Page 158 of Bad Reputation

I want to keep it that way.

“Garrison, did you hear me?” Willow asks over the phone.

I stop at a red light, hands tight on the steering wheel. “You don’t need to visit. I’m fine, Willow.” I take another breath, about to tell her something that might put her on edge. But this, I do want to be honest about. “I’m actually headed to my house. I have to apologize to my mom for bolting and pick up a hard drive on my old computer.” It’s got some stuff on it that I made back in prep school. It might be useful for the video game I’m creating.

“Wait—you’re going home?” Willow’s voice spikes with alarm.

“Yeah, but just for a second,” I say quickly. “Davis, Hunter, and Mitchell already all left yesterday. They didn’t want to spend New Year’s Eve with my parents.” I pull up to the gate at the neighborhood entrance. “So I’m not going to run into them. It’s alright.”

A security guard recognizes me and immediately presses a button to let me in. I wait as the gates slide open.

“Why don’t you let Daisy pick it up for you?” Willow suggests.

Sweat builds, I lower the blasting heat and unzip my hooded jacket. “Because Daisy will ask questions. And like I said, my brothers aren’t home.” It’s safe.

The line is quiet.

A lump lodges in my throat, but I want to say more… I miss you.

I’m sorry I fucked up.

I love you.

Driving forward, all I say is, “You still there?”

“Yeah.” She sounds concerned, but with a big breath, she layers on resolve. “Can you call me when you leave?”

I feel like I’ve already been calling Willow too much. We talk all night. Which is her entire morning.

Currently it’s 9 a.m. for me, and I know she’s not in class now. But Winter Break is almost over, and her business courses will be starting back up soon. This break is when she should be hanging with her college friends.

“I’ll text you,” I say.

“Right when you leave.”

“Right when I leave,” I agree.

We say I love yous and goodbyes as I park in the empty but plowed driveway of my parent’s mansion. No other cars. It confirms what I already know: my brothers are gone.

I’ll be quick.

Leaving my Mustang running, exhaust gurgling and visible in the cold morning, I take lengthy, fast steps up the front porch. The January chill barely touches me as I fumble for a house key. How my parents let me keep one—I don’t know. They love me, I guess. Still after everything I put them through.

I unlock and enter. “Mom!” I call out in the posh foyer.

No one answers. Veering into the kitchen, I skid to a stop and locate my mom through the window. Towards the east side of the pool, she wears a pink pea coat and Burberry scarf, and while she’s bent down, she shears thorns off rose bushes that surround a locked greenhouse.

I watch her brush snow off red petals. She’s pretty meticulous about gardening. Don’t get me wrong, we have gardeners, but no one except my mom is allowed to touch the flowers around the greenhouse and the plants inside.

It’s her “calming” thing or whatever.

Maybe she needs calming after seeing me.

Great.

And this conversation is going to be happening outside. In the frigid ass cold. I’m not boiling hot anymore, and so I pull up my hood while I exit through the backdoor. My shoes slide on the icy patio, and I extend my arms for balance.

“Mom!” I call out again and catch myself from a face-plant.

Fuck, I hate the outdoors.

She lifts her head, brunette hair glossy and twisted in an intricate updo with diamond pins, and even though she looks like a rich housewife who’d have her fourth glass of pinot grigio by noon, I’ve never seen her drink more than a couple seltzers, and she’s not too hands off or too overbearing. When my brothers and I played lacrosse in high school, she actually watched us and didn’t just socialize with her PTA friends. She’d film the end for our dad who’d miss the action because of work.

So I’m not surprised that when she sees me now a genuine smile overtakes her face. “Garrison.” She rises to her feet, brushing gloved hands on tweed pants. “What a surprise. Come here, sweetie.”

I near the garden. “I just wanted to—” Words die in my throat as I see shadows through the frosted greenhouse windows. People are in there.

What if my brothers are home?

No.

No.

Fuck no…

“Garrison, what’s wrong?” She touches my shoulder but I’m like the ice on the ground. Frozen. Only difference is that I break easier.

I need to go.

I need to go.

But I can’t fucking move.

The greenhouse door swings open, and my pulse stops dead as Davis, Hunter, and Mitchell pool out together.

My oldest brother sets a glare on me. “Nice of you to show up when all the work is done,” Davis says.