Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE PROMISE
Connor
six years ago, summer
It’s a perfect Illinois summer night. Lightning bugs flicker and the air is balmy under the setting sun.
Thanks to Mom and Dad’s relocation to North Carolina after I graduated high school, this is my first time back in Illinois since I left for college four years ago.
After a month at my parents’ beach house in the Outer Banks, Drew and I have returned to Bloomington for the next four weeks.
The beach was for that one last hoorah between graduation and becoming real-life grownups, while being back here is for finding a job—or, in Drew’s case, starting law school—a place to live and adulting in general.
“Drew!”
The animated female voice shrieks from the direction of the house and I turn to see a head of jet black hair streak across the yard like smeared ink .
A red sports bra with a white cross on the front signifies her job as a lifeguard and it’s the only thing adorning her upper half. Below, a pair of denim shorts sit atop a set of smooth bronze legs.
I can’t see her face from here, but I already know the braces will be gone. There’s sure to be a white-toothed smile in their place that lights up the whole night sky.
“Gretch!” Drew shouts, meeting her halfway. She jumps up, wrapping him in a hug.
“You’re back!”
“Connor and I got in a few hours ago,” Drew says as I grow deeply invested in Mr. & Mrs. Fisher’s roofline. So many…shingles.
“Oh, is he here?”
“You ran right past him, you goof.”
Our gazes meet as she turns around. For only a fraction of a second, something like surprise flashes in her eyes before they soften.
“Hey, Fish.” I order my smile to read kind and platonic. PLATONIC!
In three strides, she wraps her arms around my neck. Platonic doesn’t equal impolite, so I hug her back but only with ample space for Jesus between us.
“It’s good to see you, Connor.”
“You too.”
Holy. Shit. Gretchen Fisher grew up real good and I definitely should not be noticing.
For the better part of the month, I successfully avoid her. With her work schedule at the community pool, Drew and I’s social calendar, plus our weekend trips into the city to apartment hunt, our run-ins are few and far between. Awkward and generally terrible, but few and far between.
There was that early morning in the kitchen before the rest of the house was up.
I was on my way out for a run when I stopped in the kitchen for a bottle of water.
Only, when I found Gretchen was already there pouring a cup of coffee, I spun on a dime, stabbed my AirPods in my ears and marched right out the front door. Water is for the weak anyway.
As far as the coffee shop run-in goes, if I’d known she was there, I would have gone somewhere else.
After collecting my order from the barista, Gretchen called me over to where she was seated with a few other girls her age.
My mind circled back to a time when she didn’t have many friends.
Softened as my heart may have been in that moment, I made quick work of saying hi to the table and got the hell out of there.
Then, there was last night.
Me along with the whole Fisher family were hunkered in the living room for family movie night. Gretchen picked Pitch Perfect and I should have seen that for the omen it was.
Across the room in the plush armchair, she sat wrapped in a blanket, knees tucked to her chest. Not an inch of skin was showing but she was still so beautiful.
Glass of Diet Coke over ice in hand, she was three handfuls deep on her first bag of peanut butter M&Ms when she proudly announced during the opening credits, “Hey parents, did you know Drew took me to see this when I was eleven?”
I choked on my popcorn. Drew turned on a slow-motion swivel, pure death in his eyes as Kelly and Paul erupted with laughter.
“How’d she manipulate you this time?” Paul sputtered out.
“I was not manipulated.” Drew’s tone promised revenge.
“No. I just bribed him. He didn’t want me to tell you that he had a par—” A pillow pummeled her in the face, Drew launching three more in quick succession behind it.
Gretchen emerged from under the mountain of pillows still laughing. Minutes later, everyone’s focus back on the television again, my eyes drifted. Hers were right there to meet me. She half-grinned. I half-grinned. She winked. My grin grew a little wider and I winked back .
Drew shifted on the couch, pulling my attention. My best friend’s gaze was narrowed right at me, inquisition threatening.
The second the end credits began to roll, I loudly announced I needed to call my mom and barricaded myself in the guest bedroom for the rest of the night.
I skipped breakfast for the usual reason of needing to avoid Gretchen. Only, now you can add her brother to the list.
It’s lunchtime and the hangry pains are kicking in. I finally tread down the stairs, cautiously peeking around corners for signs of a half-dressed Gretchen or a nunchuck-wielding Drew. Both possibilities equally terrifying.
Finding the kitchen empty, I exhale a sigh of relief and raid the fridge.
Sounds of splashing and laughter bring me to the breakfast nook window.
Gretchen and a few friends are hanging by the pool.
Maybe I met the girls at the coffee shop last week.
I can’t be sure. But it’s the two teenage boys competing for biggest cannonball that have my fists clenching at my sides.
The girls laugh at their antics from their perch on the pool’s edge, legs dangling in the water.
Gretchen’s hair sits in a single braid pulled to one side.
Instead of her red lifeguard suit, she’s in an emerald green two piece.
The top has a thick strap over one shoulder, leaving the other bare.
Matching bottoms sit low on her hips but don’t reveal too much.
Sitting next to the other girls whose choice of swimwear leaves little to the imagination with the tiny straps and even tinier scraps of fabric, Gretchen shines.
One of the boys swims over and props himself up on his forearms next to Gretchen. She looks down at him and brushes his I-don’t-know-what-scissors-are hair off his forehead. Inexplicably, I want to hurl him over the fence.
Gretchen turns. Our gazes catch and my non-existent cover is blown. She lifts her hand in a dainty wave, her smile beaming fast and wide. I wave back, but quickly turn to leave. When I make for the living room, I freeze on my feet.
Drew stands in the doorway, eyes hurling daggers at me.
“You’re up,” he says, expression unforgiving, as he stalks toward me.
“Yeah. I was really tired, I guess.”
Standing at the window now, we face each other, but Drew’s attention is cast over the pool. “Looks like Gretch has some friends over.” He stares at something beyond the glass, but I keep my eyes on him.
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Drew’s head turns. He holds my gaze and my pulse rises. “So, I guess we need to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?”
“Why you were winking at my sister last night.”
“Drew, I?—”
“And why you were staring at her through the window like some creeper.”
“It’s not what you think,” I supply.
“No?”
“No. It’s not.”
Impatience simmers under Drew’s skin as he waits for me to say more.
“I’m waiting, Vining. If it’s not what I think, then tell me what it is. I watched the two of you give eyes at each other and then you winked at her.”
“It was a joke, dude.”
“A joke?” he scoffs.
“An inside joke,” I amend.
“Why do you have inside jokes with my little sister?”
I throw out my arms. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that.”
“It looked like flirting,” he accuses.
While I can concede that the wink could be interpreted as flirtation, that’s not at all how it was intended. Yes, she’s gorgeous in a way that has completely blindsided me. But I’d never make a move on a sixteen-year-old girl.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“Answer the question.”
“No! I wasn’t flirting with her. She’s sixteen. What kind of guy do you think I am?”
His expression softens a bit, but he doesn’t back down. “And just now?”
“I came downstairs, heard commotion in the pool and I walked over to see what was going on. She waved at me, I waved back. That’s it.
” He releases a pointed breath through his nose, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“Look, I know she’s your sister, but I’ve looked out for her over the years, too.
Every time I came over here to hang out, she was here.
So, yeah, we’d talk, we’d joke around. I care about Gretchen but you don’t need to read anything into it that isn’t there. ”
I’m walking a very fine line because I absolutely do care about Gretchen in a way that means I will always look out and want the best for her. If I tell Drew I’m attracted to her, it’s over. He won’t see past that one singular statement, regardless of how genuine I may be about everything else.
“Which means?”
“It means I care about her well-being. I’ll look out for her. I’d step in to protect her if she needed me to.”
He looks back to the window. A heavy pause fills the room to the point of torture. He coolly breaks the silence by blurting out, “Why do I wanna punch that floppy-haired kid in the face?”
“Right?”
“I do trust you,” Drew says, eyes back on me.
I ignore every implication and unspoken demand that comes with that trust because what alternative response is there? “You can trust me.”
“Yeah, I know,” he mutters. He turns to leave and I follow a step behind, trying to quiet every intrusive thought that threatens to destroy the best friendship I’ve ever had .
Abruptly, he turns back to face me, the movement skittering me to a stop. “Promise me,” he pleads.
“Promise what?”
“Promise me that I can trust you.”
A little voice in my head screams red flag, red flag . I squash it to smithereens as I look my best friend dead in the eye. “I promise.”