Promise Me This

by Christina Lee

  This visit I’d decided to do a sample of black-and-white prints first. It was my favorite format because of the contrast they revealed between faint and vivid tones.

  It was my father’s favorite as well—he loved vintage photos in general—and he taught me early on that if you didn’t balance the exposure properly, the light overwhelms the darkness and essentially ruins the shot.

  He always expressed his opinions or made arguments using photography terminology. Even in that beach memory that I’d shared with Nate on the car ride up—the one he seemed so moved by—my father used lightness and darkness as a metaphor.

  And while that was a favorite memory of mine—inspiring me to have my father’s words inked into my skin—for Nate, the message spoke to something different inside him. I knew it in the way he’d responded up on that bridge when I’d felt his tender lips brushing over my tattoo, over my sensitive skin. Just thinking about it made my stomach quiver all over again.

  I snapped my mind back into gear, working efficiently since I knew that by the time I cleaned up the chemicals and tidied my workspace, my appointed hour would be up.

  I pulled the proof sheet from the tray of fixer after allowing it to rest in the solution for the allotted time. Then I turned on the overhead light to examine my work, and damn, the snapshots I had taken over the weekend were pretty darn good.

  I zeroed in on photo after photo of Nate. In my memory, I categorized them into two groups: before and after shots.

  The before shots were the first snaps, the ones taken by the pond and covered bridge. They were the ones I took when we first arrived in his hometown. A sadness and restlessness was infused in his very being in all of the photos, no matter how much he’d mugged for the camera.

  It made me wonder just what had gone down with his father in that childhood home, how much damage he’d caused that family. I shivered involuntarily at the thought. If Nate was that affected, I wondered what his mom had been through. Compared to my mother, who was so strong and self-assured, Nate’s mom might be a mess.

  I had already seen glimpses of Nate’s brother, Luke, and now as I put the whole of it together, I got why Nate had called him a prick. You hear about the cycle of abuse and his brother unfortunately might be evidence of that. He was cocky with an almost mean edge—one I originally saw as coming from a life of privilege.

  Now I tuned into the other photos. The after shots. The ones I took of Nate up on the railroad bridge, after spending the night wrapped in his arms. To me, the evidence was plain in his eyes. He looked different—relaxed, content, free.

  I wondered if he’d ever be able to see that in himself.

  The problem was, Nate’s kinky urges had married with his constant wicked thoughts of himself, which made this way complicated. He was convinced his dark was overshadowing everything.

  But I knew without a shred of doubt that there were insurmountable amounts of light in him to give.

  Right then I’d decided on something. Something important I needed to do.

  ***

  After the darkroom, I headed to Raw Ink for my shift. I was immediately greeted by Cory who was walking his client out the door.

  “How was your weekend away, Jess?” he said, turning to me after he waved good-bye. “Were there any handcuffs or bungee jumping involved?”

  I held in a gasp. He never shared details of his weekends with me, so I knew he was only messing around, but his comment had hit too close to home.

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an ass.”

  I looked over at Emmy who wiggled her eyebrows.

  I laid down my bag. “You guys are impossible.”

  Bennett emerged from the back room with a customer. She was older, wore a bandage concealing her wrist and a set of dreamy eyes that plenty of Bennett’s female customers wore for him. But he was oblivious to it or maybe just good at ignoring it. Avery didn’t know how lucky she had it.

  Emmy rang the customer out while I pulled off my jacket.

  Bennett leaned over the counter. “You good?”

  “Yep.”

  “Nate show you all the right places?”

  Oh, he showed me all right, I wanted to say.

  “Yeah, I got some cool shots,” I said, figuring I’d get tired of everyone’s questions by the end of my shift. The hazard of having co-workers that felt like family. “There were so many bridges.”

  He nodded. “He said your car got a flat?”

  Emmy’s eyes snapped up to mine.

  “A leak. Got it plugged,” I said, surprised Bennett had that information. “It would’ve sucked had he not been with me.”

  “Yeah, he said as much.”

  “Did he give you a play-by-play?” I tried to not to make my voice sound strained.

  “No. That was it,” Bennett said and I blew out a breath. “Why, is there something else I should know?”

  Just then Avery walked in with her blue scrubs, and saved me from answering him. She was on rotation at the university hospital and whenever she and Bennett finished work at the same time, they walked home together.

  Bennett slid his arms around her waist and gave her a quick but intimate kiss on the lips. Then he whispered something in her ear and she giggled.

  Emmy sighed as she passed by me at the desk. “I want my very own Bennett,” she mumbled near my ear.

  Avery waved to us as they headed out the door. But then she stopped and turned. “Hey, did you get the invite from Ella to Quinn’s birthday thing?”

  There had been a couple of voice mails on my phone that I hadn’t exactly checked yet. I blamed it on my mopey mood. I shook my head. Ella was Avery’s friend and she dated Quinn, the catcher for the TSU baseball team. We all hung out sometimes and I went on that road trip with them last summer to the music festival.

  “She’s rented some lanes at the bowling alley,” Avery said. “Beer and wings. Should be fun.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “The weekend after next,” she said. “Kai’s coming up for it.”

  “I bet Rachel’s happy.”

  Avery smiled. “Hopefully she can keep her hands off of Kai until after the party.”

  “Wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t,” I said and Emmy agreed, with a knowing grin. Kai was like sex on a stick, with his long hair, beautiful face, and pierced parts.

  “We’ll be there, right, Emmy?”

  “Right,” she said.

  As Avery and Bennett headed out the door, Emmy stood staring at me.

  “What?”

  “Out with it,” she said. “What happened this weekend with Nate?”

  “He took me to see some covered and industrial bridges,” I said. “It was really cool and I got some great photos.”

  When I moved behind her to look at the schedule, she latched onto my arm. “What about the flat tire?”

  “Yeah that,” I said. “It was too late to find somewhere to get it fixed. Every place was closed. So . . . we had to stay overnight.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, her eyes wide. “Where the heck did you sleep?”

  I couldn’t help wondering what in the hell Nate had told Bennett about our sleeping arrangements. Somehow I doubted he’d told him about staying in the same room or having sex with me. Bennett didn’t act strange in front of me and besides, what I knew from Nate, he wasn’t one to kiss and tell.

  Emmy nudged me. “Earth to Jessie.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know how Emmy and I had ended up being such close friends. Emmy was one of those bubbly girls who could’ve easily been a college cheerleader or a sorority pledge or something.

  Seems the only thing that had brought us together was this shop. She didn’t exactly fit here and she knew it, but the guys had grown to love her. And so did I.

  “We got a motel room, which sucked because not only did I have to pay for the service garage, I also had to pay to sleep somewhere.” Emmy knew how tight money was and that I didn’t take handouts from anybody very easily.
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  “Well crap,” she said. “Did you at least have fun?”

  I couldn’t stop the smile that had formed on my lips.

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “What?”

  She lowered her voice, which I so appreciated, because if there was any shop gossip, Dex, who was sitting only one room away, was on it. It was awkward enough being around him sometimes. “You and Nate?”

  I sighed. “Kinda sorta.” No way was I going to share all the glorious details. They were still confusing to me.

  Besides, I had some insane need to protect Nate and keep his insecurities private. “We drank at a place next to the motel to kill time. It was some country bar,” I said, smiling. “We had a blast. I got to know Nate better in the process.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to squirm at the memory of being so close to him. “Turns out he’s not so square, after all. Or even that shallow.”

  Emmy just stared at me.

  “In the morning, we got my tire fixed and before we left town, he took me to this old abandoned railroad bridge,” I said, the explanation not really doing it justice. “We climbed up the side of it and it was amazing. I got so many shots up there.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it.”

  Just then Oliver, the owner of Raw Ink, came from the back office. “Hey, Jess. Isn’t your shift over, Emmy?”

  “Yep, I’m going,” she said, reaching for her bag beneath the counter. Oliver was a stickler about clocking in and out on time.

  He wandered toward the other side of the room near Dex’s station where he was prepping his next client for a wrist tattoo.

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me if anything happened between you guys,” Emmy whispered.

  I knew Emmy would bug me for days on end if I didn’t tell her something. She was a good secret keeper, though, and I kind of felt like I needed to confide in someone.

  “We . . . kissed,” I mumbled. “A lot.”

  Her hand slammed over her mouth to hold in her shocked giggle.

  “How was it?”

  I sighed. “It was really good.”

  “Are you afraid it’s going to be awkward between you now?”

  “Kind of yeah, so please don’t say anything.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “But do you think you and Nate might do it again?”

  “This is Nate we’re talking about,” I said, nearly cringing at the words. “He doesn’t repeat hookups, you know that.”

  “Yeah, but he also hasn’t had the Jessie effect before.”

  “The Jessie effect?”

  “Kissing an amazingly cool, strong and beautiful girl with tattoos,” she said. “The Jessie effect. How many guys have had their tongues wagging for you?”

  I shook my head and grinned. Didn’t I wish it were that easy?

  “I’m out of here.” Emmy waved and headed out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Nate

  I sat in my Structural Analysis class not hearing a word the professor had said in the past thirty minutes, which was really going to suck for my upcoming test.

  Instead, I had my notebook open to a blank page where I’d been doodling and daydreaming. Drawing scaled-down versions of bridges. The bridges from last weekend. The view from up top and then one from down below.

  I drew the letters in Jessie’s name within the framework of one of the bridges then outlined them over and over, practically tearing into the paper.

  Ever since the weekend, I’d been so drummed up, not knowing what to do with all the restless energy inside of me. But when I sketched, I pooled all of my energy into one pinpoint of focus and my brain was able to settle down.

  All week long, I couldn’t stop remembering how I felt so goddamn free, open, absolved. And then afterward, so terrified, removed, withdrawn. Fuck.

  I just hoped that when Jessie and I saw each other again, it would feel normal between us. My fingers hovered over my phone’s touchscreen many times trying to think of something I could say to her. Just normal words. Something joking or funny. To get us back to where we’d been.

  When class was over, I crossed the walkway to the student center. My next class wasn’t for another couple of hours, so I wanted to grab a sandwich and then head to the rock-climbing wall at the indoor gym to give my twitchy muscles a workout.

  I grabbed a coffee with my bacon and egg bagel and searched for a place to sit. As my eyes swung around the room, a sign caught my eye that I probably would’ve never noticed had it not been for Jessie. It said, STUDENT WELLNESS AND COUNSELING CENTER, THIRD FLOOR. It listed all the services it offered, including yoga classes and free counseling sessions.

  I noted the room number and found a table. As I ate my sandwich and studied my notes, I heard someone call my name. A girl named Erin approached my table. She had been in one of my classes and we’d hooked up a couple of months ago.

  “Nate, hi,” she said in a timid voice. “Long time no see.”

  I remembered our encounter one night at a frat party. Both of us tipsy, we agreed to head upstairs to one of the empty bedrooms.

  On our way up she passed her group of friends, one of whom had whispered something loud enough for me to hear. Twenty bucks if you get some tongue.

  I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but now I remember that the sex had been fast and decent and that I’d used my hands to get her off. What Jessie had said about my reputation suddenly made perfect sense.

  Sex with this Erin—any girl I’d been with—lacked the fire and the spark I had with Jessie. During my encounter with the girl standing in front of me, I had gotten off thinking of tying her up.

  With Jessie? I got the real thing.

  My dick already lengthening from thoughts of Jessie, I stood up, and began clearing my table. “Hey nice seeing you again. But I’ve got an appointment I need to get to.”

  I rushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time to try to squash my urges, and found myself on the third floor.

  The door to the Wellness and Counseling Center was directly in front of me and I noted how busy it looked inside. I pretended to study the fliers on the wall outside the entrance, which explained different disorders like depression and anxiety. Jessie had told me that her mother worked at a center that provided Reiki and chakra, but those words sounded foreign to my ears as well.

  “Nate.” As if materializing from my very thoughts, Jessie stood at the counseling center door. The first thing I noticed was that her hair was different. It was auburn with some streaks of pink near the front, which made her hazel eyes stand out.

  “You changed your hair,” I said. Jessie was always experimenting with different colors, so that was nothing new. But I liked her brunette locks best.

  “Yeah.” She reached up and swept her fingers through it.

  My gaze dipped to her red glossy lips and then to her loose-fitting jeans with their rolled bottoms and back up to her tight Rolling Stones T-shirt. I remembered her matching bra and panty set from our weekend and forced the thought from my brain.

  She stepped into the hallway and the raw energy buzzing between us was nearly deafening. I wanted to reach out and pull her against me, except she wasn’t mine and I wasn’t hers. But fuck, right then, I wanted her to be. Never in my life had such a firm and unyielding thought about a girl ever entered my brain.

  “What are you doing here?” She looked at the flier on the wall I had been studying.

  “I could ask you the same question,” I said, stalling for time.

  “I still see a counselor from time to time . . .” she said, stepping closer. “About my dad.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. The way she had talked about it on the bridge, I got the impression that therapy was a thing of the past, not something she continued to seek out.

  “And . . . last weekend . . . brought up some things for me,” she said. “So I made an appointment.”

  I knew that what she wasn’t sa
ying was that spending the weekend with me had stirred some memories up for her—badly enough that she needed to seek out a counselor. I didn’t know how to take that information. Had being with me been too heavy for her as well?

  God, what a mess.

  “I’m sorry—” I started to say.

  “No Nate, it wasn’t anything you did,” she said, reaching for my arm but then dropping it at the last minute. “Don’t take that on, too.”

  I just stared at her, marveling at how well she got me sometimes.

  “Is that what brought you here?” she asked in a low voice. I didn’t feel like I had to hide anything from her. She knew plenty was brought up for me over the weekend. Both when I saw my childhood home and then when I had those physical experiences with her.

  As she adjusted the strap of her messenger bag higher on her shoulder, I tried to formulate an answer to her question.

  “It’s easy, really,” she said. “All you do is walk in, say you want to schedule an appointment and they give you a sheet to fill out with your name, student number, and reason for visit.”

  “See that’s the thing . . .” I said. “I don’t really know—the reason for my visit.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not like you need to know exactly. You’ll figure that out as you go. Just say you’re dealing with a family trauma.”

  “Family trauma?”

  “Sure, that’s really what it is, right?” she said, looking into my eyes. “You had some experiences growing up and it . . . left a bruise on your heart.”

  As she said this, she tapped two fingers to her chest to stress her point. I briefly closed my eyes. Holy shit. This girl.

  “More like a black hole,” I mumbled.

  “A black hole indicates that you possess such strong magnetism that everything gravitates toward you.” Her lips tilted up in a mischievous grin. “Don’t be so full of yourself, Square.”

  Her kidding tone snapped me out of her spell and a burst of laughter erupted from my lips. She cleared her throat and then nudged me with her shoulder. “Go fill out the form, I’ll wait out here.”