Page 25 of Promised Love
“No way! I’m not your buffer. I’m very pleased to meet you, Connor, and I’d be more ecstatic if you could grill him a little on my behalf too.”
“I like you already.” He then turns to me. “Will you tell me what happened here?” He looks between Autumn and me.
I grab the back of my neck. “You won’t believe it.”
“Try me. There’re very few things that surprise me now, Spencer.” The sweet Connor King, who was just joking with my wife, is nowhere to be found, and in his place is my ex-commanding officer who takes shit from no one.
“It often feels like a bad joke our families played on us. I first came to know about Autumn sixteen years ago.” My brain is already transported to my last day at my grandparents’ house sixteen years ago.
After my mother’s death, I was sent to a boys’ home. Even though that wasn’t the best time of my life, I made friends who became family. I didn’t know then that my grandparents were looking for me. It took them a long time to locate me, but when they did, they brought me to their home, where I stayed until the age of eighteen.
Now, I’m finally ready to leave my grandparents’ house. As much as I’m grateful they took me in, the lost son of their runaway daughter, this place has never exactly felt like home.
“All packed?” Granny walks into my room, carrying a plate of dessert.
“Yes.” I look around the room that once belonged to my mom. The walls are even still painted pink.
Grandpa offered to change it, but I refused. It felt like I was close to her here, when everything else in my world was changing at the speed of light.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you, Lukas. To adjust and live with two old-timers.” Granny pats my hand. Her gestures of affection have always been well thought out. “I wish we could have done something more for you…and Martha. When we were looking for you, we went to your house and met the neighbors.” Tears well in her eyes, and she subtly wipes them with her finger. “We always thought that, whatever happened between us, at least she was happy.”
“She wasn’t.” My gaze flickers at her. “But I think she always hoped one day she would be.”
Granny gasps, and this time, when she squeezes my hand, she keeps it in her hold for longer. “You grew up too fast, Lukas. If you need anything, you call me. Okay?”
I nod, emotion overtaking me—a mix of gratitude and melancholy. “Will you be okay?”
Granny gives me a watery smile. “Don’t worry about me, Lukas. I’ll be fine.”
She hesitates before opening my nightstand. I’m surprised to find an envelope in her hands.
“I placed it here earlier, hoping you’d find it.”
“I didn’t.”
She drops some pages on the bed and holds them with great care. “This is Grandpa’s will.”
My grandfather died of renal failure a few months back. With chronic disease, you think you’ll be more prepared for that imminent end, but no. It’s like a sword constantly swinging above your head, and as much as you keep praying, the day comes in a flash when the string holding it snaps.
My grandparents love me as best they can, but I could never stop thinking that while they lived their perfect life in this cottage house, my mother was struggling. She was unsuccessfully trying to keep a man who had no interest in her. She had no one to tell her that the love she’d seen in movies and read about in books isn’t real. Whenever I tried, she just laughed it off, saying one day I’d know what real love means.
“I can’t go before fulfilling his wish, Lukas.” Granny’s broken voice and tearstained face affects me more than I thought it would.
“I’ll help you…with whatever you want.” She’s the only person left in the world who I can call family, and as much as I hate to think about it, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do that. With every passing day, she looks more frail.
“This might be something really big, Lukas.”
“Tell me,” I say, unaware that tonight my life was going to change forever.
After reading the letter my grandfather left behind, my legs shake as I flop down on the edge of the bed.
“Do this, Lukas. Agree to marry Autumn.” Granny’s hiccups echo in the room. “Your grandfather won’t be able to rest in peace until then.”
“I… I can’t do—”
“This is the only way to send bad luck away from our families, Lukas.”
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