This Regret

He looks into my eyes and I match his stare. There’s something there that tells me I’ll be okay. Something in his eyes asking me to trust him. “Yes.” Is all I say. It’s all I can say.

Once we get a little closer, I figure out pretty quickly where he is taking me. It makes me nervous at the thought of going back up there, but it also makes me happy. It’s his special spot and this will be the second time he’s taken me here.

“On the roof again?” I ask nervously as he pulls the truck into the back.

He pulls the keys out the ignition and tosses them to me. “You can say when we leave. Whenever you get uncomfortable and want to leave, I will take you anywhere you want to go.” He gives me a serious look and my heart melts for him. He looks so caring and protective.

I nod my head and open the door of the truck. “I can deal with that.”

Again, I find myself standing before the long, rusty ladder and my stomach does somersaults warning me of how much I hate heights. “Ugh! I feel sick.”

He presses his body behind mine and pushes me up to the ladder. “It’s okay. I’ll be right behind you the whole time.”

Putting my trust in someone else for the first time in forever, I grip the ladder and place my foot onto the first step. Our bodies only part for a second before his chest is pressed behind my back and his hands are on either side of my waist, waiting for me to take the next step.

We stay this way until we are both safely on the small roof. Then he moves around in front of me and grabs my hand. “Come on. You’ll be safe over here.”

When I look up to see where he is taking me, I notice that there’s a black blanket spread out in the corner with what appears to be a bucket of chicken and a guitar on display in the middle. It’s then I realize that I haven’t eaten a thing all day.

He gives me a little shove toward the blanket and walks over to stand by the edge of the rooftop. “I figured you’d be hungry since I stole you away from the party so soon. I asked Tyler to pick up a bucket of chicken and bring it up here, so it should be fresh.” He turns around to smile at me. “Go ahead and eat. You must be feeling agitated by now, not getting to stuff your face today.”

I grab a chicken wing out of the bucket, because they suck, and throw it at Kellan. He’s always made fun of me for stuffing my face. He knows as well as everyone that I stuff my face and eat more than three hundred pound men do. “Ha, you ass-wipe, and I thought you were being sweet.”

He looks down at the chicken wing that fell next to his foot and laughs. “This is me being sweet. Don’t you like it?”

“Sure,” I say while shoving a chicken leg in my mouth. “As long as I get my chicken, then that’s all that matters.”

He takes one last look over the edge of the roof before he walks over and takes a seat next to me. He flashes me a heart-stopping smile before snatching my chicken leg from me and taking a huge bite. “Okay, I can only be sweet for so long and it was past that point.”

I look him in the eye while reaching in the bucket for another leg. We both just stare at each other, both of us eating our chicken before finally he breaks the stare. “Okay, you win. My eyes sting like a bitch.” He tosses the chicken leg down and reaches for the black and silver acoustic guitar. It has the word Gibson ingrained into the body of the guitar and it instantly makes me think of Adric. He had an old Gibson guitar that my grandfather gave him before he passed away from cancer. It was old and beat up, but Adric loved that thing to death.

I smile at the memory and wonder what the hell Kellan is doing with a guitar. He can’t play. At least he couldn’t the last time I saw him. “What are you doing with that thing?” I question as he positions himself up against the corner of the wall. “I thought you gave up that dream years ago,” I tease.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a guitar pick, similar to the one he left on Adric's headstone, placing it in between his teeth as he messes with the strings. Adric used to do the same thing and he said he was tuning it, whatever that means. Then he pulls it out of his mouth and smiles. “You should never give up on your dreams, no matter how farfetched they seem. Besides, I was never that bad. I think I was actually kind of good.”

This makes me laugh so hard that chicken shoots out of my mouth and onto the side of Kellan’s face. His eyes go wide before he reaches up and pulls the meat from his cheek.

I cover my mouth and try not to laugh. “I’m sorry,” I say while chewing what I have left. “I didn’t mean to.”

He raises an eyebrow and looks down at the piece of chicken before putting it in his mouth and eating it. He shrugs and starts playing with the pick. “Still taste pretty good.”

Somehow, him eating the food from my mouth turns me on. I don’t know why, but it does. Maybe it’s the simple fact that he didn’t care it came out of my mouth. My heart pounds heavily in my chest as our eyes meet. I expect him to pull his eyes away but he doesn’t. Instead, he starts strumming away at his guitar while still looking me in the eye.

He begins playing a familiar tune. One I would know anywhere. I can barely breathe as the chords play through my ears. He starts to hum the lyrics I've heard a thousand times. Last time I heard him, he couldn't play a note and now he's playing Adric's song. The lullaby that has put me to sleep countless times. I've wanted to hear this for so long. Just one more time, I've thought to myself on many occasions. Here I am and I swear his voice even sounds like Adric. That sweet, sweet melody. I bet if I wanted to, I could picture him sitting at the end of my bed, working those chords like a second nature, washing away all the bad from home. A single tear runs down my face. Kellan Haze just became even more beautiful and I would have never thought that was possible.

It’s getting darker now and the fireworks are starting up, so I’m not surprised when I hear the first set shoot off into the sky behind Kellan. An array of colors explodes behind him in the black sky, making it a memory I'll never forget. He may disappear again but this moment will be locked away forever.

I stop eating and push the bucket of chicken away, before sitting next to Kellan and watching him. He looks so undeniably gorgeous as his eyes take on a look of passion and his fingers continue to smoothly strum the guitar. It looks so natural in his arms and it makes me want him even more. Everything in me wants to reach out and touch him, to feel him under my fingertips, but I don’t. He said so himself that it was a mistake.