by Torrest, T.
He ignored my rationalization, his ire too far gone to listen to reason. “And this! What the hell is this? A washed-up actor? Is that where you see me headed?”
He had my memoir notes and my “Last Act” notes all jumbled together, thinking I was writing a tell-all about his past and making dim predictions about his future.
I ignored my anxiety at seeing how he’d messed up my “filing system.” There had been order to my chaos, and Trip had just lumped all my pages into one, discombobulated stack. “That is for a fictional novel that has nothing to do with you!”
Something changed in his expression and I knew my words were finally getting through. His shoulders deflated as he swiped a hand through his hair, staring off across the patio. He wanted to believe me; I could tell that he did. I wasn’t a liar. Trip knew that. He knew I wasn’t like them. He couldn’t help but get his defenses up about something like this. He was surrounded by users and sellouts.
But goddammit, I wasn’t one of them.
Maybe I should have told him about being asked to write that first book, but since I never actually did it, I didn’t think it was important enough to mention. It’s not like I was specifically trying to keep that information a secret from him.
Besides, I got the impression that something else was going on. Trip was being moody and accusatory, both of which were definitely not features of his normal personality. He was all stressed out, and I knew it wasn’t just because of my manuscript.
So, why the temper tantrum?
“What’s going on here, Trip? This is about more than just some diary passages.”
He met my eyes for a quick second, opened his mouth to speak, but then must have thought better of it. Instead, he stormed into the house and I followed him. The conversation wasn’t over.
I was getting ready to ask him about his abandoned explanation when he growled and slammed the papers onto a side chair of the living room. “Goddammit! I need a drink.”
I watched him head for the bar and brace his hands along the edge, eyeing up the rainbow of bottles along the mirrored wall.
Oh no. No, no, no.
As riled as I was feeling, I still knew I had to stop this. Our fight took a backseat to the more immediate situation that had just presented itself.
I wanted to beg him not to do it. I wanted to sit him in a chair and talk him down from the ledge. But he’d started pacing around the room like a caged animal, hands clenched in fists at his hips, in his hair, against the bar. Talking wasn’t going to do it right then.
I intercepted him mid-pacing, halting him in his tracks with my hands at his shoulders, jogging him out of his stupor. He’d been in such a state that his eyes met mine in confusion, his expression glazed over momentarily. It was like I was awakening a sleepwalker as I dropped my towel, grasped his hands, and placed them on my breasts, trying to jog him out of his trance.
It worked.
His eyes suddenly turned dark and his lip curled into a leer.
I clashed my lips to his, kissing him hard, fisting his shirt in my hands, pulling him toward me and ramming my tongue in his mouth. Trip took the bait and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me to him fiercely, sliding a hand down to grip my ass, pressing my body into intimate contact with his, bending me backwards from the force of his kiss. Feeding off me. Taking.
My heart was beating a crazy rhythm, my body melting from his eagerness. I suddenly forgot about trying to create a diversion and just got caught up in the electric jolts that were invading my entire length, making me dizzy, the room spinning. His impatient lips tasted sweet, as always, his sugary warmth consuming me. The heat of us sharing the same gasping breaths, the power of his hunger overtaking mine. There was no tenderness there; there was no reason for it. There was only want. There was only need. There was only now.
Oooh. Angry sex.
He abruptly spun me around and pushed me away, forcing my body to bend over the back of the couch, holding me fixed there with a hand at my spine. I snuck a look at him over my shoulder as I hooked my thumbs into my bikini bottoms, ripping them down my legs quickly, hearing Trip groan.
The preliminaries were over as he released his hand from my back, tearing at his fly, the both of us standing there with our clothes around our ankles. He grabbed a fistful of wet hair at my nape, knotted his fingers in the mass and tugged, forcing my head back. His other hand was at my backside, positioning a certain body part against me. He leaned over my back and hissed into my ear, “You want this? You want me to fuck you hard?”
Well, Jesus. Hell yeah, I wanted it. How freaking hot was he? I could only nod my head in answer.
He let go of my hair and grabbed my hips, driving full-length into me as we both screamed. He slammed into me hard and fast, grunting on every thrust; once, twice, maybe only a dozen times before he lost it, growling and cursing as he came, pouring himself out in me, forcing every last ounce to spill inside, before slumping across my back, shuddering and exhausted, breathless and spent.
We were both ravaged animals, panting heavily, coming down. Trip gave a quick rub to the back of my head, soothing the spot where he’d practically ripped out my hair.
“You okay?”
“I’m great!” I said, elated and overcome. Who knew a quickie could be so satisfying?
He put his forehead against my shoulder blade, and I could feel his heaving breath against my bare skin. “I wasn’t going to do it, you know. I wasn’t going to take a drink. It’s important that you know that. I’ve been here before. I would have talked myself down.”
“Coulda told me that before slamming me over the sofa. Ow. My ribs hurt.”
Trip pulled his pants back up and I managed to wrap a towel around me before sliding onto the couch, where he joined me, curling up against my side. We were both invertebrates, melting into one another as I played my fingers through his hair. I thought about the fight we’d just had and wondered what was going on. We definitely had to straighten some stuff out.
But it was hard to concentrate on anything more than getting my breathing back to normal while I reveled in the delicious afterglow, his limbs tangled up with mine.
That is, until the question that had been bothering me for weeks made its way out of my mouth. “Why do you even keep it in the house?”
He didn’t even wait a beat before answering resolutely, “To test myself. Like Sam Malone. Remember Cheers? Reformed alcoholic relief-pitcher-turned-bar-owner? That’s me. If I know I can fight it in the privacy of my own home, when it’s right there for the taking at any time, I know I can fight it anywhere.”
We lay there for a moment, settling into one another as I mulled over his logic. Trip’s heartbeat was still pounding rapidly, the sound a nostalgic melody against my ear.
Out of nowhere, he sighed, “I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry for raising my voice, for accusing you like that.”
I was grateful for the apology. But it still didn’t explain his outburst. “Thank you. I appreciate that. But Trip, why would you just come out like gangbusters and blast me like that? Even when I explained myself, you refused to believe me.”
“I know. I guess I just got caught up in my own head about it.”
I was all too familiar with that scenario. I think I’ve proven beyond all reasonable doubt that I am Queen of the Mind-Splooge. “I’m really sorry if it looked as though I were writing some tell-all about your life. I hope you know that I’d never do that. Even the ‘biography’ I was working on for you was more of just a sweet story about how we’d met; a memoir from my point of view. It’s not a retelling of every sordid detail about your life.”
“I only scanned the pages long enough to see that it was about me.”
“I kinda figured that out on my own.”
He sighed and repositioned himself more comfortably on the couch, my body wedged in tightly along his side. I ran a hand up his bare chest as he tangled a strand of my hair around his fingers, the both of
us lost in thought.
Finally, he asked, “Is it any good?”
His question made me chuckle. “Well, it’s not finished yet, but I’d like to think so, yes.”
It suddenly occurred to me that Trip had no idea whether or not I could actually write. Yes, he’d read the article I’d written about him, but that was hardly a valid example of my work. I’d written entire novels since then.
I was mulling that over when his next words caught me completely off guard. “Then you should publish it if you want. Just have your agent send over the release forms.”
What the? I was stunned by what he was asking. I twisted myself to look him in the eyes as I asked, “Seriously? You want me to essentially sell a piece of your life story, here.”
He swiped a hand down my jaw, his fingers playing under the hair at my neck. “Babe. I trust you. And anyway, it’s our life story. You and me, remember?”
Of course I remembered.
How could I ever forget?
When it came to Trip, I remembered everything.
Chapter 23
FRAGILE
The next day, it was my turn to come barging through the door in a huff. Trip was in the den, listening to his Guns N’ Roses CD and reading… shit. My book. I was flattered by that, but I was too riled up to acknowledge it right at that moment.
However, I was not going to come at him guns blazing the way he had with me the day before. I was simply going to present an opportunity to engage in a conversation about what was bothering me. This would be good. A big, mature step in our communication.
I took a deep breath and slapped a copy of The Backlot down on the coffee table (a little harder than I’d intended), causing him to look up from his reading. He peeked over the book and saw what I had placed at his feet. “What’s that piece of crap doing in my house?”
“Did you see the picture on the cover?”
He lifted the book in front of his face again as he answered, “I’m really not interested in seeing a picture of myself on that birdcage liner.”
“It’s not just a picture of you,” I swiped the magazine off the table and held it up toward him. “It’s a picture of you with Jenna.”
He ignored me, so I flipped in a couple pages and read from the article. “Trip Wiley and Jenna Barnes together again! The estranged pair were recently seen leaving the St. James hotel, where a source confirmed the tumultuous twosome are plotting to work on a new movie together. Does this mean a possible reunion is in the works for the star-crossed couple?”
I was fuming about the whole situation, but that last line really twisted the knife in my side. They were not the star-crossed couple. I’d been through way more with Trip than that witch.
“You know not to believe anything in those rags. Why start now?”
“Is it true? Is this why you’ve been growling around this house like a bear, crabby and stressed out?”
He finally put the book down and swiped the magazine from my hands. “Did you really look at the picture, Lay? Yes, it’s the two of us out front of the hotel, but it’s two separate photos. They just doctored it up to make it look like we were there together, when in fact, we just happened to be in the same place at different times.”
I’d been so disgusted at the sight of them together that I hadn’t looked at the photo for more than two seconds. But okay, yeah, on closer inspection, he was right. The photo was totally ‘shopped.
“Fine. But is it true?” I asked again.
He ran a hand through his hair and lurched to his feet. “She wasn’t even there! I made sure she wouldn’t be there when I went to meet with Bert.”
“You knew? You knew she was going to be hired for this movie before that meeting?” I was astonished at his admission. He may as well have kicked me in the spleen. Oh, this “conversation” was gearing up to turn into an all-out brawl.
“I knew it was a possibility, yes.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me about it?”
“Kind of like how you never told me that your first book was supposed to be about me?”
He was grasping at straws and he knew it. “Really, Trip?”
His posture deflated as he conceded, “I didn’t think it was worth upsetting you when it wasn’t set in stone. I’m still hoping she won’t be cast.”
I couldn’t even respond to that. I had my arms crossed over my chest, unspeaking, waiting for him to explain himself.
He put his hands over his face and growled into them before throwing his arms out to the side. “Look. It’s just a job! I’m not the boss here, okay? I didn’t pick her for the part. There are producers and who-you-know and anyone she’s ever promised a blowjob to, including the director who’s had a hard-on for her for years and he‘d be a full-time pervert if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a filmmaking genius!”
I was aware of the man’s pervy side. I’d experienced it for myself on Oscar night. But why did he have to perv over Jenna Barnes? Of all the people!
I was positively stewing about the blonde whore from hell.
Amongst others.
All those women from his past. I couldn’t take it. My prior resolve to handle things maturely got thrown out the window. “Who’s Marcy?”
Trip stopped pacing, caught off guard by my change of subject. “Who?”
“Oh, you don’t even remember her name?”
“Who’s name?”
“Marcy… Something! According to The Bimbo Twins at the read-through, you used to fuck her.”
He braced his hands on the back of the wing chair and stared me down. “I used to fuck a lot of women, Lay. A lot of them. Is that what you want to hear? How I spent years going to bed with every hot blonde in the city? Do you really need to hear this? Do you really want to go down this road?”
No. No, I most certainly did not. But the fact was, he was the one that took a road trip down the Whorey Highway, not me. If he hadn’t, there’d be nothing to discuss.
“That was then. This?” he motioned his fingers in the gaping space between the two of us, “This is now. And right now, this is all that matters to me.”
“Right now.”
“If you want the truth, it was all that mattered to me then, too. But I couldn’t… You weren’t…”
“So, you just decided to have sex with everybody?”
He sighed, looking at me intently, trying to find the right words. The air left the room as he lost the heated tone and brought his voice down to a calculated calm. “Maybe that was wrong of me, and I apologize for it. I can only imagine what you must think of me right now. But I was only with them because I couldn’t be with you. I’ve always loved you, Lay. It’s always been you.”
Ouch. My heart cracked at that admission, because I knew it was the truth. He’d always been it for me, too. He’d always been the love of my life.
And, yeah, okay, to be honest, it’s not as though I had joined a nunnery while we were separated. My numbers weren’t anywhere near his, but could I really blame him for living his life, doing whatever he did, before we were together? It’s not like either one of us could pull a Superman and spin the world back in time to change things.
“Patience” was playing on the stereo, and it was enough to make me want to cry. I looked over at Trip, who’d sat down in the wing chair, elbows on his knees. His hands clamped into two white-knuckled fists and his head dropped to his chest, staring at his feet as he said, “Please don’t leave me over this. Please don’t break me again.”
He thought I was going to leave him over it? I just wanted to be a regular girl for a minute and bitch about it. I wasn’t planning on leaving him.
“Oh God, Trip… no. I’m not…” I sank down to the floor at his feet, put a hand to his knee. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.” He looked positively wrecked, which was never my intention. I guess I could have explained things better. “I’m sorry, too. It’s just strange for me. We can’t seem to go anywhere without running into one of your ex-girlfriends.
All these California blondes with their big fake tits. Can you even imagine what that would be like for you if every time you turned your head, some guy I slept with was standing there? Some guy who still wants to sleep with me. Gives you dirty looks like you don’t measure up. How would that feel for you?”
He raised broken eyes to mine. “Babe. Think about it. Yeah, they’re all blondes. I couldn’t bear to be with a brunette ever again after you.”
What? I thought on his words for a moment and holy crap, realized it was the truth. Damn that man and his selective adorableness.
I tried to contain my smile at his revelation as I teased, “Maybe I should dye my hair.”
He grabbed a handful at the back of my head and pulled, tipping my face up to his. “Don’t even think about it.”
The old Trip was back as his mouth crashed down on mine and kissed me roughly, his teeth clenched, the sound of his growl vibrating against my lips. He wasn’t going to distract me this time. We still needed to sort some stuff out. But his admission and his kiss had at least served to change the tone of our confrontation.
My voice was almost playful as I said, “Okay, okay. But Jenna? C’mon, Trip. You have to understand why I’m so upset. Not only is she your ex-fiancée, but she’s super-skinny, with humongous boobs, and she…” I trailed off.
“What?” Trip asked, finally cracking a smile. “And she what?”
“She went to Yale! YALE, Trip!”
“Why do I get the impression that you’re more jealous of that than of her tits?”
“I have tits. What I don’t have is a diploma from YALE.”
“Neither does she.”
Wait. What?
He could see the confusion on my face, and clarified his statement. “She didn’t go to Yale. That was just part of her packaging.”
“Packaging? I thought they only did that in like the fifties.”
“You’d be surprised. I could give you a list of people in arranged marriages that would make your head spin.”