Promise Me This

by Christina Lee

  Just don’t ask him to draw your current flame, his personal hot button. He’d give you a good tongue-lashing, specifically telling you how goddamn stupid you are. If you relented, he’d make you promise not to return to him when you wanted it covered up or removed two months down the road.

  “Why not tattoos?” Bennett said and Avery nodded. Bennett was one of the nicest humans on the planet, easy on the eyes too, and seeing him look at his fiancée, made every girl in a ten-mile radius sulk. Together they had sex appeal oozing out of their pores and I’d guess their sex life was combustible as well.

  Bennett was expert in all areas but his work in specialized lettering was the bomb. If a customer wanted a favorite quote tattooed on their skin, I’d send them Bennett’s way in a heartbeat. Avery had proof of his expertise on her own skin.

  “Those photos that you hung in the hallway at the shop are amazing,” Avery said.

  Oliver, the owner of Raw Ink, had asked me to take professional photos to decorate the walls. I had used the university lab to process them and then took them to a framer to get them matted and hung properly. It’d been a yearlong project. I’d asked customers to sit for long minutes, while I adjusted the angle and lighting to snap their tattoos.

  “I thought of that,” I said, nodding. “But call me crazy, I want to pick something else to challenge myself.”

  “Makes sense,” Dex said, talking a long pull of his beer. I noted he was taking it easy tonight, only on his second beer—otherwise one of the guys would have to cart his ass home again. Even though Dex and Cory were older than the whole lot of us, they sure acted juvenile sometimes.

  “I was thinking of photographing something outdoors,” I said to the group, my eyes panning across each of their faces.

  “You mean like flowers or trees?” Avery asked. “The fall leaves would be gorgeous.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I wasn’t much a nature girl and I knew she wasn’t either, even though I did admire it from afar.

  “No, that would be too . . . lame,” I said.

  “You could always come with me to the dog park,” Emmy said, still nursing her first drink. I shook my head. Her and those darn shelter dogs. She probably cared more about them than humans.

  “I’m thinking something more gritty, industrial—like maybe bikes or motorcycles,” I said. “I don’t know, been wracking my brain about it.”

  “Meet me at the biker bar this weekend,” Cory said. “The entire lot is filled with sweet rides.”

  He was a true motorcycle aficionado and had even inherited a vintage Harley from his uncle. He’s met some of his past boyfriends at that bar, even though that was a tough room to work if you were gay. But Cory knew how to keep everything on the down low—at least that’s how he’d described it to me.

  “Not a bad idea,” I said. We’d all been to that bar with him before. It tended to bring a rough crowd. If you thought these guys were exclusive, you should meet that pack. They don’t appreciate fake enthusiasts, either.

  “How about photographing buildings?” Nate said. He was studying to be a structural engineer and loved anything having to do with blueprints and construction.

  Last summer, Nate had invited me to a concert at the Artisan Music Center with his cousin, Kai. We’d road-tripped there with Bennett and Avery, her roommate Ella, and Ella’s boyfriend, Quinn. On the way up, Nate would point out interesting structures and tell me cool facts about them. It had never occurred to me to photograph them, though.

  “Not sure that’s my thing,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “No sweat,” Nate said, his leg finally settling beneath the table.

  Avery motioned for Bennett to move aside so she could slide out of her seat to use the restroom. Bennett leaned over and kissed the side of her head before allowing her to pass and she smiled endearingly at him. When she first got together with Bennett, I thought she might eat him alive. That girl was tough and I loved her take-no-shit attitude, but Bennett had softened her. I thought they complemented each other well.

  “I just thought of something for your project, Jessie.” Bennett said, turning back to me. “Maybe Nate here can help you out.”

  “Huh?” Nate’s head snapped up. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “You have that cool internship where you get to go up on bridges and shit.”

  “Seriously? I know you’re working for some firm this semester, but I never knew exactly what the hell you do for them,” I said, staring Nate down. “You’re allowed to climb on bridges?”

  Nate nodded. “They have a contract with the city and my supervisor took me up on the Municipal Bridge—you know the big blue one that shines over the river downtown?”

  “That is so rad,” I said, my mouth hanging open in awe.

  “Yeah, you should see the view from up top. It was honestly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done,” he said, his eyes slightly unfocused, as if he was recounting it in his head. “But no way I’d be allowed to take you up there.”

  My mind started firing away, think of bridges.

  “Still, that fits into my industrial idea,” I said and then snapped my fingers. “I bet I could take photos of different kinds of bridges.”

  “I knew you’d think that was cool,” Bennett said.

  “Great idea. But this city has got nothing on Bridgeway, over the state border,” Nate said. “It’s known as the city of bridges.”

  “For real?” I said. “Never knew that. What kinds do they have?”

  “They have a few smaller ones constructed like the bridges we have here downtown,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “But if you travel into the rural section, there are several covered bridges.”

  “Covered bridges?” Cory said.

  “Yeah, they’re timber truss bridges with a roof and siding. You see them in old movies sometimes,” Nate said. “One of them even extends over a river and it’s pretty damn cool.”

  “Hmmm . . . maybe my project theme can be bridges over time,” I said, my mind already wandering off about the lighting and the settings I’d use on my dad’s camera. “Dude, you just gave me the greatest idea.”

  “No problem,” Nate said, with a playful wink that made my stomach buzz.

  Chapter Three

  Jessie

  My phone hummed with a text from a friend. I turned away, avoiding Dex’s nosy gaze. He probably thought the message was from some new guy and I preferred to keep it that way.

  Dating other employees at the shop was discouraged but not strictly against the rules. Dex had pursued me for a long while last year. I’d admit I found him charming and liked the attention, but didn’t want to step on any toes.

  There was one time when I finally gave in, went for a drink and let him kiss me, but I knew it was all wrong. Dex on the other hand, wanted more, and it’d been an awkward few weeks of letting him down easy. I vowed to never date anyone at the shop again.

  Customers were a different story, but still a bit tricky. That’s how I’d met the last guy I’d been seeing. He was Lila’s customer and had been to the shop a few times to get a series of skulls inked on his chest. He’d stop at the counter and chat with me for longer than necessary and then finally asked me out.

  I had kicked him to the curb though, because he always seemed to have one excuse or another for cancelling plans. Still, he had some rad tattoos and piercings and was sexy and cute, I’d give him that. Not cute in a Nate kind of way—Mr. Pretty Boy with his full lips and eyelashes that fanned across those damn sculpted cheeks.

  But I didn’t need some screw-up in my life, not when I was putting myself through college, one or two classes at a time, and nearing the finish line. I needed to get my fine arts degree, if for no other reason than to make my dad proud. He would have loved to see me graduate. Mom’s been cheering me on too, of course, but she knew what college had signified to him, since he’d never finished university himself.

  My dad’s old buddy who worked freelance for several magazines advised me to
get my portfolio together to send his way when it was ready. Then he’d see about getting me a gig. If I was good enough, I might get some more work thrown my way or even a full-time grunt job, just to get my foot in the door somewhere.

  Even though these guys at Raw Ink were my people and we looked out for each other, eventually I needed to move on to a career that I loved. Or maybe I’d just do both. It would be hard leaving the shop behind.

  While I was busy texting, Cory and Dex started a game of quarters with a couple of regulars who had sat down at the other end of the table. These two were forever playing something—flip the cup, euchre, Avery’s five fingers game, truth or dare, you name it.

  Apparently already bored with the quarters game, Cory slammed down his cup. “Never have I ever . . .”

  I rolled my eyes and Avery groaned. Here we go again.

  Cory’s eyes zeroed in on Nate and then lit up. ”. . . Jumped off the side of the bridge.”

  “You ass,” Dex said. “Had anyone in this group jumped off a bridge, they wouldn’t be here to answer your question.”

  But then suddenly Nate raised his beer to his lips and took a long sip to disprove his point.

  “Nate?” Dex said, his eyes alight with amusement.

  “It’s called bungee jumping,” Nate said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Dude, you forgot that my friend here has no fear of death,” Bennett said. “Pretty sure he’s done it all.”

  “Oh, I fear death,” Nate said. “But if that’s the way I had to go, flying sky high, with my heart practically clawing out of my chest, I’d take it. It’s the other ways of dying that scare the shit out of me.”

  My ears pricked up at this revelation. I knew he enjoyed those adrenaline-rush activities but I never really wondered why or how he felt about them.

  “Well fuck, I guess you’re right. The alternatives aren’t much better,” Cory said. “Drowning, being burned at the stake, getting the living shit beaten out of you.”

  Something dark crossed over Nate’s features before it quickly passed.

  “See my point?”

  “So if I said . . .” Dex rubbed his fingers along his chin. “Never have I ever jumped out of an airplane?”

  Nate picked up his beer, took a hefty sip, while everyone around the table busted up laughing.

  “My turn.” A smile burst from my lips, because it was so fun to mess with Nate, especially when he was looking all smug. I’d have him guzzling his drink down in no time flat. “Never have I ever . . . gotten it on with somebody in the bathroom of Zach’s Bar.”

  Nate narrowed his eyes at me. “Nice,” he said, before gulping down more beer.

  Then he leaned over to whisper, “You’re just trying to get me drunk, so I’ll give you a peek at the monstrosity between my legs.”

  I snort laughed. “You wish.”

  His eyes held mine for a bit longer than was comfortable and I wondered if he was getting tipsy. I felt a tingle descend down my spine like cold fingers. What in the hell was that about?

  Avery cracked up as two other guys at the end of the table also took sips.

  “I’m proud to not have raised a cup to my lips,” she said and then high-fived me.

  “Yeah, me too, babe,” Bennett mumbled.

  “But I’d get it on in the bathroom with you,” she whispered loud enough for me to overhear. Bennett’s fingers curled around her neck and he pulled her forward into a steamy kiss. I looked away as my cheeks heated up. These two were too sexy for their own good.

  Bennett had been a virgin before he’d met Avery but the guys at the shop rarely razzed him about it—in fact, I think most were in awe that he could last that long. It wasn’t something he’d kept hidden, and given the shop owner’s past history with Avery, everyone pretty much kept their traps shut.

  We were a tight-knit group and I was lucky to have even gotten this job. It was hard enough lining up an artist’s job in this town and these guys didn’t play. They took on very few apprenticeships, but the requirements to work the front of the shop were just as rigid.

  Oliver required his front desk staff to have at least one tattoo so we could counsel new customers about the experience. My tattoo, along with my prior office management experience and no desire whatsoever to become a future artist, was what sealed the deal.

  I was told in no uncertain terms that my job duties were to be only as described. If I was pretending to want to work the front of the shop only to get my hands on an apprenticeship or to get up close and personal with the artists, I’d be out on my ass faster than it took to fire up a tattoo machine.

  “Well, if we’re gonna go there, it’s my turn next,” Zeke, one of Cory’s motor-head friends who had been sitting at the other end of the table, said. “Never have I ever . . . been handcuffed while doing the deed.”

  All the guys laughed after he added, “But I’d like to be.”

  Nobody around the table moved until Cory finally raised his glass. Then I shrugged and stretched my beer to my lips.

  Again there were chuckles from the group and in my side view I saw Nate’s eyes practically pop out of his head. Suddenly it seemed too crowded beneath the table, so when Nate shifted his leg against mine, even if by accident, I nearly crawled out of my skin. Holy Christ on a cracker, I had no idea why I was feeling unexpectedly overheated being near my perfectly square friend.

  “Oh, this is getting good. I’m going to flip it on its head,” the friend sitting across from Zeke said. “Never have I ever cuffed someone during sex.”

  Another snicker around the table sounded after he added, “But I’d definitely consider it.”

  Again, Cory lifted his glass and then his eyes shot to mine. I shook my head. “Nope. Been the handcuffee, but never the handcuffer.”

  Avery’s eyebrows lifted as she playfully elbowed her man. “Apparently, we need to get more kinky to keep up with this group.”

  Nate looked to be deliberating something, darkness shadowing his eyes, until finally he raised the neck of his beer to his mouth for a sip.

  One of the guys whistled but Nate kept his eyes cast down, as if embarrassed by what I’d think after that bathroom incident.

  A line of heat stretched across my cheeks. Little did he realize that he’d only intrigued me more.

  Chapter Four

  Nate

  Driving to my mom’s house for dinner, my thoughts turned to Jessie again. As soon as she admitted to having been handcuffed the other night at the bar, my fantasies had gone wild. Shit, part of me wished I had never been part of that conversation. The group had gotten stupid with that game before, between drugs of choice to favorite sexual positions, but even those exchanges hadn’t done to me what this one had.

  I was comfortable with keeping Jessie as my buddy, because she’d never allow me to get close anyway. When her phone pinged with a text, most likely from her latest boyfriend, I got this funny feeling in my stomach like I always did. I wanted to protect her, like a good friend should. No way did I want her with any hard-asses—especially ones who might take advantage of her. I knew she could hold her own, but maybe my mom had thought so at one time as well.

  And maybe when you spent a lot of time with a monster, it changed you. Made you afraid, sucked out your goddamn soul.

  But sitting across from her that night at the bar made me edgy and horny and hard as fuck. I hung out longer than normal just so I could get my dick under some semblance of control, but it only made things worse each time our legs accidentally brushed beneath the table.

  Who was I kidding? A girl like Jessie—the way she’d talked to the guys from the shop? She wasn’t going to take any shit and certainly not from a guy like me, which was why I never hooked up with anybody in front of her before.

  She’d give me the business, already did in her own way, and I liked having her as a friend. But I could tell she loved it when I gave it right back. We could ping-pong off each other and I could explore a healthy way to be arou
nd a girl. For once.

  Still, since that night at the bar, I hadn’t gotten any kind of release except from my own damn hand while I imagined her beneath me, tied to the fucking bed. And every time she’d text me with a bridge question this week, I pictured us way up high on that blue viaduct getting it on for the entire world to see.

  I turned the corner into the Waterford Development and then pulled into the shallow driveway up to the house. I grew up in what someone like Jessie might consider a huge-ass mansion. We all drove nice cars and had high-end gadgets but I’d give it all up in a heartbeat if my mom finally announced that she’d leave my dad’s ass.

  As it was now, the tension was at an all-time high when we were all in the same room—it was almost like Dad knew that since I’m an adult, I could take him down with one punch. That we were all just toeing the line to keep up appearances. But having my asshole brother there only fueled the fire.

  My father still travelled quite a bit for business so tonight it was just the three of us. My mother often arranged dinner for my brother and me when he was gone, probably because cooking helped her relax. She seemed more like her true self when she wasn’t under my father’s thumb.

  I always made sure to show up early so my brother, Luke, didn’t do some stupid shit like egg her on or make her cry. He was turning into my father with every passing year and it twisted my stomach inside out to witness it.

  Especially since it had always been me and Luke who had cowered together on the edge of our beds listening to the fights, the anger, the crying. Now, it was as if that experience had hardened him as much as it had softened me. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. But suddenly the two of us were as different as night and day.

  Luke pulled in behind me in his ridiculous mini-Hummer like he’d been off to war or something. Those cars were stupid as shit and only made him look like more of a meathead than he was. He was in his senior year at Rockwell University and was on the winning football team. He was a linebacker and huge as fuck. I thought I was built—but then I’d visit him in the weight room at his private Ivy League school and feel small in comparison.