A Promise to Keep by Susan Gable

Author:Susan Gable
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: second chance, Hawkins Family, stories that include a teenager, military, love triangle, former Marine hero
Publisher: Infinite Daydreams
Published: 2017-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

“COME ON, NICK. Let us see,” Uncle Hayden said through the wooden slats on the dressing room door.

“No freakin’ way! I’m not coming out there like this.” Another glance in the mirror made Nick shudder. No way in hell he was even going out the door into the seamstress’s shop, let alone appear in public in this getup. There were other ways of doing community service.

He’d rather pick up rotten garbage on the side of a highway.

Aunt Amelia and Aunt Shannon had sold him up the river. Those measurements hadn’t been about skeletal size. They’d been sizing him up for this suit.

“Did you put on the mask like I told you?”

“What difference is a mask going to make?” He stared at his reflection. Skintight purple spandex with green trim. Green...briefs was the best word he could come up with to describe them. A yellow triangle with the radiation warning symbol plastered the middle of his chest. The green cape intended to fasten at his shoulders was draped over the back of a chair in the enormous dressing room that usually held brides, judging from the magazine clippings taped to the wall-size mirror.

“Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.” The doorknob rattled. “Look, let me in, okay?”

“No. Tell Uncle Greg I’m sorry. I can’t do it.” He reached around the back of his neck and started to unzip the thing, but couldn’t reach it once he’d lowered it an inch or two.

Metal rasped. The push-button lock on the door popped, and Unk, clad in his own ridiculous costume, which now sported a new zipper, slipped in. He relocked the door behind him.

“Good. Get me the hell out of this!” Nick presented his back to his uncle.

“Nope. Not yet.” He yanked the zipper to the top, attached the cape, then put his hands on Nick’s shoulders and turned him on the platform to face the mirror again. “Tell me what you see.”

“An idiot.”

“Fair enough.” He lowered the purple mask over Nick’s eyes, securing it in place. “And now?”

“An unidentifiable idiot?”

Uncle Hayden laughed. “There is that. Nobody has to know who’s behind the mask but you.”

“And the whole rest of the family, including you, and you have a big mouth.”

“Good thing I’m well-adjusted or I’d get a complex.” Unk settled his own mask into place and stood beside him, draping his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “Wanna know what I see?”

“Two idiots?”

“I see Captain Chemo and his sidekick, Radiation Boy. Two characters who can bring smiles and laughter to people who need it.”

“Exactly my point. I don’t want people laughing at me.”

Uncle Hayden sighed. “Nick, do you remember seeing the videos of Jordan when she was in the bone marrow transplant unit? With sores in her mouth so bad she could barely speak? Hair falling out?”

Nick glanced down at his bare feet. “Yeah.”

“Now imagine you could make her feel a tiny bit better, even for just a minute. Would you do it?”

He dragged his toes back and forth across the carpet.

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