Free Promise Me (The Me Novellas) by Shelby Gates

all.”
    I felt the excitement stir inside of me. Here was someone who spoke my language, who could probably understand the exact reason why I’d upped and left for Mexico. He’d gone through the same thing. The wandering. The wondering. He’d played and put off life, sort of the same way I’d been doing in the two years after high school, and suddenly found purpose.
    “So you just started up your organization?” I had a million questions. Had it really been that simple, that easy? How did he finance it? How did he rally support? How did he connect with local authorities to figure out what was needed?
    “ Pretty much. I packed up my stuff and headed back to the beach.”
    “ To recruit all your friends?”
    “ Nah.” He shook his head. “To think. To formulate a plan.” He thumped his chest. “Still a surfer at heart. The ocean is where I do my best thinking.”
    I wished I could relate. I didn’t have anything like that in my life, any one thing that centered me, that helped me focus. I’d played volleyball in high school but not because I had a passion for it. Sage had liked it and I wanted to do something with my best friend. I was good but I wasn’t great. And I’d never thought of it as anything more than a hobby, something to fill my afternoons with after school.
    “OK,” I said. “You planned it out. Your organization. And then you asked your friends to help.”
    “ No. I told them they were going to help.” He laughed, his eyes twinkling.“Sometimes, you have to be a hard ass.”
    I laughed, too. “Wow. That’s really cool.”
    And it was. It was insanely cool. I wanted to talk to him all day. I wanted to spill everything I was thinking, tell him about every minute I’d spent in Mexico and pick his brain on what I could do to find direction like he’d done.
    But I didn’t.
    Because someone said my name. “Em?”
    I froze. I knew that voice.
    I looked over my shoulder. Grant stood a few feet away, right near the door of the coffee shop. He was dressed in his hotel polo and dress pants. His gaze flitted from me to Dex, a mixture of surprise and hurt in his eyes.
    And that was definitely not cool at all.
     

    TWELVE
     
     
    I turned twenty shades of red, which just made the situation worse. I had nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to hide. I was having coffee with a friend.
    “ Hey,” I said. I thought about standing up but my legs felt a little shaky. “Grant, this is Dex. Dex, this is Grant.”
    Grant nodded cooly. “Hey.”
    Dex picked up on the tension immediately. He stood up and reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. He handed it to Grant. “Hey. Dex Portlock. I run an organization that helps people in Mexico.”
    Grant took the card and studied it. The stiffness in his features lessened a little. “Oh.”
    “Emma and I ran into each other at Mesa,” Dex continued. “Waiting in line at the bookstore. You know how long the lines can be.” He offered a smile. “Anyway, Emma mentioned she’d just come back from Mexico and I asked if I could talk to her about it. An interview, I guess you’d called it.”
    It wasn’t the total truth but it would work. Or maybe it was, I thought. Maybe that was exactly what he was doing. I felt a little surge of disappointment and I didn’t know why. That’s why I was there, wasn’t it? To find out about his organization and to share my experiences?
    “Oh,” Grant repeated. His eyes locked on mine, as if waiting for me to confirm.
    “ I thought you had to work,” I blurted out instead.
    “ I do.” He glanced at his watch. “But Juan needed to switch shifts. I’m heading in now.”
    My gaze flew to the clock mounted on the wall. Dex and I had been there for an hour. Talking. And I hadn’t thought about Grant or the missing application or anything at all, really, except for what he’d been saying.
    “OK,” I said.
    “ I’m seeing you tonight, right?” he asked. “Or will you still be doing your