Page 20 of No Broken Promises

“You know what?” Nox sighs and shimmies until he is practically plastered up against my side. “I think I’m gonna call him Uncle Remy.”

“Okay.” I sigh, trying not to pull the stitches in the back of my head too badly as I move. Getting cuddles with Nox is too special for me to let him know that he is hurting me. Especially when he isn’t being rough in the slightest.

Completely oblivious to my plight, Nox tells me all about his night with Kennedy. “Auntie Kenny said that some idiot made you hurt your head so I need to be soft. That means movie day, right?”

“Perfect.”

And that’s what we do, movie after movie. We even order food. Not once do we leave the house, and I can’t ask for a more perfect day. Later in the evening I hear a soft snore coming from Nox when he finally tuckers himself out before bed. I press a soft kiss to his head and cover him with one of my favorite blankets before moving to the living room.

I barely sit down on the couch before my front door opens and Kennedy herself marches in like she belongs here. Technically, I guess, she does. After all, I hadn’t been lying when I told Nox that she is my best friend. From the day I had found out I was pregnant, she stood by my side and helped. It didn’t matter that I was almost four years older than she was. Or that at twenty-one, I’d had a baby and she was only eighteen. She’d stepped up, just like I was her sister, and demanded that I let her into my life.

Which is probably why she has a massive bag of food with her when she closes the door. She always knows how to make everything alright.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come by earlier.” She keeps her voice down as she sets the food on the coffee table and plops next to me on the couch. “We had some shit going down with the wedding.”

“I can’t believe you’re getting married,” I say, the disbelief in my voice evident. “Seriously. I thought you’d wait for Linc forever.”

A haunted expression, so stark and miserable, crosses over Kennedy’s face as she thinks about Linc before she shakes her head and it is gone. “I can’t wait forever. And he was never mine. Not really.”

I glance at the dog tags hanging on my wall, knowing that even Danny would be against his sister being with the asshole she picked. Fuck, I don’t want Kennedy to marry the guy, either. Maybe I can talk some sense into her.

“But Royal, Kennedy? The guy’s a lawyer.” I don’t really know anything about him but that, even though they’ve been dating for a year. That, in and of itself, is a problem.

Kennedy lies to my face. “I’ve moved on, and I’m happy.”

How do I know she is lying? She swallows right as she says that she is happy, and she closes her eyes. She isn’t happy. And as I glance at the dog tags hanging from the wall, I think it is about time that I share my biggest secret with her.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen to me before you make a snap judgment or freak out or say anything remotely fucked up. I need you to just… be here for me.”

Kennedy, staring at me suspiciously, nods. Although not before she grabs one of the subs that she brought and lifts it into her lap, handing me one of the others.

“Okay.” I blow out a deep breath.

I’m sorry, Danny. But it’s time I told our secret…

“Danny and I… weren’t what everyone thinks. We weren’t together.”

Kennedy’s mouth hangs open for so long that the bite of sandwich that she’d taken slips out. It falls into her lap and she doesn’t notice.

“Wha—?”

I nod and then look down at my sandwich, carefully opening it to make sure it doesn’t spill out onto my lap. Then I take a bite, chew slowly, and swallow it while thinking about what I’ll say next. Only after I’ve done that do I go on.

“We didn’t love each other. At least… I didn’t love him, and that night… We were at a party together, all of us. Before they left for MOS school. After the party, Danny and I started drinking. He was trying to cheer me up. We shouldn’t have been drinking but we were… I was drunk.” Thinking about it brings back all the painful memories from that night, and for a minute I think about stopping. I can’t, though, not when I’ve come this far.

With a cough to clear my throat, I put down my food and wipe my hands on my blanket, not caring about the crumbs for the moment.

“It was a mistake. I had too much to drink, and Danny… you know.” I stop talking before I spill the secret that changed my life. “Then he left for training school afterward. Everyone assumed we were together, and Danny didn’t correct them. I let them because it was easier than trying to tell them what happened or how I really felt about that night.” I shove away the memories that threaten to shine their ugly heads through and hope that Kennedy will put the pieces together herself.

“Oh my gods,” Kennedy whispers. “I remember when they came home, right before they deployed. I thought it was weird that you weren’t going to the party.”

I nod. “We weren’t together. Then I found out I was pregnant. He asked me to marry him, to keep him from getting in trouble with the military for it.”

“Then he went overseas and died.” She bites her lip when I nod, confirming the story. “Oh, Parker.”

I don’t look at her, though. Instead, I stare at the dog tags that I hung on the wall for Nox.

I’m sorry, Danny.

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