Page 124 of Every Broken Promise
As soon as our fingers crossed, he spoke again.
“No more broken promises, beautiful.”
My heart constricted at the gravity in his tone. There was no falling for Tyler Kane again. At that moment, I knew I had never gotten up since I fell the first time.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m the town gossip,” I whispered, and braced myself for the fallout of my words.
Rachel and Ori had never taken it seriously. They thought my stuff was trashy, and even though I now had my other column, I still stood by what I thought. My gossip column helped people in their own way.
Tyler’s face was very expressive. His brows rose to his hairline. I could see the surprise all over his features. Then, when I thought they might morph into judgment, his lip quirked, and he was smirking at me.
“My dad loves your column. Working at the auto shop, he’s stumbled into quite a few secrets he couldn’t share for the sake of the business, but he was glad when he saw them exposed in Sunday’s paper.
My lower lip trembled.
“You don’t think it’s stupid?”
His eyes softened, and he didn’t hesitate to lean into me.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “Nothing you give your time to would ever be considered stupid.”
At that moment, I folded. I didn’t think, I just got up and threw myself at him. There was warmth in Ty’s eyes that, despitethe uncertainty, I had to bite my lip before I uttered words I could not take back.
There was a time and place for everything, but now, it was not. My friend was in jail, and I had a secret situationship with my once best friend.
Luckily for me, my phone rang, creating a perfect distraction.
“Oh my God, Ori, I’m so sorry for disturbing you today of all days,” I spoke into the phone. Ty watched me as I held the phone between my ear and shoulder while I furiously began to type away on my computer as Ori updated me on what was going on.
A few months ago, I was sure that if Orianna had entrusted me with help in finding a nitty-gritty story on the Oakhill Creek mayor, I could have been her biggest ally. People like Ori wanted news, not stories. They wanted facts, not stipulations—the thing about rumors was that they had to start from somewhere. Orianna had a few facts on the mayor and some leads before Ronnie made her stop her search, and I had a bunch of pieces that needed to be put together, but if anyone could do it, it was her.
“Thank you so much, Astrid. This will help Clark and Prescott. I want to say I can’t believe he pinned all the money laundering on her, but we should have known he wouldn’t go down that easy.”
“Let me know as soon as she’s free.”
Once the call ended, I felt lighter, somewhat free. It wasn’t that I was looking for it, but having her thank me, having played a role in what would happen next, and having Ty’s support gave me the validation I didn’t know I needed.
I guess the same could be said for all creatives, right? Even though everything we did was to feed our souls, it still felt nice to have others telling us what we did mattered.
“Is everything okay?” Ty asked.
He had been hearing my one-sided conversation with Ori, so he must be a bit lost.
All I could do was nod. “It’s going to be okay. My friend’s husband is the chief of police in Sunny Pines and is best friends with Rachel’s ex-husband.”
“Okay, good. If Dunnett knows, then he has it handled. It’s Sunday, but I’m sure first thing tomorrow morning they’ll release her.”
What Ty said was true, but hearing him confirm it somehow made me feel better. Now, all we had to do was wait.
“What do you think Prescott is doing right now?” I asked because I had seen them last night. They seemed all in, and I was trying to picture what I would do in their stead.
“If that was you, beautiful, I’d be camping in the street until they let you out.”
Maybe it was because I knew he wasn’t joking that his statement made me blush. Now that I had handled the emails, and I felt a little less dread, did it hit me that we were alone at my house.
Which wasn’t new for the old us, but my parents could come back any minute, and I didn’t know how to explain Ty being here. I didn’t want to kick him out either.
“Do you have work today?” I asked, wondering if we were at the point where we could talk about our day.
