Page 11 of Broken Promises

The barista handed usour drinks.

“Thank you for the coffee,” I mumbled as I grabbed my coffee and marched out of the coffee shop, eager to put distancebetween Luke and me. It was too easy to fall back into our old habits, but I couldn’t forget there were ten years anda lotof hurt between us. The end of my relationship with Jason was bad enough; I couldn’t deal with this, too.

Luke followed me out. “Luce, wait up!”

“What now—” I stopped, turning around…and running right into Luke. “Fuck!” My iced coffee splattered down my front, instantly turning my white sundress tan. Luke didn’t fair too well, either. His pants took the brunt of the spill. Thank God all I had was an iced drink and that Luke had managed not to crush his coffee between the two of us.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Luce, I didn’t know you were going to turn around that quickly. Here, my house is just around the corner. I have some clothes you can change into.”

“I amnotgoing to your house, Luke,” I told him firmly, ignoring the people who passed by. Luke’s brows furrowed.

“I’m just trying to help. This was an accident. But if you’d prefer to walk around with a giant coffee stain…”

I sighed. “Lead the way,” I said, gesturing before me.

My sandals squeaked as I followed Luke. At least this way, I got to admire the way his jeans clung to his ass. You could bounce a quarter off that ass. Luke had always been fit but now he was not only fit but muscular too. He filled out his t-shirt and jeans. I tried not to drool at the sight in front of me.

As if he could sense my thoughts, he turned around, slowing down a few paces and restricting my dirty vision.

We only had to travel a few houses down. He turned onto a cobblestone walkway leading up to a small house with a porch with a swinging bench. The house was painted sage green and had a small garden around it. I could tell Luke tried his best to keep it going. God bless him, but he was never the one with a green thumb in our relationship.

My steps faltered. Luke turned.

“You...you bought the house?” I asked, my voice just a whisper. Luke rubbed his neck. It was his tell for when he was nervous.

“Yeah, I bought it a few years ago, and I’ve been slowly fixing it ever since.”

“You’ve done a great job.” My eyes threatened to fill with tears, but I quickly blinked them away. This was the house we had picked out our senior year of high school. It had been on the market for years. It needed a lot of work, but we would buy it together.

“Come on,” Luke said, and we walked up the front steps to the porch. He held open the front door as I stepped inside.

I was immediately pulled in by the scent of him. It was a pine and musk scent that

put me at ease. The home was sparsely decorated, but everything had been updated. The floors were made of solid hardwood. The living room bled into the kitchen, which had been updated with new cabinetry and appliances.

“It’s beautiful in here, Luke.”

Luke put his hands in his pockets. “I still have more to do, but it’s coming along. Anyway, I’ll go get you some clothes.”

lucy

. . .

As Luke left,my gaze swept over the place, settling on the photos that hung above the

fireplace mantle. Familiar faces stared at me from moments captured to last for an eternity, smiling. Luke had two brothers—Landon and Logan. It was always an ongoing joke that their parents had a thing for names that started with L, but I thought it was sweet.

Landon was the oldest; then there was Luke, and then Logan. They were all about two years apart. There were also photos of his parents, who were, funnily enough, named Linda and Levi. Luke was a spitting image of his father; it was like staring into the future and getting an opportunity to see what he would look like in a few decades.

I had so much love for all of them. When we dated, they were practically a second family to me and welcomed me into their home with open arms. His parents, as well as my own mom, were our biggest cheerleaders. When we broke up, we didn’t only break our own hearts—we broke theirs, too.

I took another step to the left, finding a photograph of us that instantly drew a smile to my face. It was a candid photo fromour senior prom. The dress I wore that night was a crime against humanity, but it faded compared to the adoring look that locked between us.

Luke stepped closer to me, placing one of his hands on my waist while the other held mine. Our fingers interlocked, and I couldn’t help but stop smiling.

“You know, a lot of people are skeptical about high school relationships, but I know this is it for us,” he told me softly as we swayed to the soft hum of the music around us. I rolled my eyes playfully.

“Luke, you know we’re dating, right? You don’t need to sweet-talk me like this anymore if you want to make out. I’ll gladly do it anyway.”

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