I expected Garrett to look at me next and ask if I was all right or what happened, but he didn’t. He didn’t even look at me. He curled his arms underneath Aaron’s shoulders and began dragging his body out like a corpse.
I jolted forward, my eyes darting from the morbid-looking scene before me back to Jamie. “What are you doing? Garrett!”
He continued ignoring me, retreating through the open front door and down my porch, Aaron’s body thumping after him. Indignation flared inside of me, and I chased him down, closing the door behind me so Jamie wouldn’t follow.
It was pitch black and freezing out, and I bounced from one foot to the other, pulling my sweater tighter around me.
“What are you—oh my God, what are you doing?!” I called out as he threw Aaron into the backseat of his Nova like a sack of rotten garbage and slammed the door.
“Garrett, talk to me.”
He slapped both palms on his car, leaning forward to rest his head between them. Positioned the way he was, with every naked muscle in his back and legs on display, he looked like a fallen angel who’d lost his wings. It tore at me. “I’m sorry you had to—”
Flat hands turned to fists, and his shoulders tensed and shifted. “Don’t stand there and fucking compare me to him, Maddie. I am not him.”
I threw my arms out, “What are you talking about, I’m not!”
“When your gut reaction is to apologize every time I help you, you’re comparing me to him. When you second-guess how I’ll respond and feel the need to grovel to maintain my approval, you’re comparing. Stop fucking apologizing.”
I pulled my lips into my mouth, pressing down until it felt like my teeth would slice through. He hadn’t looked up from his car, but he might as well have laid me out. His words lashed out at me like a whip, digging into everything I was, and showing all the cracks.
I didn’t know how to stop over-thinking and second-guessing. I didn’t know how to be different.
“This is a little more than fixing my dishwasher or cleaning my fence, Garrett. You have a body in the back of your car, and you’re obviously upset with me. You won’t even look at me.”
He shoved off, twisting to me with a speed that didn’t seem possible. In only a few strides, he was flush against me, the skin of his stomach pressing against my sweater. His fingers dove into my hair, tangling in my curls as he gripped the back of my head and tilted it back.
“You want to know why I can’t fucking look at you? Because looking at you reminds me of what you told me last week. It makes me want to rip that motherfucker out of my car and finish what I started.
“I can’t look at your face without seeing the ghost of his fingerprints and remembering what they looked like on you, without remembering how you look when your eyes fog over in fear. It’ll be seared into my mind until the day I die.”
I subconsciously reached up, placing my hands on his chest. His grip tightened, pulling at the hairs along my nape, but I barely noticed. Hell, I was barely breathing.
“As long as that piece of shit is within arm’s reach of me, I can’t keep fucking looking at you, or tonight’s story is going to have a completely different fucking ending.”
My heart stuttered and stopped as he pulled away from me, dropping my hands to hang uselessly at my sides. “What are you going to do to him?”
“He’s not your concern.” He turned, running toward his house and disappearing. I didn’t move until he returned. Keys in hand, he’d only thrown on a pair of jeans and untied boots and climbed into his car.
“Go back inside and hug your son, Maddie. He needs to know you’re okay.” And with that, he shut his door and reversed out of the drive.
I should’ve checked his trunk for a shovel while he’d been inside.