Perfect Regret (Bad Rep #2)(5)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

“I’ll pass,” Jaz muttered and left my section. I watched as she stormed into the back of the restaurant. I couldn’t help but snicker. Okay, that felt good. I glanced over toward Damien again and relished in the anger and borderline hatred I felt when I looked at him.

Damien looked up just then, our eyes catching and he lifted his hand in a wave.

So I waved back…with my middle finger.

“He didn’t!” Maysie breathed out, taking a long drink of her Long Island Iced Tea while looking completely appalled after I had filled her in on the Damien and Jaz situation. I was perched up on a barstool beside her, waiting for Generation Rejects to begin their set. I had been cut twenty minutes ago and decided to stay and hang out with Maysie.

My shift had been mostly uneventful. After my confrontation with Jaz, she had wisely kept a healthy distance. Damien wasn’t operating on the same level of mental functioning apparently, as he made a good half a dozen attempts to talk to me throughout the evening. Ignoring someone who was clearly trying to assuage themselves of some hefty feelings of guilt was pretty freaking difficult.

So by the time Maysie had arrived, I was exhausted and ready to inflict considerable bodily harm on the next person who asked for a drink refill. Patience and I were not BFFs right now.

“I can’t believe Jaz would be such a butt,” Maysie commented, shooting a murderous look in the direction of our co-worker. I rolled my eyes as I hopped up on the barstool.

“Really, you can’t? This is the same girl who refuses to wear a bra most days because she likes guys to see her ni**les. I don’t think scruples, or something simple like common decency, are in her repertoire,” I remarked, giving Jordan a wane smile as he passed me a soda.

“I know it’s easy to be pissed at Jaz but don’t forget it’s Damien who’s being the jack ass in this equation,” Jordan said reasonably as he wiped down the bar.

“Are you seriously defending her?” Maysie asked incredulously and with more than a little venom. Uh oh. Jordan had better tread very, very carefully.

Jordan cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, picking up on his snafu. “Of course not, baby. Just trying to focus your rage where it really belongs is all,” he said and started backing away. “This is me leaving the conversation. I’d like to keep my appendages.” I couldn’t help but snicker at his hasty retreat.

Maysie patted my back. “You focus your rage wherever you want. Don’t listen to Jordan. He’s entirely too diplomatic. It’s obnoxious,” she said, though her words weren’t said hatefully. And the severity of her criticism was negated by the warm and gooey look she threw her boyfriend’s way. If I was up to full snark levels, I would cut through that warm fuzzy with a very sharp knife. But as it were, I didn’t have it in me.

Paging Riley Walker’s sarcasm…you are needed stat!

I was distracted by a loud commotion toward the front of the restaurant. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a rag tag group of disheveled guys lumbering into the bar. Each one looked as though he had just rolled out of bed, and given who was gracing Barton’s with their illustrious presence, I’m sure that’s exactly what they had done.

The noise level dramatically increased from bearable to pierce my eardrums with an icepick.

Because it seemed wherever Generation Rejects went, rowdiness and an inability to talk at reasonable volumes followed.

Groaning, I pulled a small bottle of ibuprophen out of my apron and shook three capsules into my palm. I swallowed them down without water, grimacing as they stuck in my throat. Maysie cocked her eyebrow at me, her lips twitching in an amused smile. My dislike for Jordan’s music wasn’t a secret, though I tried to curb my vocalizations.

Jordan was very protective of his band and I learned early on that it was one of the few things he would cut you off at the knees for. That and hurting Maysie in any way.

So if you wanted to be friends with Jordan Levitt, be nice to Maysie and don’t diss Generation Rejects.

“Piper! My man, three pints of your finest ale,” Cole, the lead singer shouted, affecting one of the worst British accents I had ever heard. His use of the misogynistic nickname for Maysie’s boyfriend set my teeth on edge. Being called the Pied Piper of Pussy was not a compliment in my book. It was just sad.

Jordan immediately uncapped three beers and placed them on the bar.

“Guess I should go clock out,” I said hurriedly, trying to make an escape before the horde descended. It’s not that I disliked the guys from Generation Rejects. Well, not completely. I know I probably sound totally stuck up, but the truth was they annoyed the hell out of me.

And it wasn’t just them, or their screamy music; it was the atmosphere that surrounded them. It so wasn’t my scene. Yeah, yeah, I know, I should just take the stick out of my butt, right?

Well let’s just say that my history with Generation Rejects shows or parties involved being vomited on, catching an elbow to the nose in a mosh pit, having my hair lit on fire by a crazy jealous ex of one of the band members because she knew I was “flirting with her man” (Uh, yeah, I wasn’t). And who could forget about the time some scary dude that looked as though he’d wandered off the mountaintop followed me around a party because I “looked purty.”

So pardon me if I tended to get full on hives when I knew my evening would involve Cole, Mitch or Garrett in any way.

“Rushing off?” a slow drawl asked just as I was about to make my escape. I glanced over my shoulder to see a decent looking guy with chin length blond hair and heavy lidded blue eyes gazing at me blankly. Meet Garrett Bellows, lead guitarist and total pothead. I can’t remember a time I had seen him that he wasn’t half lit and barely standing. The guy liked to party and sorry to say, had “loser” written all over him.

Yes, I was making a judgment. Perhaps an unfair one, but I had never shared more than a half a dozen words with this guy that wasn’t tinged with deteriorating sobriety. He seemed like a happy guy. He was always in a good mood, except when he spoke to me.

I wasn’t sure when we had become contentious adversaries. Maybe it was the night I had accompanied Maysie to one of the Reject’s infamous after parties and accidentally sent the keg rolling down the hill into the creek behind Garrett’s house.

I know, party foul, but I wasn’t the ass**le that had propped the stupid thing up on cinderblocks at the top of a steep incline. And it was totally Maysie’s fault for making me wear those stupid heels that should carry warnings about broken necks and public mortification caused from falling on your ass.