Promise Me This: a friends to lovers, slow burn romance (Wilder Family Book 3)

Chapter 11

I did what any sane, mentally balanced woman would do in that situation. (The situation being that I’d just unwittingly written my closest friend into a sexual fantasy, in which he was finger-banging the hell out of me under a blanket and dirty talking next to my ear while people walked outside the car and could’ve caught us at any time. Yeah. That one.)

Before he could leave his bathroom, my ass ran upstairs and slammed my bedroom door like it was an iron wall separating me from what had happened downstairs. I flopped onto my bed, face-first, and made a pathetic groaning sound into my pillow.

It didn’t help, not that I thought it would. Slowly sitting up, I ran my hands through the hair falling into my face and looked around the simply decorated room like it might give me answers.

It didn’t, the asshole. Because everywhere I looked, I saw hints of Ian. The artwork he’d hung for me. The bedframe he’d assembled. The desk he’d tucked into the corner even though I said I didn’t need one.

My chest was tight and achy, and I rubbed furiously at it.

Then I had a thought, and I reached for my phone. She’d told me once she worked most weekends because of her client base, so I shot off a text.

Me: Any chance you’re around today? I think one of the writing prompts broke me.

Bea: Oh my. Didn’t think it could possibly make things worse, but sure. Call me anytime in the next hour if you need to talk something through. After that, I have back-to-back meetings.

In my haste to start the call, I almost dropped my phone.

“That didn’t take long,” she said, a smile evident in her voice.

I very much wish I could’ve laughed, but nothing about this was funny to me. A panic attack hovered at the edges of my vision, curling in on me like a black, heavy cloud.

“So the prompts,” I said. “I did my first one today.”

“Okay,” she answered slowly. “And what happened?”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I focused on the pattern of my breathing. A little rapid. A lot uneven. “I got almost two thousand words in a very short amount of time. I didn’t even know I could type that fast, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s great, Harlow. Based on your text, I assumed this was a bad kind of breaking.”

Was I rocking back and forth? A little. The tiniest whimper escaped my mouth.

Bea, with her bloodhound-level hearing, did not miss it.

“Uh-oh,” she added quietly.

“It started in third person, which is fine, right? I wasn’t overthinking what was going on the page, I wasn’t even, like, conscious of what I was writing as it came out.” I paused to blow out a hard exhale. Bea stayed quiet. “Then it shifted to first person, which I normally don’t write. And it was … intense. I don’t usually write sex scenes, you know? I thought I’d need to study them more, pay attention to the choreography of how a good one is laid out and think more about my word choice to make it impactful.”

“But it flowed,” she said.

“A little too well.”

At my sulky tone, Bea laughed. “This all sounds positive, Harlow. Maybe I’m missing a piece of the story.”

I lowered my voice a bit because muffled sounds of Ian’s movements downstairs filtered up. I’d have to move back across the country if he ever found out about this. “When I went back to read what I’d wrote,” I sucked in a breath and said it all in one big rush, “I wrote the man as Ian and didn’t realize it.”

The immediate silence was a deafening boom, only the thrashing sound of my pulse in my ears filtering through it.

“Oh,” she said meaningfully.

I flopped back onto the bed and groaned. “I know. I’ve never, ever thought about him sexually, and now I’m freaking out because I don’t know what it means.”

“Even when you were teens, you never did?”

“Ugh, fine, once.” My cheeks were probably candy-apple red. I felt like I was a teen again, desperately trying to rid herself of any pesky, unwanted emotional developments. “But we were swimming at a lake, and he’d filled out a lot that summer, and I remember looking at his trunks when he got out and thinking, holy shit, that’s the outline of him and it is not small and it’s also not hard.” My eyes slammed shut. “And that whole afternoon was an exercise in intrusive thoughts centered around my best friend’s penis.”

Bea chuckled. “And did they continue past that?”

“No. Just a one-day special.”

“Okay, so maybe that’s what this is,” she said gently.

“I don’t know, Bea, this feels … Freudian.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Parapraxis, those linguistic slips that can betray a deeper, hidden layer in our subconscious, could easily be the culprit, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking. Did you find yourself feeling attraction to Ian before this?”

“No,” I said slowly. “I mean, objectively, I know he’s hot, because, well, he’s just stupidly handsome and it’s not the kind of handsome that anyone would argue with.”

“So he’s a Brad Pitt.”

“Ugh, yes. Legends of the Fall Brad Pitt, too.”

“Oh my,” she said weakly.

My pathetic little groan emerged again, and it made Bea laugh. Downstairs, the sound of the front door closing had me shifting on the bed to peek out of the window overlooking the front yard. Ian never looked upstairs, but I eyed the fresh change of clothes as he hopped into the truck and backed out of his spot. He’d said he was going to the shop, so why did he have to shower?

“So if my Freudian slip isn’t repressed sexual interest in my best friend, what is it?” I asked.

She paused. “I don’t want to plant seeds that aren’t there, but I do wonder if it’s representative of a different level of your friendship with Ian. He’s emotionally safe, right? You can trust him. You said you’d been thinking a lot about teamwork and partnership, right? He’s almost taking on a partner role in your life right now.”

I sank back against the headboard. “Definitely.” My fingertips picked at the edge of the comforter. “He’s always been one of the few people I can truly be vulnerable with. I’ve never,” I paused, trying to think of the right words, “filtered myself when I’m around him, I guess. I’ve never needed to.”

She made a humming noise of acknowledgment. “That’s a gift, Harlow. Those friendships are rare in life.”

They were. I’d been without it long enough that having it again felt like winning the lottery more than once, only on a much grander scale because I had the benefit of hindsight. The benefit of perspective, and that could only come with the passage of time.

“So you’re saying that maybe I imagined his face because he’s the safest person in my life right now.” I swallowed. “It doesn’t mean I want him, want him.”

“It could very well be the truth.” She took a quick breath, delivering her next words with careful precision. “Though there’s nothing wrong with it if you do.”

“I don’t,” I rushed to interject. “We aren’t … it’s not like that with us. It never has been.”

“Okay.” Her tone was all patience and understanding and support, but even with that, and the exceedingly logical explanation, I felt a touch unnerved by the entire thing. “Keep going with your prompts, though. Even if that’s all you work on this week.”

“And if I keep inserting him into the faceless man role?” I asked dryly.

She laughed. “Then roll with that too. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a story idea out of it?”

Just like it had with the prompt, the thoughts started unrolling slowly at first. Why would my couple have to pretend anything? Who were they, and why could they not get caught together? Was it a job? Other relationships in their life?

What were they afraid of?

The asking of those questions felt big and terrifying, piecing together a puzzle with an endgame that was very different from solving a crime. Normally, my questions were about good and evil, the nature of sin, evil and pain, and the way trauma shapes people’s choices—good or bad.

Suppose the endpoint was fixed somewhere else, on the emotionally satisfying resolution of a relationship instead of catching the big bad. How would I follow the story threads to get there?

“You think I could write a romance?” I asked quietly.

“I think you could write whatever you put your mind to. Would that be so bad to hop into that world?”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “No. I’d need at least one killer in there, though,” I added. “Or like, a stalker.”

There was a smile in Bea’s voice when she answered. “Romantic suspense is very popular.”

The panic had receded, and in its place, the smallest kernel of hope.

Today, it was enough.

“Thank you, Bea. I appreciate you taking the time for me on a weekend.”

“You’re welcome.”

I ate some lunch, staring at the sticker-covered surface of my laptop and mulling over the series of the day’s events. Even though I felt better about what had happened, I kept going back to that initial rush of fear that I’d irrevocably screwed something up just by imagining him in that scene.

Maybe it was just my writer brain latching onto someone who had swoony male protagonist energy in spades. Not only that, but he was there. The closest possible person in my life.

But still, the idea that I was redefining Ian in any way didn’t necessarily sit right either.

I hated the idea of keeping something like this from him, but after his own admission of not wanting to ruin our friendship, I had to decide whether blunt honesty was going to make things better or worse.

I quickly glanced at the clock and decided that waiting would only make things worse.

Taking the last bite of my sandwich, I tossed my paper plate in the trash, snagged my purse off the bench, and shoved my feet into my untied tennis shoes. Maybe the shop was our new place for decimating emotional barriers because I thought about what I might say to him as I drove over.

So funny story … I wrote a thing, and you sort of got me off and apparently, I have a kink for possible exhibitionism and a little bit of praise. Haha. Isn’t that hilarious?

The groan echoed in my car. No longer a whimper, because we’d blown past that.

I almost turned around, but as I took the last corner toward the shop, there was like, a whole-ass group of people there. My eyes widened as I took it all in.

Cameron was there, along with Ivy, who was in a sleek black dress, holding a clipboard. Ian was leaning up against a tree, and he looked so pissed off, I almost burst out laughing. There was a photographer motioning to Ian, whose expression grew darker and darker the longer he listened, and two assistants holding those circular light reflector screens pivoted around the tall, bearded frowning man who’d unwittingly starred in my little fantasy.

As I pulled the car in next to his truck, he finally saw me, his eyes cutting over and locking with mine through the windshield.

His brows flattened, his frown intensifying.

I grinned and gave him a little wave of my fingers.

Ian narrowed his eyes.

Instead of making me want to leave, I hopped out of the car and walked to where Cameron stood. “Well, if that isn’t the happiest-looking model I’ve ever seen,” I said.

Ian grumbled something under his breath.

The blonde beside Cameron snorted, then turned to me with a quirked eyebrow. “He just loves being told what to do, doesn’t he?” she said, waving a perfectly manicured hand toward the man in question.

I laughed, studying Ivy out of the corner of my eye. She was one of those scarily pretty women, with the kind of severe features that graced magazines and catwalks—all sharp, high cheekbones and flawless skin and an angular chin. She gave me a million character ideas, just by standing there.

Her eyes zeroed in on where the photographer instructed Ian to change his pose, and she shook her head. “That won’t work.” She cleared her throat. “Don’t make his shots so formal, Robert. Let him move and talk and do his normal stuff.”

Ian leveled her with a glare that would make a grown man cower. “None of this shit is my normal stuff, Ivy. Can I be done now?”

She glanced down at her clipboard, shockingly undeterred by the cloud of anger rolling off him. “Nope.”

The photographer sighed. “Maybe go back about fifteen feet and walk through these trees toward me. You don’t have to look straight at the camera. Just tuck your hands in your pockets and walk normally.”

Ian stomped through the woods, his frame tight and his face absolutely murderous. When a laugh threatened to escape, I slapped a hand over my mouth.

“How the hell did you get him to do this?” I asked.

“The only way possible,” Cameron answered. “He wasn’t paying attention in a meeting, and Ivy roped him in. It was fucking awesome.”

“I can hear you, asshole,” Ian barked.

“I know you can.” Cameron sighed happily. “Pretty sure this is the best part of my week.”

Ivy sniffed. “You said the same thing this morning.”

The man’s answering grin was downright indecent, and my cheeks felt warm like I was intruding on a private moment. They shared a quick, heated glance, and then Ivy redirected her attention to the shoot with a slightly dazed shake of her head.

“Robert, let’s take five and see if we can’t tame the bear a little.” Then she glanced at me with a gracefully arched eyebrow. “I think you’ll be the best person for this particular job.”

When the photographer deflated in obvious relief, scurrying away to give Ian some space, he rolled his eyes. His expression changed, though, and softened as I walked toward him. There would be no confessions here today, and maybe that was for the best. It was a fleeting moment, a one-time mistake.

“You’re a natural,” I said gravely.

Ian leaned a shoulder against the tree next to him, and eyed the way my hair whipped around in the breeze. “I know you didn’t come here to be mean.”

“Who’s being mean? You should’ve seen yourself marching through the woods.” I sighed. “As graceful as a rhino, you are.”

His mouth hooked into a reluctant grin. “Thanks. I’ll add that to my personal bio.”

I snorted. “Like you have social media of any sort.”

“You look me up over the years, Keaton?”

My eyebrow arched slowly. “Like you didn’t do the same?”

His gaze flitted briefly from mine, focusing instead on the commotion of the people behind us, then he shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe.” Then those golden-brown eyes settled on mine again. “Didn’t know to look for Hollis King, though.”

“You still wouldn’t have found me there,” I pointed out. “I’ve never shown my face. At first, it was because I didn’t think anyone would care, and then when I had Sage, I decided I’d rather keep my life private.”

“Smart.”

We lapsed into a moment of silence, and I tilted my head back at the photographer, where he was talking to Ivy. “What’s going on here? Building your modeling portfolio?”

“Promotional crap,” he mumbled. “Ivy’s making me.”

“Making you? She’s half your size.”

“Have you met her? Her favorite hobby is making grown men cry.”

I laughed, and his eyes traced lightly over my face. My throat worked on a swallow, and I glanced down at the ground while I fought to settle the frantic pounding of my heart.

Bea’s words echoed in my head. It wasn’t attraction. It was trust. He felt more like a partner than anything I’d had in a long time. It wasn’t attraction.

“Were you bored or something? You still haven’t told me why you came.”

Words. I needed words, and every single one of them fled at that moment.

“Uhh…” My mind raced. “Yeah. Just, you know, thought a change of scenery might help me.”

“You brought your laptop to a woodworking shop?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm.” Then I glanced down at my empty hands. “Or, no, because I forgot my laptop. Guess I’m still not prepared to get any big work done.”

He studied me for a beat like he didn’t believe me. Honestly, I wouldn’t believe me either because everything about my answer screamed bullshit.

“So impatient,” he said quietly.

My eyes snapped to his. “What?”

He’d said it in the scene I’d written. Whispered in my ear as my body spiraled out of control. Then he’d tucked a stray piece of hair behind my…

“You need to be patient with yourself,” he said, eyes locked on my face. “You’ll get there.”

I watched, wide-eyed, as a strong breeze fluttered a piece of my hair over my face, and Ian’s hand lifted slowly like he was going to brush it out of my face.

For the teeniest of moments—not even a full second, probably—my heart stuttered, my stomach flipped pleasantly as I thought about what the brush of his finger on my face would feel like.

But there were people. Everywhere. And he was Ian, and I was Harlow and what happened on that page was not real.

Just before his finger made contact, I stumbled back and tripped over a rock. “Shit, ow.”

His forehead creased. “Are you okay?”

“Totally, yeah. A-okay.” My breath came in short pants, and I reached down to rub my twisted ankle. “Fine. Just … completely fine.” Ian started crouching down like he was going to check my ankle, and as I imagined big hands with nice veins wrapping around my body parts, I hopped backward. “Oh no, really, it’s nothing.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s your problem?”

I pasted a smile on my face. “No problems. I have zero of them. None. Zip.”

Stop. Talking. Harlow,I screamed in my head.

He didn’t believe me, that much was obvious, but the photographer was ready to start again, and even though the guy was giving him more directions, Ian’s gaze stayed locked on mine, curiosity battling with some intense focus that had my skin tight and my pulse skyrocketing.

“Be nice,” I told him lightly. “Let the man do his job.”

He stopped just short of rolling his eyes again but finally conceded my instruction with a slight lift of his chin.

“See you at home,” he said.

I tucked the stray piece of hair behind my ear and waved goodbye to Cameron and Ivy, but felt Ian’s eyes on me as I walked back to the car and backed away from the shop.