Promise Me Not is set in Oceanside, California, centred on a shared beach house that has been the gathering point for Mason Johnson, his twin sister Ari, and their childhood friends — Chase Harper, Cameron Cox, and Brady Lancaster — since they were kids. Most of the group attends Avix University, where Mason is in his first season as the starting quarterback and team captain, having stepped into the position recently vacated by Noah Riley, who has just signed with the NFL.
At the book’s opening, one year has passed since the death of Deaton Vermont — Payton Baylor’s late boyfriend and the father of her infant son. Payton is Parker Baylor’s younger sister, and she lives next door to the beach house. The group has just returned from their summer away, and Mason is back on campus, managing his first season as captain.
Boys of Avix Series
Book 1: Fumbled Hearts
Book 2: Defenseless Hearts
Book 3: Say You Swear
Book 4: Promise Me Not
Book 5: Trust Me Always
Book 6: Keep Me Never
Main Characters:
Payton Baylor: Parker’s younger sister, living in Oceanside as a single mother to infant Deaton Jr.
Mason Johnson: Starting quarterback and team captain at Avix University, Ari’s twin brother.
Supporting Characters:
Alister Howl: Second-string wide receiver at Avix.
Deaton Jr. (Little D): Payton’s infant son, named for his late father.
Deaton Vermont: Payton’s late boyfriend and Little D’s biological father.
Ari Johnson: Mason’s twin sister, in a relationship with Noah Riley.
Noah Riley: Ari’s partner, newly signed to the NFL.
Chase Harper: Mason’s best friend and teammate.
Cameron Cox: Ari’s best friend, working at Avix’s child development centre.
Brady Lancaster: Mason’s teammate and close friend.
Parker Baylor: Payton’s older brother, engaged to Kenra Monroe.
Kenra Monroe: Mason’s cousin, Parker’s fiancée.
Allana: Alister’s girlfriend.
Recap Summary
Promise Me Not alternates between two timelines. The Before sections cover the year leading up to the book’s present-day events. The Now sections follow the current summer and autumn, as that history comes to a head.
Before
Payton arrives in Oceanside the summer before the book opens — seventeen, pregnant, and having run from home. She shows up at Parker’s door, and the friend group takes her in without hesitation.
Deaton Vermont tracks her down within days. She tells him she is pregnant; he accepts it and wants to figure things out together. He leaves to go home and dies in a car accident that night. Payton keeps the baby and names him Deaton.
Mason is blindsided in his debut game at Avix that November. He recovers at the beach house, and Payton nurses him through it.
When Little D is born, Mason is at the hospital. Over the following months, he shows up consistently, taking shifts with the baby and becoming part of their routine. Payton takes a contract with Embers Elite, a professional sports photography agency.
In May, when the group gathers near Avix, Payton tells Mason she is not ready and cannot ask him to wait. He asks whether she would want him to, if she could, and she says yes. He tells her he will wait and asks her to promise she will tell him when she is ready. On the drive home, she realises the man in her recurring dreams, the one she has assumed was Deaton Vermont, has been Mason for months.
Now
A year after Deaton Vermont’s death, the group returns to Oceanside. Payton has been ignoring Mason’s calls and messages for months — warm with everyone else, and shut down specifically around him. On the anniversary of Deaton Vermont’s death, the group is scattered, and Payton is alone with Little D. Mason drives from Avix in his practice gear and arrives at her back porch. Then Chase appears — he remembered too, and brought milkshakes — and Mason, seeing she called Chase and not him, reads it as something more and leaves.
Over the following weeks, Mason drinks, falls behind academically, and trains beyond what his coaches sanction. At a group trip in September, drunk, he corners Payton at a bar and asks, in front of everyone, whether she and Chase are sleeping together.
Payton is back at Avix on an Embers Elite assignment when Mason comes across her getting paperwork signed by Alister Howl, a second-string wide receiver who has been hostile towards him all season. On the training field the following day, Alister makes a comment about Payton; Mason headbutts him and, during the confrontation, screams that Little D is his son. Payton overhears and runs. She calls Chase, tells him she will not sign the new Embers Elite contract, and asks him to take her and the baby home.
Chase loads her things and drives — but stops at Mason’s house. On the porch, Alister and Allana are mid-confrontation. Alister shouts that Mason got Allana pregnant. Allana eventually admits she lied: she told Alister the baby was Mason’s to keep him from following her after he accepted Berkeley, not knowing he had given up a starting position there and transferred to Avix second-string to be with her instead.
Chase takes Payton to the cemetery in Alrick where Deaton Vermont is buried, and leaves her there. She sits at the grave until she falls asleep on the grass and dreams of Deaton Vermont. He tells her that Mason is part of them now, that if anyone is going to be Little D’s father it has to be Mason, and that it is time to wake up. She wakes to find Chase’s truck at the kerb and Mason stepping out.
At the graveside, Payton tells Mason she loves him. He tells her that if she is his, Little D is his too, and asks her to promise he will not lose the boy even if things change. She promises. Mason shows Little D a photograph of Deaton Vermont on his phone; the baby says “da da,” then looks up at Mason and says it again. Payton tells Mason he is the only dad Little D has ever known, and that they will make sure he knows Deaton Vermont too.
Next in Series
The next book in the Boys of Avis series, Trust Me Always, follows Ari’s best friend, Cam’s story.
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