Broken Promises (Broken Series) - By Dawn Pendleton Page 0,19

I always made sure to avoid Mallory’s room. The memories haunted me.

“You coming to bed?” she asked.

I turned to her, shocked. She lay on her side, her arm outstretched toward me. She crooked her finger at me and a smile spread across her lips.

“Come on, Jason, let’s go to bed,” she whispered.

Jason? It made sense that she would have moved on, but hearing another man’s name on her lips only crushed me further. It was bad enough I wanted her again, but she was seeing someone? Pain cursed through my body and I fled the room, praying she wouldn’t remember this moment in the morning.

I made it to the tailgate before I threw up behind my truck. Everything I ate came back full force. It wasn’t my finest moment. Lucky for me, there was no one to share in my misery.

Headlights appeared at the end of the driveway and I wished I could make myself invisible. I recognized Baker’s truck before he reached me. I even managed to quit vomiting and wipe my mouth on my sleeve. No reason my best friend needed to see me like this.

“You okay?” he asked when pulled up. He turned the lights off and hung out his window.

“Just peachy,” I muttered.

Baker had a tendency to see through me, and I didn’t exactly want him digging into what happened tonight.

“Mallory fucking Wells. Did you think she would ever come back?” he asked.

I tried to disengage the conversation before it got out of hand. “I don’t know what I thought, man. I’m not feeling so hot, though. I’m going to head home.”

“Oh, cool. I’ll follow you over. I need a beer.”

Baker had a habit of inviting himself over. I wasn’t impressed, but I couldn’t exactly tell him the reason he couldn’t come over was that I wanted to wallow in self-pity, so I nodded and jumped in my truck. Baker followed me to my place. After I grabbed us a couple of beers, I sat in my old man recliner and Baker sprawled out on my couch. I turned the TV on ESPN and waited for the inquiry. To my surprise, he wasn’t interested in talking about Mallory.

“Man, did you see how smokin’ hot Rainey was tonight? LA has been good for that girl,” he said. “I made a total ass of myself, though.”

I chuckled. “You? No way! What happened?”

“Well, when she showed up and handed me her ID, I didn’t even recognize her, first of all. Then when I recognized her name, I sort of went on and on about how fat she used to be and how amazing she looks now.” He grimaced.

“So, you made a judgment based on a pretty face, or in her case, hot body, and she didn’t respond in kind? I can’t imagine why not.” I barely managed to say it with a straight face. My sarcasm wasn’t appreciated.

“Shut up, Luke. I liked her when she was in high school, even with the extra pounds. She was the one who gave me the cold shoulder after prom night, remember?”

I did remember. In her efforts to join forces against me with Mallory after prom, she’d dismissed Baker in every way. I imagined it was difficult for her, since she and Baker actually had a perfect prom night together.

I groaned. “How could I forget? You went on about it all summer.”

“I did not,” he argued.

“Seriously, do you even remember that summer? ‘Luke, she was something special. She gave her virginity to me and then dumped me! What kind of girl does that?’ You were one lovesick pup, dude. Maybe even more so than me,” I said.

Baker smirked. “No one has even been more love sick over a girl in the history of the earth than you were over Mallory. I never got why you were so into her. She’s kind of average looking.”

He knew the more he riled my temper, the less likely I was to think about how unfortunate it was that he got laid on prom night and I didn’t.

“Screw you. You were just mad you had to settle for her fat friend. And then she went and got skinny, just to show you up,” I retorted. I’d never really thought of Rainey as fat; she’d been a little chunky in high school, but I wanted to aggravate Baker more than insult Rainey.

“You’re an ass,” he said as he took the last swig of his beer and stood. “I’m going to get home, man. Come by the bar tomorrow.”

Since he’d