Page 47 of Break Me Like a Promise (Oak Valley)

Dragan watched Colton’s back as he exited the crowd, Caleb slamming back the rest of his rum and Coke before heading to the bar. Liam, Dean, and Archer pursed their lips and looked at one another but didn’t say anything.

Dragan sighed, trying to decide if he should follow after Caleb or Colton. He was closer to Colton, but knew his hot-headed friend needed time to walk off his anger. Caleb tended to wallow, and even if Dragan approached him, he’d greet him with an icy silence.

There was no winning.

“Exhausting,” he grumbled, slamming the pool cue on the table. “I’m closing out, are you guys done?”

The guys nodded, and Dragan made his way through the crowd. Normally Colton covered everyone’s drinks, but Dragan was well-off enough that he occasionally did it. And tonight was one of those times. Even though he came from nothing, everything he had now was his. And if the app he was working on with Archer panned out, he’d never have to worry again.

But in the meantime, he worked two part-time jobs and had a side hustle that paid for his nice apartment and overall lifestyle. He occasionally gave money to his mom or younger brother to help with the other two siblings, especially when his dad decided to dip for a few days. He had a flush savings, an IRA, money in stocks.

Dragan didn’t like to play.

At least not when it came to being secure.

He waved the bartender down and paid the tab, covering everyone’s drinks and giving a nice tip. Having worked shitty service jobs, he always found a way to tip extra, even when money had been tight.

Checking his phone, he figured Caleb and Colton had probably both cooled down by now and he could risk a phone call with each.

Caleb didn’t answer, so he left a voicemail, and Colton picked up on the third ring.

“What?”

“First, chill. Don’t take that out on me,” Dragan huffed. Managing Colton’s moods was sometimes like dealing with a toddler. “Second, where are you? I just closed out and the guys are dispersing.”

Colton sighed on the other line. “I’m sitting in my car with the heat on.”

“Want company?”

While Dragan was usually the more silent of the friends, Colton met his question with a lengthy quiet before agreeing. Dragan hung up and left Cheers. Since the bar had two entrances — what they considered the front, facing Main Street, and the back, facing Elm Street — he knew Colton would be parked across the street from the front, in the Oak Valley Middle School parking lot. Dragan looked both ways before crossing, noticing someone had started decorating the lamp posts with red tinsel hearts for the Valentine’s Day Festival. He grunted. Valentine’s Day was all a sham, a Hallmark holiday. Of course, he always celebrated it — it was June’s favorite holiday, and while they’d both dated people over the years, they had always been single on Valentine’s Day. It was her favorite holiday, and over his dead body would she be left alone without a valentine.

He heard the purr of Colton’s ridiculous car before he saw it. Dragan pulled on the passenger handle and slid into the cramped vehicle, Colton just staring through the windshield. They sat in silence for awhile until Colton cleared his throat.

“You don’t… You don’t think he’ll let our friendship, I don’t know, die? Do you?”

Dragan stared out the windshield, pondering before shrugging. “Hard to say. I don’t think so, though. He’s had that stick shoved so far up his ass it’s coming out his eyes, at some point he needs to remove it. Before, he didn’t think anything was at stake. Now, he knows.”

Colton nodded and sighed. “How are things with you?”

Dragan shrugged. While Colton knew him better than almost anyone, he still didn’t like to share more than he had to. In his experience, knowledge was power. And in the wrong hands, that could make someone worthless.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Colton pressed.

“Sure, just nothing new going on.”

“June, that secret project you’re working with Archer on, nothing?”

Dragan sighed. “Fine. The project is good, we should be able to pitch the idea for sale or to investors in the next month or so. June’s… June.”

He hoped Colton couldn’t hear the pounding of his heart at her name, and was thankful the darkness in and around the car masked the flush coursing through his body thinking of her bright smile, her curvy hourglass figure. He smiled at her various cardigans, a collection bigger than any eighty-year-old woman he’d ever met.

“D, you know I know that you’ve been madly in love with her since you were five, right?”

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship. You know this.” Dragan looked out the window. He didn’t need Colton to try and read his face, to see that Dragan would be willing to risk it if she felt the same way.

But he knew she didn’t. Girls like her didn’t fall for guys like him.

Maybe once he had a good job or found a way to get a college degree. Maybe she could see him like that. But Dragan knew that no matter what suit he wore or degree hung in his office, she would always see his scars, his rough edges.

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