Page 70 of Shattered Promise

“I told you, you’re with me tonight.” I keep walking. “And we’re in the pit. Can’t let you down now, you’re not even wearing shoes.”

“Whose fault is that?” She laughs. I can feel the vibration against my chest, sharp and sweet. “It’s not even snake season.”

“Snakes don’t care about seasons. They care about girls running around in the dark.”

“Full offense, Mason, but you’re the only one running around in the dark tonight.”

“Not true. I see you, Abby Carter. You’re a runner.”

She huffs a breath, but I catch the way her arms stay tight around me, how her fingers curl into the hair at the nape of my neck.

The rain makes every step a test of balance. My boots slip in the mud, and I readjust her, hiking her up higher. She’s lighter than she used to be. Or maybe I’m just stronger now.

The last time I picked her up, she was seventeen. She was afraid to go on the rope swing over the quarry by herself, and everyone was teasing her for it. So I offered to help. I held the rope, and she held me. I carried her for fourteen steps before we climbed onto the rope, and I remember feeling embarrassed as fuck because my dick was hard. Fourteen steps felt like an eternity and a blink of an eye.

When we hit my front porch, she shifts to peer over my shoulder, rainwater streaming down the tip of her nose. “You didn’t even bring an umbrella,” she says. There’s a playful note in her voice, a far cry from earlier tonight.

“I was in a hurry,” I say, and set her down gently, keeping my hands at her waist to steady her on the slick wood. “You’re not going to melt, anyway.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m mostly made of sugar,” she says, squinting at the glow of the porch light, then at me, and then at nothing in particular. The storm spits cold rain in sheets across the porch. A gust rattles the half-closed screen door.

I want to get her inside, but she’s not moving. She stands in the spill of yellow light, drops of rain caught in her hair and eyelashes, skin flushed and goosebumped. Her chest rises and falls in quick little waves, like she’s wrestling herself into calm.

She looks up at me with something raw and searching. The kind of look that means she’s about to say something important, but she doesn’t want to. Maybe she’s afraid to ruin the moment. Or maybe she’s afraid to make it real.

I swallow, the cold starting to seep into my bones. “Let’s get inside and dry off. I gotta check on Theo.”

She nods, a decisive dip of her chin. “Right, of course.”

She steps over the threshold and I follow, shutting out the storm behind us. The air inside is warm and thick with the smell of baby shampoo and the ghost of the burnt popcorn I made earlier. I toe off my boots and watch her shiver, arms wrapped tight around her middle, like she’s holding herself together.

“I’ll get you some clothes to change into. Be right back.”

I jog down the hall, my jeans making that uncomfortable slap of wet denim against skin. I grab the first pair of sweats I see and a soft T-shirt from the drawer. I hesitate, then snatch a clean pair of socks too. I don’t know if her feet are cold, but it seems like something I should do.

When I get back to the living room, she’s standing by the window, watching the lightning flicker across the black trees. Her arms are still wrapped around herself, but her shoulders have dropped, just a little. She hears me and turns.

“Here,” I say, handing her the stack of fabric. “Help yourself to anything you need in my bathroom.”

She stands there for a second, like she’s weighing the offer, then disappears down the hall, her bare feet leaving damp prints on the old pine floorboards.

I head to Theo’s room, the familiar hush and whir of the white noise machine like a tide pulling me back to center. He’s still asleep, mouth open, one chubby hand curled by his ear. I tug the sleep sack straight, brush the damp from my own face, and close the door behind me.

Something in my chest loosening for the first time all day, and I can finally take a breath.

27

ABBY

The bathroom iswarm in that quiet, lived-in kind of way—not in a spa-adjacent, eucalyptus-scented, everything-matching-towels kind of way, but in the way of a man who’s lived alone for a while and didn’t bother to take down the previous owner’s wallpaper.

Which is horses.

Everywhere.

Trotting and galloping horses in soft shades of sky blue, warm taupe, and soft cream. It’s not the wallpaper itself, it’s just so obviouslynot-Masonthat it took me by surprise when I flicked the light on. I idly wonder what he thinks about every time he sees it, or maybe he’s tuned it out by now and it doesn’t even register anymore.

The overhead light hums low above me, casting a soft halo over the counter where Mason’s left an oversized fluffy green towel for me. I sit the stack of clothes he handed me on top, a pair of gray sweatpants, a well-loved navy blue henley, and a pair of thick socks.

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