Remember When 2

by T. Torrest

  He smiled dazedly, and I figured the meds were finally catching up with him. I released his hand and told him, “Hey. I think I’m going to head out now. You need the rest.”

  There was a silent pause between us, a recap of the day’s events, a reluctance to say goodbye. But what else could we do? It was time to get back to the real world. “Take care of that skull though, okay?”

  He gave a lazy snicker. “Yeah. How ‘bout you just worry about taking care of me in your article. Try not to make me look like a jerk.”

  “Impossible. Even if you were one, I am an excellent reporter. I’d be able to spin it.”

  I gave him a wink and stood up to go. But Trip stopped me in my tracks with a grab of my wrist.

  “Look. I should just shut up, but I’m gonna blame this on the head injury, here, okay?”

  A jolt went through me, panicked at the thought of what he was possibly going to say. His eyes squinted as he tried to break the news gently, his voice groggy, “The thing is, you are not a hard-hitting news reporter, Lay. You just don’t have that killer instinct in you, and I say that as a compliment. Yeah, you got straight A’s in English, but you used to love art class too, remember? I’m surprised you even went into this blood-sucking field. You’re a dreamer, not a journalist. You need to create, not to report. How have you not figured this out by now? I just think you’re looking for happiness in the wrong place.”

  I was surprised at his speech and stared at him, my jaw slack. He stared right back, his eyes defiant. A few seconds passed before I finally quirked a smile, then tried to make light of his hefty words. It's what I do. I crack bad jokes to break the tension. It’s always been a problem, thinking or saying something completely inappropriate to the situation at hand.

  “Well, that might be something to consider after I turn this article into an award-winning exclusive, Lefty.”

  “You already have the exclusive. You knew me for years before any of these other reporters. Just write that. Write about us.”

  I just smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, knowing he was too banged up to try anything funny. “I’ll see you around, old pal.”

  We knew it wasn’t our final goodbye. It was never goodbye with us.

  As I made my way down the corridor, I caught a familiar flash of honey-colored hair disappearing around the corner. I approached the cross-section of hallway, and took a peek at the nurse’s back, in her dark mauve scrubs, scurrying down the length of linoleum. I’d had this vision numerous times over the course of my life, and I’m sure the conversation I’d just had with Trip didn’t help matters any. The fact was, however, that I’d stopped running after my mother’s look-alikes years ago.

  I’d been duped too many times before.

  Chapter 14

  GOSSIP

  Bruce surrendered the car to the valet after I’d wrangled the huge, wrapped box from the backseat. I don’t know what the heck I was thinking when I’d decided on a bread machine as Jack and Livia’s engagement present. But it was on sale and I had a 20% off coupon for Bed Bath and Beyond, so I figured I’d splurge and get something off their registry.

  Negotiating the stairs leading to The Brownstone was no easy feat while hauling a box the size of Texas and balancing on my high heels, however. Then again, I had kinda counted on my fiancé to be around to help me out when I bought it. But no. Apparently, it was asking too much for Devin to make an appearance at a family function. Again. I still couldn’t quite believe that he’d actually left me flat to go to that conference.

  And don’t think for one minute that I missed a chance to get my digs in about that throughout the entire month of September.

  Bruce was no flipping help except to hold the occasional door for me, teasing, “You should’ve just gotten them a gift certificate, like me,” pulling his single card from his breast pocket and waving it in front of my face. God. Even in our twenties, he was still such a little brother.

  We navigated through to a private reception room at the back, where the first person I saw was my Aunt Eleanor. She excused herself from Livi’s parents and came over to me in a graceful flurry of elegant strides, a smile on her face. “Layla, sweetheart, that box is bigger than you!” she said, much to my chagrin, before relieving me of the bulky thing and placing it on a nearby table already crowded with presents. “How’s my girl?” she asked, finally able to greet me properly with a kiss on my cheek and a genuine hug. Hugs were Aunt Eleanor’s specialty. She never gave one of those half-assed, one-armed formalities, but always made with a genuine squeeze. She constantly doubled up on the love toward Bruce and me, partly because that’s the kind of person she was, and partly because I suspected she felt the need to make up for the guilt of her crappy sister abandoning us when I was twelve. Aunt Eleanor made up for that lost love in spades.

  “Your father and Sylvia are already here,” she whispered into my ear. “She really is something, isn’t she?”

  I had to agree. At first, it was strange to think of my father “dating”, but he and Sylvia had been together for a few months by then. Seeing the two of them together was really great. He looked happy. It was nice to see Aunt Eleanor on board with the whole thing.

  I went over to say hello to them, hoping I wasn’t interrupting as they busily giggled near the bar.

  “Hi, Dad!”

  “Layla! Hi, sweetheart.”

  I kissed him as Sylvia put her drink down. “Well, hello there, Miss Layla,” she said, holding her hands out to me.

  I took them in mine and gave her a kiss, then Dad stole an extra squeeze around my shoulders, asking, “How’s my Layla-Loo?”

  “Stellar, Dad,” I answered, before taking note of his girlfriend’s toes. “Sylvia! You did your nails! Did you go to Rita’s?”

  She peeked down and assessed her feet. “I did! I finally used that gift card you gave me.”

  “Well, they look great.”

  “Thank you.”

  Just then, I felt two tree trunks wrap around my middle from behind, lifting me off the floor.

  “Who brought the brat?” my cousin Stephen yelled into my ear as I squirmed to get out of his iron grasp.

  “Stephen! Put me down! No, really, come on. I’m wearing a dress!”

  He laughed, lowering me back to my feet as he teased, “But you’re such a little bitty thing.”

  Stephen was the oldest one of the four, huge, hulking monsters I otherwise knew as my cousins. Jack was the youngest, and there was still Harrison and Sean in between, both of whom were closing in for greetings of their own, probably involving some sort of physical torture to my person. They were all crazy—all boy—each and every one of them. And people wonder why I was such a tomboy growing up.

  I gave the three maniacs a kiss hello as the prospective groom spotted me and headed across the room as well. Aside from being a contractor, Jack had always been into art and music. The interest in the latter had prompted a short burst of fame back in the mid-nineties with a few songs that actually got some play on the radio. He’d since traded in his guitar for a hammer and was presently the self-proprietor of his own construction company. I chatted with everyone for a few minutes before excusing myself to let Jack lead me over to his fiancée.

  “How’s my car?” he asked, giving me a wicked, sarcastic smirk.

  “Umm, that would be my car, and it’s currently parked outside this very building.”

  When I was away at school, I let Jack have the Mustang. The deal was that I’d take back possession after graduation, in exchange for him doing a bit of work on the old junker. The situation was, though, that he’d spent those four years completely restoring the thing, sinking his own money into it in order to do so. I’d watched the progress over the years and couldn’t quite believe the shiny red awesomeness he’d managed to turn my old baby into. I half-expected it to start talking to me, like KIT from Knight Rider. There was no way I could reclaim the car after all his hard work, and since I lived in the city anyway, we just kind of de
cided to share it. But it did stay parked in my father’s garage. The thing was a restored classic, and we didn’t want to take the chance of any undue elemental exposure by letting it sit in Jack and Livia’s driveway. His man-card would’ve been revoked for such a crime.

  Jack’s fiancée and I had gone to high school together, but I didn’t really know her back then. She was a year older than me and I was inevitably viewed as chopped liver like all the other underclassmen. But I’d gotten to know her really well in the five years since she’d been dating my cousin. She was a photographer, and I had recently hooked her up with a freelance gig at Now!

  Oh, and she was actually very, very cool.

  She threw an arm around me, drawing me into her group of bridesmaids, handing me her glass of red wine in the process, never once breaking conversation with her entourage. I knew them all from school, too, but only saw them occasionally, normally at events like this.

  I was standing with Liv and her sister Victoria, Isla St. Parque, Samantha Baker… and Tess Valletti. Tess, you may remember, dated Trip back in the day. I’d been in her company sporadically and uneventfully over the years, but that night, I felt the old, irrational pang of jealousy hit. I guessed it was because I had just seen him so recently. I knew I was being ridiculous. Tess was happily married, I was engaged, and Trip wasn’t even in the picture.

  But I guess old habits die hard.

  Cooper’s sister Shana was there, but standing off in a corner arguing with her latest boyfriend. She was a total bitch and I could never understand how Coop managed to be such a normal person. His mother was nuts, but his father was pretty awesome. Maybe the crazy genes only ran along the female side. I couldn’t quite figure out how Shana and Livi ever wound up to be friends.

  I turned my attention back to the group in time to hear Liv say, “Hey, Layla. Did Jack tell you that Vix got knocked up?”

  Oh my gosh. Another baby?

  I congratulated Victoria with a big hug. I hardly knew her, but it was the sort of news that brought about that kind of reaction.

  She said hello, thanks, and asked, “So, what are you doing these days? Are you working? Dating anyone?”

  I briefly considered telling them about Devin, but I wasn’t about to announce my engagement at someone else’s engagement party. Talk about tacky. Besides, I’d left my ring at home that night, mainly because I still hadn’t told my father.

  “Yes and yes,” I said, before tossing out my standard reply. “His name’s Devin, and we work together at the magazine.”

  Isla’s eyes practically glazed over. “Ooh. What magazine? Pleeease tell me it’s Vogue or something.”

  “Or something,” I joked.

  It made everyone giggle once I described Now! to their eager ears.

  Isla said, “I’ll have to look for your byline now on all the articles.”

  “Actually, I’ve only just written my first story.” I looked at Tess and dropped the bomb. “I just interviewed Trip Wilm- Trip Wiley a few weeks ago,” I corrected.

  All eyes turned toward Tess. She tried to contain her smile as she attempted to sound impervious to such news. “What? That’s ancient history.”

  “Yeah, but you still dated him,” Isla and Sam said, practically in unison.

  She tried to seem unaffected by the memory. “When he was like seventeen!” she shot back, but a dramatic, faraway look drifted across her face as she added, “But yeah. He was hawt. God. How is that delectable little creature?”

  I laughed and offered, “Hawter than ever.”

  That got us all laughing as I continued, “He’s got a new movie coming out next week. There’s a preview tonight, actually.”

  Tess was teasing as she said, “Yeah, Liv. I may just blow off the rest of this party to go see it. That’s okay, right?”

  “Do it, and I’ll tell Ronnie you’re ditching him for Mr. Movie Star.”

  Ronnie was Tess’s husband, and he was really cute. He was one of Jack’s best friends and I kinda crushed on him a little bit growing up. Tess and I obviously shared the same taste in men.

  * * *

  I said goodbye to everyone as Bruce indulged in a parting shot of tequila with the cousins. I went to kiss Stephen, but he pulled me over to a quiet doorway and asked, “Did I hear you talking about Trip Wiley before?”

  It wasn’t like my cousin to be starstruck, but I answered, “Yeah. I just saw him.”

  “Huh. I just saw him, too.”

  The tone of his voice made me scrunch my eyebrows in confusion. “Where was that?”

  “Down at the station. We had to haul him in for almost causing a riot down at The Westlake. I wasn’t on duty, but I was at the bar when it broke out.”

  Of course I was envisioning a horde of girls trying to tear Trip’s clothes off. “Oh, the poor guy.”

  Steve gave a huff and said, “Poor guy nothing. He almost got his ass kicked, spouting his mouth off the way he was. It’s a good thing I was there or he would’ve gotten the fight he was gunning for.”

  “A fight?” Obviously, Stephen had the story wrong. Trip wasn’t a fighter. He was a lover. And a damned good one at that.

  I shook that thought aside as my cousin nodded his head and said, “Yeah, it got pretty ugly, let me tell you. He is not a good drunk. Real snarly bastard.”

  Stephen had to be exaggerating. Trip wasn’t “a drunk” at all. Considering all he’d been through with his father’s alcoholism, “a drunk” would be the last thing he’d turn into. “Well, I know he’s on some pain meds because of his accident a few weeks back. Maybe they just mixed with the booze and made him wacky. I gotta say, that doesn’t even sound like him.”

  “I don’t know, Loo. I was with him the entire time. We let him dry out in a cell for a couple hours before his assistant or whatever came to pick him up. Funny thing was, once the booze wore off, he seemed like a decent guy. But just be careful there, okay?”

  It’s not like I was planning on spending a whole heck of a lot of time with my old pal while he was in town; in fact, as a loyal fiancée, I’d gone above and beyond in order to avoid it. Trip had called over the previous weeks, but every time I saw TRU Hotel on the I.D., I panicked and let the machine take it. He’d left no less than half a dozen messages, every one of them trying to arrange for us to get together, which could only lead to disaster. Regardless of the old spark that had been lit upon Trip’s return—actually, because of it—I was too afraid to wind up in a dangerous situation. My heart wasn’t the only one I was responsible for anymore. The simple fact was, it was just too risky to answer the phone, so I didn’t.

  So, it was easy for me to dismiss Stephen’s concerns. “No problem. Just do me a favor, though, okay, Steve? Please don’t let the story get out. He’s got a new movie coming out, I’ve got my article on Sunday… Can you just-”

  “Already taken care of, Loo. Don’t sweat it.”

  Chapter 15

  SCARY MOVIE

  By the time Bruce and I drove the Mustang back to the house, I had just enough time for a quick nightcap with him before having to meet my stop. I caught the bus back to the city, got dumped at the Port Authority in Times Square, and went to hail a cab when the Loews across the street caught my attention and beckoned me over. The marquee said Swayed, but the title may as well have read Layla Get Your Ass in Here. I found myself wandering over to the ticket booth at the entrance, realizing I could catch the midnight preview in the nick of time.

  I dug around in my purse as I asked the teller, “One for Swayed, please.”

  Suddenly, there was a searing heat along my back before the voice at my ear explained it.

  “Aw, Jesus. Not that piece of crap.”

  I dropped my head and started laughing as Trip’s arm wrapped around my middle, pulling me tightly against the length of his body, his teeth playfully nipping my earlobe.

  “Better make it two,” I directed to the teller.

  I was still giggling as he chastised, “You haven’t returned my calls
.”

  I turned in Trip’s arms and saw his shiny white grin and the glint of mischief in his eyes, barely visible from under his baseball cap, and decided to bypass his reprimand. I mean, what was I supposed to say? “Sorry, pal. Just trying to avoid climbing you like a scratching post”? So instead I jabbed, “Nice disguise there, Chester. Whadja get the whole costume department to help you with it?”

  We gave each other a quick hug hello- quick being the operative word, here. Every inch of my skin had started buzzing and I wasn’t willing to risk getting caught in the melt of Trip. Again.

  He ignored my jab as I pulled back, and instead smirked out his best Bogart, “Of all the movies, in all the towns, in all the world… she walks into mine.” His lips were curled back from his teeth, making him look and sound less like Bogie and more like Peter Brady.

  Pork chopsh and appleshauce. Gee, that’s shwell.

  But I rolled my eyes and played along, placing a hand on his cheek and returning dramatically, “We’ll always have Jersey.”

  I gave a tap to the brim of his hat and added, “How’s the noggin?”

  “Fine. Turned out to be a mild one. This thing, however, is driving me insane.” He held up his left arm, and I could see the bit of cast that stuck out from the top of his sleeve and wrapped around his palm. I gave his forearm a knock and told him to remind me to sign it.

  Then I glanced up and saw the look in his eyes.

  It was easy to ignore at the hospital, but our shared kiss from the hotel chose that moment to pass between us just then. I had already dismissed it as an innocent lapse in judgment. I mean, we couldn’t ever keep our hands off each other back in the day. The first time we were thrown alone into a room together, of course we’d fall back into each other’s arms, right? I’d made every effort to avoid him for weeks, but downgrading our kiss into a fluky mishap brought a bit of light to the situation. There was no reason we couldn’t just enjoy this chance encounter, go back to our harmless friendly flirting, simply go back to normal.