Page 61 of Pretty Broken Promises

She waggles her eyebrows. “At least no one will complain about the noise.”

“Please, you’re a screamer,” I tease her.

Her mouth falls open like it always does when I say something shocking. “I am not.”

“Do I need to record us to prove it to you?” I ask her.

Tessa freezes in place, and I realize immediately I’ve stepped on an emotional landmine. Her eyes get this blank, faraway look, and I approach her cautiously.

Sometimes I want to kick my own ass. Of course, those words would trigger a negative memory. She seems so much like her old self sometimes that I forget there’s this wound she’s still fighting to heal, that she’ll probably always be living with to some degree.

“Hey,” I try to get her attention. When that doesn’t work I carefully put my hands on her shoulders, slowly so as not to scare her further. “I’m sorry. That was completely thoughtless of me.”

She blinks several times, and the fog slowly clears from her eyes. She tries to smile, but it falls flat. “I don’t expect you to walk on eggshells around me. You can't always know what the right thing to say or do is. And I don't want you to be constantly on guard. That's no way for us to manage our relationship.”

I shake my head. Here she is fresh off of a flashback, and her first reaction is to reassure me. I don’t deserve her. I’m not sure how I’ll ever be good enough for her when she is always willing to sacrifice her own feelings to preserve mine.

“Don’t do that,” I tell her. “I don’t want you to put your needs on the back burner to take care of me. You’ve been doing that for far too long. It’s okay to let me take care of you. I’m not going to take off if you break down.”

Her smile becomes a bit more natural, and she falls into my arms. She clings to me tighter than she normally does. “Don’t let go for a while.”

“How does forever sound?”

Tessa playfully swats my chest. “Cheesy, but I’ll take it.”

I open my mouth to spout more mushy lines, but my phone rings from my back pocket, interrupting what was sure to be pure poetry. “Ford Shaw,” I answer.

“Hello Shaw. It's been a while. I followed your stats while you were at Playa Community College. I'm excited to have you back on my team.”

“Coach Greer,” I say surprised. “Thank you, sir. I'm excited to play for you again.”

“Good to hear that, son. I checked in with your college to verify your grades and found out you graduated early. They said they believed you headed up to Seattle early?”

“Yes, Coach. My girlfriend and I came up here early to get settled in before summer training starts.”

“That's great news because I need a favor. Well, actually, the university needs a favor. There's a big dinner tonight with some of the boosters, and they wanted some of the school’s star athletes to show up and entice them to open their wallets even more.”

I groan. “I don't know, Coach. I'm not really good with the political side of this game.”

“A word of advice, Ford, if you plan on going pro, you better get good with it,” he says.

I exhale. “Can I bring a date?”

“Absolutely. Dinner is at seven and we're meeting at the Rainier building on campus,” he says, and then hangs up without another word.

“Shit, I didn't even ask if you wanted to go. I hate these things, please go with me,” I beg her. I don’t need to fill her in, because Coach Greer is a very loud talker.

“Yeah, I'll go. I like these events about as much as you do, but we’re a team, right?” she says.

There’s a knock on the door, and movers enter with furniture. Two guys walk past carrying a couch. “Where do you want this?”

“Uh, where did this come from?” I ask instead of answering his question.

Tessa goes to help them at the same time that Josephine knocks on the doorframe of our open door. “That would be from me. Remember I told you guys that I had some furniture to give you?”

Being a stubborn asshole, of course, I open my mouth to argue with her, but she gives me a stern mom look. “I know you’re not about to argue with me for doing something nice for my daughter and her boyfriend, especially since my douchebag of an ex-husband prevented me from doing anything for her for five years. You wouldn’t prevent me from making up for lost time, would you?”

I snap my mouth shut and shake my head. Jo pats my arm and smiles at me. “You and I are going to get along just fine. I can see we are both motivated by the same things.”

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