Page 24 of Stone Promises

“It’s just Mallory,” I say, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you, Cole.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mallory.” He walks around to the driver’s side and gets in as Chad situates me in the back seat.

Then, to my surprise, Chad walks around the car and joins me in the back rather than sitting up front with Cole. He smiles at my reaction. “Ethan is stoked to see you again,” he says.

“I’m excited to see him, too.” He was several years older than me, so we didn’t hang out much, but Chad looked up to him and sometimes he would sneak us into R-rated movies.

“He’s married now. Has a kid and everything,” he says. “He’s happy.”

“I’m really glad to hear that. He deserves to be happy after everything he went through.” I shudder remembering the funeral of a girl taken far too soon and how much it wrecked Ethan.

“Kyle will be there, too,” he says.

“Really? Did he come with you for a visit?” I ask, wondering what it will be like to see the three of them together again after all this time.

“He lives here. He moved back to go to college and now he goes to med school at NYU.”

My jaw drops. “Kyle is going to be a doctor?” I ask. “Kyle—the kid who threw up at the sight of my blood when I fell off my bike and ripped my arm open?”

Chad laughs, his eyes lighting up at the memory. “I had forgotten all about that. We teased him for months,” he says. “Ethan and I would taunt him every time we got so much as a scrape.” He turns on the backseat light, nodding to my right arm. “Can you still see the scar?”

I push up my sleeve and hold my arm out so he can see the long, curvy, faded scar. He holds my arm up to the light as tingles race through me from his touch. He examines it from several angles. He traces the scar with his finger, making me catch my breath as the tiny hairs on my arm stand at attention. “I can still see the faint lines where some of the stitches were. Nine, right?”

My eyes shoot to his, surprised that he’d remember something that happened when I was eleven years old. “That’s right. What about you?” I motion to his foot. “You had me beat with your thirteen stitches. Can you still see yours?”

He puts down my arm and removes his left shoe and sock, showing me the jagged scar that was the result of a shoeless skateboard accident. I stare at his faded scar, longing to reach out and touch the soft skin on the top of his foot.What is so darn sexy about men’s feet?

“Interesting, don’t you think?” he asks, putting his shoe back on.

“What’s interesting?”

“How we both remembered exactly how many stitches the other had.”

I shrug. “Well, it was kind of traumatic for us. I mean, youwereonly nine when you had your accident.”

“That’s right, I was. And you were eleven when you had yours,” he says smiling. “And I remember asking my mother if you could go with me to get stitches because I knew if you were there it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“That’s why you wanted me to go with you?” I ask. “I thought you needed me to tell the doctors what happened.”

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “I just wanted you there with me. I always wanted you there.”

Feeling a bit uncomfortable with how he’s looking at me, I change the subject back to Kyle. “So who’s Kyle bringing tonight?” I ask. “Is he married, too?”

Chad snorts. “Married to his job, maybe. As a fourth-year med student, he pretty much spends all of his time at the hospital.”

“But you said everyone going tonight was bringing someone.”

“Shit,” he says, looking guilty. “I guess you got me there. I may have embellished the truth a bit. But in my defense, there will be three other guys and three other girls there, so I didn’t want to be the odd man out.”

“So who’s the girl you paired with Kyle?”

“My publicist, Kendra. She’s great. You’ll love her. In fact, I think you’ll get along with all the women there.”

Rather than be pissed that he lied to me, I’m relieved that not everyone else there is part of a couple. Makes this whole ‘not a date’ thing more plausible. “Who else is going?” I ask.

“Ethan’s wife’s best friend and her husband.”

The car comes to a stop and Cole gets out to open my door. Chad exits the car behind me. “We’ll be several hours, Cole. Go get yourself some dinner and I’ll text you when we’re ready.”

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