Perfect Regret (Bad Rep #2)(66)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

“That it was about you,” he admitted with a snort.

“I kind of guessed that. You know with the whole ice of your smile and my touch being toxic. I mean, who else could those flattering lyrics be about?” I teased.

“I wrote that from an angry place, Riley. I promise there has been other since then. Much nicer ones,” he said, sounding shy.

“I’d love to hear them sometime,” I replied with a sultry tone that surprised me. I watched with a keen sense of satisfaction as Garrett’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

I hid my smile by looking out the window. I didn’t recognize the neighborhoods we were driving through. Bakersville wasn’t a large town but I could admit that I hadn’t made it a point to learn all of its nooks and crannies in my four years here.

The town slowly disappeared as we drove deeper into the countryside. After fifteen minutes or so the van took a turn onto a gravel drive before parking in an overgrown lot. Garrett pulled a couple of flashlights out of the glove compartment.

“Come on,” he said, sounding unusually excited. I got out of the van and waited as he pulled an old blanket and his guitar case off the back seat. Was he expecting us to hang out on a blanket outside in f**king December?

“Uh…” I began, ready to voice my very loud disapproval of this plan. Maybe he was trying to be romantic or something. I was going to tell him not to bother. That he could save his sentiments and take me somewhere warm.

Garrett gave me a wry look, as if reading my mind. “Don’t say anything. Just come on.” He held out his hand and I reluctantly grabbed it. He gave my arm a little shake. “I won’t let you freeze, Ri. Promise,” he vowed with a wink.

I grumbled under my breath as my teeth started to chatter but I followed him through an over grown field toward a row of trees. Garrett handed me a flashlight after turning his on. “You’ll want to watch where you’re walking. There are some holes along here,” he said, indicating the uneven ground.

I was all about some good old fashioned outdoor fun. I loved to hike and had spent most of last summer learning the trails in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains. But even I had my limits. And they definitely applied to traipsing through a field in the middle of the night in a short skirt in freezing temperatures.

But I followed Garrett knowing that come hell or high water I was ready to follow him anywhere. Crazy how a few months can change your mindset so completely.

“If I fall and break my ankle, your ass is carrying me out of here,” I whispered harshly.

“Why are you whispering? Are you afraid Big Foot will come and eat you?” Garrett joked and I swatted his arm.

We walked into the line of trees and come through in a clearing by a river. There was a fire pit off to the side surrounded by a ring of rocks and some chairs. There was a picnic table and a dock with a boat tied to it.

And most importantly there was a small cabin nestled back in the trees. Garrett pulled me toward the small building, stopping in front of the door. He reached out to rest the flat of his hand against the smooth wood, his head bowed.

I put my hand on his shoulder, not understanding the sudden change in his mood.

“Are you okay?” I asked him softly.

Garrett’s shoulders heaved and then he looked up at me. In the gleam of the flashlights I could see that his eyes were wet. “I haven’t been here since…they died,” he said in a rush and I understood that this place had belonged to his parents. And him taking me here meant something extremely important.

I opened my mouth and then shut it; I didn’t know quite what to say. Garrett squeezed my hand before dropping to dig his keys out of his pocket. Fumbling in the dark, he finally found the right one and put it into the lock. With a squeak he pushed the door open and we walked into the heart of his past.

25

We were met with a blast of stale, musty air. Garrett felt around on the wall until he found a light switch. He flicked it on, illuminating the darkness to reveal a space that looked as though it had been neglected for some time.

The old, worn furniture was covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. There were cobwebs everywhere. I coughed and then fell into a fit of sneezing.

“This place is worse than I thought,” Garrett said more to himself. He went and opened a few windows to try and air the place out. The rush of cold filled the room and I was shivering all over again.

Garrett caught sight of me with my arms wrapped around myself and cursed. “Shit, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He sounded so dejected that I forced myself to unwrap my arms and unclench my legs so I could walk over to him.

“Well, why did you bring me here?” I asked him.

Garrett lifted his shoulders in a sad shrug. “I was thinking about this place the other day and how much I loved being here when I was younger. Mom and Dad bought it when I was ten and we spent a lot of weekends fishing, swimming, doing your typical family stuff.” He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a framed picture that was covered in so much filth that you couldn’t see the picture beneath the glass. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped at the frame, slowly revealing the picture of a family smiling together in this very room.

The man and woman were the same people in the picture at Garrett’s house. And the boy smiling a full, happy smile with a head full of unmanageable blond hair was a younger, more content version of the man who stood beside me.

Garrett placed the picture back on the mantle and braced a hand on the wood as he peered down into the cold and empty hearth. “After they died, I couldn’t come back here. So I closed it up. Tried to forget about it. I kept the electricity on for some reason even if I never planned to come here again.”

He stood up straight and backed away. “But lately, the memories have been harder to ignore.” Garrett looked over at me as though I were the reason he was facing some deeply hidden demons.

“And you wanted to bring me here?” I pressed; wanting him to acknowledge what I hoped was the reason behind our late night visit to his family’s cabin.

Garrett ran his hands through his hair and gripped his scalp. Then, looking at me, he moved his hands to cradle my face. “Yes. I wanted to bring you here,” he stated.

“Why?” I asked.

Garrett let out a noisy breath. “Because very few people know the real me. So many see me as the guitarist of Generation Rejects. The townie that throws the crazy parties. The stoner who f**ks around and likes to have a good time. But not you, Riley. Okay, maybe at first that’s what you saw.” I grimaced at this but Garrett ran his thumb along the bottom curve of my lip as if to stop my guilty thoughts.