Loud: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Male Romance) (25 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Brooke

The sound of a low rumble vibrated through the walls
of the apartment. My first thought was that Chris had cranked up his music
again which, of course, started me thinking about Emerson. I hadn't seen his
bike parked out front since the Wednesday morning after he’d gotten back from
visiting his dad. He still hadn't been to chemistry class nor had I seen him
anywhere on campus. I tried not to let him get to me. I tried to push him out
of my mind every time my thoughts wandered in his direction, but I just
couldn’t seem to keep him from sneaking into my head. I'd been able to distract
myself easily enough on the RAG trip, but being back in my apartment opened me
up to thinking about him again.

The rumble pulsed through the apartment once more. I
was about to head next door and ask Chris to turn his speakers down, when a
buzz on my phone snapped me out of my intentions and saved me from making an
idiot of myself. Garrett’s message informed me that he was downstairs waiting
for me.

I stepped out of the apartment and looked down only to
find the deep rumble wasn’t coming from Chris cranking up his music next door; it
was from a classic muscle car idling its engine out front. Sitting in the
driver's seat was Garrett. He saw me and rolled down his window and grinned.

“You coming down or what? We're gonna be late for the
movies!”

“Alright, alright! I'm coming!”

I hurried back inside, checked my makeup in the
mirror, then grabbed my bag and locked up.

When I got to the parking lot, Garrett was standing by
the pristine, vintage car, holding the passenger door open for me. I admired it
before I climbed in. It looked like it had just rolled off the showroom floor.
Its gleaming black paint didn't seem to have a single spot of dirt on it.

“Wow, Garrett, this is a beautiful car!”

“'67 Mustang,” he said, flashing his model perfect
grin at me. “Classic American muscle. Way more personality and presence than
those wannabe sports cars everyone drives these days.”

“I'll say. Jeez, I could feel the engine rumbling up
in my apartment.”

“It's magic, isn't it? Man, that V8 growl gives me
chills down my spine every time I crank it up.”

“My dad is a bit of a muscle car enthusiast. He took
up rebuilding them when he couldn’t ride his motorcycles anymore. This thing
has to be worth a pretty penny. It's absolutely spotless! Mind if I ask how did
you managed to acquire such a machine? I mean, you’re a college junior.”

“I didn’t buy it like this, you know. My dad picked it
up from a scrapheap when I was fourteen. It was dented, seized up — a real
beater. So, we got it for next to nothing and worked on it for the next five
years, restoring every part to original condition. And now…voila! The beauty
you see before you.”

“That's impressive. How many hours of work went into
it?”

He laughed. “Oh boy, I don't even wanna begin to try
to add it all up! We spent many, many late nights in the garage working on this
baby. But enough about my car, get in. We're gonna be late!”

“Alright,” I said, smiling as I sunk into the plush,
leather front seat.

The inside of the car was as spotless as the outside.
And just as Garrett had said, everything seemed completely original, except for
a brand new sound system. I was staring at it when he climbed into the driver's
seat.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, as if reading my mind. “It
looks a bit out of place, right? Brand new, twenty-first century technology in
a ’60s vehicle. But I've gotta have my tunes, ya know? Although tonight,
they’re gonna be
your
tunes.”

“How so?”

“You must have a playlist of your favorite tunes on
your phone, right?”

“I do.”

“Take it out. This player will sync it up and play the
music off your phone through the car's sound system.”

“Sweet!” I exclaimed.

He grinned. “Very. Go ahead, check your phone for a
list of nearby devices to sync with. 'Garrett's Ride' is obviously what you're
looking for.”

“Obviously.”

***

“That was a great film,” Garrett said to me as the
credits started to roll.

I glanced at him in the dim light casting from the
screen. For a moment, it appeared that his eyes were rimmed with tears.
Personally, I had cried my heart out at the end. Seeing that it had gotten to
Garrett a little stirred something in me a bit. I was a bit impressed by his
apparent sensitivity. Even though he did seem to be trying to play it off. I
wanted to slap myself for wondering if Emerson would have been as moved.

Garrett stood up and reached his hand down to help me
up from the blanket spread out on the grass. It looked like he wanted to say
something, but just as his mouth opened, another voice interrupted.

“Hey, Brooke!”

I turned around to find one of my friends from RAG,
Stacy, standing behind us.

“Hi, Stacy,” I responded.

“That was just an
amazing
film, wasn't it?” she
asked.

“It really was,” I agreed. “Got me all teary-eyed.”

“Me and you both,” Stacy said with a smile. “I’m glad
I ran into you. I was going to call you after this anyway. Naturally, you know
about the charity bachelor auction that's happening tomorrow night. You helped
with the planning.”

“Of course.”

“Well, do you think you'd be able to help me emcee
it?”

“But I thought Megan was co-chairing with you and she
was going to emcee?”

“You didn't hear what happened?”

“Apparently not,” I stated curiously. “What’s going
on?”

“Megan was in a car wreck earlier today.”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “Is she alright?”

“She's going to be alright, yes. But she has some
broken ribs and one of her legs was broken in several places. She's going to
need surgery on her leg. She’ll be in the hospital for at least a week.”

“Oh no, that's terrible news.”

“Yeah, it is. So, obviously she can't co-chair the
bachelor auction with me tomorrow night. So, are you free? I mean, I know it’s
last minute. If you've already made plans, please don’t feel-”

“No,” I replied quickly. “It's fine, it's fine. I
don't have plans for tomorrow. I'd be happy to help. I hope Megan gets better soon,
though.”

“Yeah, me, too. We're gonna go visit her in hospital
tomorrow before we set up for the bachelor auction, if you wanna come along?”

“Absolutely, count me in.”

“Great. I’ll email you all the info you’ll need to
review for tomorrow night. We'll talk more about it all at tomorrow morning's
meeting. I’ve gotta get going. See you in the morning, Brooke!”

“See you then, Stacy!”

After we said our goodbyes, I turned to Garrett.

“Well, it looks like I've suddenly got a lot more on
my plate than I expected to have. I’m so sorry, but I suppose you'll need to
take me home now, if that's alright.”

I noticed a gleam of disappointment and a hint of
something else in his eyes. Whatever it was, he covered it up pretty quickly as
that odd smile of his returned to his face. I couldn’t help but think he might
have been a little angry over my cutting the evening short.

“Not a problem,” he said smoothly. “Whatever you'd
like. I'm sorry to hear about your friend, by the way.”

“Yeah, that’s awful. Megan is such a lovely person.”

“Sometimes bad things happen to good people,” he said.
“It's life, sad as it is. At least she's going to be okay. It could have been
worse.”

“True,” I agreed.

“Well, let's get you home. You’ve got work to do,” he
said.

The drive home was pretty relaxed. Garrett and I had a
good chat, but I could tell he was turning on the charm. I had mixed feelings
about that. I was still kind of up in the air over the whole Emerson issue. In
fact, as much as I didn’t like it, Emerson had been running through my thoughts
all evening. There was no way I should or could get into anything with Garrett,
even though it was becoming fairly obvious he might want me to.

We pulled up outside my apartment building, and I
unclipped my seatbelt.

 
“Thanks so much
for a wonderful evening, Garrett. I enjoyed it.”

The blue backlight from his radio lit up the smile on
his face. “It really has been a great night,” he said. And then he leaned
across the seat and tried to kiss me.

I pulled back and placed a hand on his chest to keep
him at a bit of a safe distance. “I'm…I'm sorry, I'm not ready for this right
now.”

Again, that look from earlier briefly flashed across
his eyes, a look that was almost rage, but again he quickly concealed it.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized. “I couldn't help it. I
mean, we had such a great time together tonight, and you're just so beautiful,
Brooke. I couldn't stop myself.”

“No, it's uh, it's okay,” I stammered. “Let's just
take things slowly, alright? I mean, really slowly. Okay?”

He smiled. “Of course. Slow. I'll take it as slow as
you'd like me to.”

“Thank you, Garrett. That means a lot.”

“Whatever you need. I guess I should bit you a
goodnight, Brooke. But before I do, do you mind if I come with you to the
bachelor auction tomorrow?”

“I think that can be arranged,” I said.

“Great,” he responded as he jumped out of his side of
the car and rushed around to open my door. “I guess I’ll see ya tomorrow!”

“It would appear so,” I agreed.

“Well, then, goodnight, Brooke.”

“Goodnight, Garrett.”

He waited until I was opening my apartment door before
he put his car in gear. I watched him roar off into the night, and an eerie
sensation told me that I'd just dodged a bullet of some sort.

I made quick work of getting undressed as soon as I
dropped my purse off in my room. I was on my way to the shower when my phone
buzzed. I guessed it would be Garrett, sending a good night message or
something of the sort, so I waited until I had taken off my makeup and had a
shower before I even checked it.

It was a good thing I was sitting on my bed when I
opened the message app, because I probably would have lost my balance from
shock if I'd have been standing when I saw who it was from.

Emerson
.

My pulse instantly began to race. After everything
that had happened in recent days, how could it not?

I paused for a moment, trying to decide if opening the
message was even the right thing to do. I wasn’t convinced he deserved even the
time of day. However, I had more questions than answers and Emerson was the
only place I was going to get those answers. Granted, there was a chance he was
merely going to spout a pack of lies and excuses. Or not.

An array of emotions whirled through my mind as I sat
staring at the little green unread message icon next to his name — fear, anger,
hope, excitement, suspicion. Each one spinning in a madly-shaken cocktail.

There were only two options: delete the message
without even reading it and never speak to Emerson again or give him the
benefit of the doubt and see what he had to say for himself.

It was a battle of heart versus head. In the past,
I’ve always lead with my head rather than my heart. And, I knew what my head
was telling me to do.

I hovered my thumb over the little red
delete
option and then quickly tapped
it. A message appeared on the screen:
Delete
message. Are you sure? OK or Cancel.

My head was still in charge here. It had to be for my
heart’s sake.

To my head’s surprise, my heart still had some fight
left in it; it wasn't going to give up so easily. My thumb shifted toward
OK
but then suddenly stopped, suspended
just above the screen for what felt like an eternity, paralyzed with indecision
as my heart and head battled it out in a ferocious duel.

The heart won.

I pressed
cancel
instead and opened the text. A very long message scrolled down my phone screen.

Dear Brooke,

I know you must hate me right now. And you're totally
justified in feeling that way. I admit it, I messed up. I messed up bad. But
please just hear me out. I've realized there has been a gigantic
misunderstanding and not getting back to you sooner might have been the biggest
mistake I've ever made in my life.

I only hope it’s a mistake I can fix and not one
that’s going to have permanent consequences.

Let me start by explaining why I didn't contact you
during the two days I was at my dad's. My phone fell out of my pocket somewhere
on the highway on my way there. I didn’t get a new phone, or any of the
messages you sent, until a couple of days ago.