Page 14 of Promise

Jon Pettington, who went by Petty, and was the last person I’d expect to see sitting in this bar.

“Holy shit,” Hutch hisses.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Marshall drawls, exaggerating a Southern twang.

“Last man I expected to see here,” Petty states, stealing my thoughts.

“I could say the same about you,” I counter as he slowly rises from his chair. His riot of blond curls features streaks of gray. Wrinkles near his eyes give away the years of living the life of a band member for Collision, an alternative rock group who’d hit their peak about fifteen years ago. He’s tall and lean and smacks my back hard as we embrace.

Unlike my short absence, Petty has been gone since college, although we’ve all kept in touch. Maybe we didn’t always reunite here in Rogue River, but we didn’t let our friendship disappear, like I had from this town.

With a final slap, Petty spins toward the table, his hand lingering on my upper back.

“You remember Hutch.” He points at the burly beast in our friend group who still looks like a linebacker but has a heart of gold.

“And Marshall.” Petty nods toward the slick one in our gang. Black hair. Blue eyes. Back in high school, every girl wanted to be his.

“And I’m Petty.” He pats his chest.

“Ha-ha-ha.” I mock at the implication that I’d forgotten them. “I just saw you guys in February.”

The second month of the year marks the start of the racing season. They’d come down to Florida for a time trial. We met up back in November to attend one of Petty’s concerts. We met in Vegas last summer.

Of course, there was always one man missing from those visits.

Originally, our crew was like a five-point star, each of us a highlighted arm of the shape.

For half a second, I’m relieved the fifth member is not present.

Then, I hear a low hiss behind me, accompanied by a sharp, “What the fucking hell?”

I slowly spin to see a man with reddish-brown hair, a thin layer of scruff on his jaw, and eyes that match his sister’s—coffee brown and pissed.

“Tate,” I choke around his name.

Tate Haven made up the final point in our friend group. Tate, whose younger sister should have been off limits, yet I flirted with her forever, because I’d known from the moment I met her, she’d be just that for me.

Forever.

Despite the three-year blip in time, Trinity is always going to be mine.

“You have some fucking nerve,” Tate continues, setting down the four long-neck bottles between his fingers and standing to his full height to face me.

“Tate,” I state his name a little stronger this round, shifting my eyes from him to the guys and back.

In a flash, the sympathy in Hutch’s face is apparent, as is the concern in Marshall’s. Petty’s hand comes to my shoulder again, standing in solidarity with me as the other man who left our pack long ago.

“I’ll pull up another chair,” Petty says before he drops his hand from my shoulder and reaches for a seat at the table behind us. A group of women giggle as they allow Petty to steal the chair.

“I’m leaving,” Tate states at the same time I say, “I should probably go.”

“Sit your asses down,” Marshall grunts, pointing the long neck of his beer bottle at the empty chairs around the table.

Petty waves at the one next to him. Tate takes the empty seat beside Hutch, across from me.

This is fucking awkward layered on uncomfortable and perilous, and yet, Tate’s wrath is as warranted as his sister’s. He’d been one of my best friends, and I assured him over and over again that I’d never hurt her. Never leave her. Never stop loving her. Promised him with everything I had, which wasn’t much. Then I did the exact opposite of what I vowed.

I broke her heart. And mine.