaims before kissing the tip of my nose. “So, the first movie doesn’t start until dark, which means we have a little while. I thought we’d eat and hang out for a bit. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect. So, so, perfect.”

  “Good.”

  It’s my hunger that encourages me to set her down so that we can climb into the trunk. I help her in and she abandons her flip flops and sits with her legs crossed under her while I let my long legs dangle over the bumper. “I hope you don’t mind, I made us dinner.”

  “What’d you make?” she asks with a grin.

  “Turkey and Swiss cheese sandwiches,” I answer as I unpack the lunch sack, placing a wrapped sandwich on her paper plate. “I also brought potato chips and I figured you’d be alright with water.”

  “You figured right,” she agrees with a nod. “This is wonderful. Thank you, so much.”

  “Not too cheesy?” I ask, unwrapping my sandwich.

  “Not at all.” She leans toward me and puckers her lips and we share a kiss over her flower arrangement. The excitement that courses through my body at her contact makes me feel like we’re celebrating me and I have to take a huge bite out of my sandwich to change the direction of my thoughts.

  We take our time eating, savoring each other’s company and conversation. I can barely take my eyes off of her and I can tell she feels the same way about me. We make each other laugh and, of course, I make her blush—that will never get old—and I’m sure that I’ve never been happier than I am when I’m with her. There’s just something about her that makes me feel free. She sometimes tells me certain things that she thinks are proof that God loves her—the changing of the leaves in the fall, the feeling she gets when she’s in the middle of a full orchestra and she can feel the sound, her sister, or my grilled cheese sandwiches—well, I believe that she is my proof that God loves me. She’s a gift; and the more time I spend with her like this, the harder it is for me to believe that I managed to go so long without her when she was right here in front me all along.

  After we’re done eating, I gather our trash and leave her for a moment to discard it. When I get back, I find her admiring her flowers. “I can’t remember the last time I bought anyone flowers,” I say, rejoining her in the trunk. “Did I do alright?”

  “Sonny…” She gives me a look I can’t decipher before she breathes in the scent of her flowers and then crawls to place them safely in the front seat. When she sits back down beside me, she takes my hand and laces her fingers with mine. “You did better than alright. I know that you don’t care about birthdays. You didn’t have to do any of this—so the fact that you did, and that you put so much thought into it, it makes me feel so special.”

  “You are special,” I murmur.

  She looks at me for a few seconds but doesn’t say a word. I can tell by the way her eyes move that she’s searching for something—what that might be, I have no idea. Then she speaks. “Growing up in my house, birthdays were always a big deal. Parties, presents, friends, family, you name it, we had it. Birthdays, to me, are a chance to express or receive a little extra love and affection. That’s all I’ve ever known. I know that’s not your story. I know because you’ve always told us that birthdays aren’t really your thing. I’ve always guessed at the reason why but I’ve never asked…but now I’m asking. Sonny, why don’t you like birthdays?”

  For a moment, I have no words. Then I’m reminded that I’m in love with her. I look down at our hands, intertwined and linking us together, and I realize that it’s not that I don’t want to tell her, it’s just that I don’t know how to start. It’s my love for her that encourages me—pushes me to find the will to begin. “My mom left when I was five. I know you know that. What you don’t know is that every year until I was eighteen, she would always send me a card on my birthday.”

  As my story pours out of me, I realize that I haven’t told this to anyone in a really long time. I can’t explain why, exactly, but every word I speak seems to awaken a dull ache in my gut—and yet I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. The woman I love wants to peek inside of me and I can’t deny her. I can only pray that what she sees won’t scare her away.

  “I guess most kids would consider that a good thing,” I continue. “I don’t know, maybe most kids would consider that to be a sign of hope or something—proof that even though she left, she never forgot about me. That’s not how I felt. I wasn’t allowed to feel that because, every year I got a card, Patrick would get so—so effed up. It pissed him off. Pissed him off that she’d gone through the trouble of finding us and yet didn’t reach out to him, too. Pissed him off that she never left a return address. Pissed him off that she wasn’t with us.

  “My birthdays…they were never about me. They were about him. They were about his pain and his loss. He would get shit-faced and that was that. Finding a place to take cover while he got rip-roaring drunk until he passed out—that’s how I spent my birthdays. I hated getting the mail that day because I knew the card would be there; it always was and he knew it too. Even if I tried to hide it…” I shudder, remembering his threats on the few occasions I thought I could get away with throwing it in the trash or hiding it before he could see it. I shake my head, wanting to rid my mind of the memory, and blow out a breath of air. When I bring my gaze back up to meet hers, I notice that her eyes are shiny with tears.

  “Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry,” I say softly, cupping a hand around her cheek.

  “It makes me sad,” she replies, leaning into my palm.

  “Hey…” I push myself further into the back and then I pull her into my arms—the ache I feel morphing into my need to comfort her from my past. “I’m okay, you know?” I assure her as I run my fingers along the length of her hair. “I just…I just don’t do birthdays.”

  She sniffs and pulls away from me before she kneels in the space between my legs and places a hand on each side of my face. “Grayson O’Conner—from this day forward, you do birthdays. Not because I need you to spoil me, which you’ve done marvelously, but because you need to be spoiled. You’re special, too, and you deserve to be reminded of that and celebrated on the day of your birth. I will accept nothing less for the man that I love.”

  A jolt shoots through my body at the mention of her love and my back stiffens, causing me to sit up straight and tall. She notices and gasps, clapping her hands around her mouth as her eyes grow wide. “Did I just say that out loud?” she mumbles from behind her fingers.

  My heart is beating so fast and loud, I wonder if she can hear it. I have to force a swallow to alleviate my suddenly dry throat before I can make any words come out. “Yes,” I manage. “Did you mean it?”

  She moans, sliding her hands up to cover her eyes as she bows her head. Long, silky strands of hair fall around her face and down her chest, creating a black curtain that hides her from me even more. “Kill me now.”

  I cough out a nervous laugh, still taken aback that she might have actually meant it. “Avery, look at me,” I insist. My fingers tuck her hair behind her ears before I gently take hold of her wrists and pull her hands away from her face. “Did you mean it?”

  She doesn’t answer me right away. Instead, she gnaws on her lower lip and stares at me. I stare right back, clueless as to what she might be thinking or feeling in this moment. I’m not even sure I know how I’m feeling. All I know is th
at the anticipation of her confirmation is so much that I can hardly breathe, my lungs filling with a longing so dense that there’s barely any room for air.

  “Will it freak you out if I say yes?” she finally whispers.

  What little air I have in me gets blown out in my shocked state. It’s one thing for me to love her—how could I not? She’s gorgeous and smart and talented and sweet and caring and funny and-and-and so many other things I can’t even name, right now. But for her to love me? No girl has ever claimed to love me. Not without sex. Just thinking that makes me hyper aware of all the things Avery doesn’t know about me, about my past. It scares me to imagine how her feelings might change when she finds out.

  “Sonny?” She speaks so softly it’s almost inaudible, but I hear her and the sound of her voice successfully pulls me out of my head.

  I focus my gaze on her as I bury my fingers in her hair and rest my hands around the nape of her neck. “There are things—things you don’t know about me, about my past.”

  She mimics my posture, reaching her hands up to run her fingers through my hair. I close my eyes, willing myself not to get lost in her touch. “Look at me,” she says softly. I do as she requests and she continues. “I know enough. I know enough to know that it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it won’t change how I feel.”

  She rips me apart with her words and I want so desperately to believe her. When I search her eyes and find nothing but sincerity, I decide that I do. Then I kiss her. Hard. I can tell that I startle her by the way she tugs at my hair, but as she begins to kiss me back I feel her relax. I break our contact before we can get lost in each other and I drag in a raspy breath as I pull away just enough to see her face. “Say it. I need to hear you say it.”

  I can hear her shallow breathing and I know she’s feeling as out of sorts as I am. She licks her lips before she speaks. “I love you, Grayson.”

  I close my eyes as I let her words wash over me.