Remember When 2

by T. Torrest

  After the hotel, we’d just needed a few extra days to break out of the pattern, and now we were simply testing the limits of our resistance, pushing ourselves to see just how far we could bend without breaking. It wasn’t easy, but we both knew that going out of our way to wind up back in each other’s arms would be taking things too far. Feeding the addiction.

  Because this time it would be intentional.

  I dropped the cigarette to the sidewalk and smothered it with my shoe. Trip threw his in the street, and then I hailed a cab.

  Chapter 18

  FINAL DESTINATION

  Trip had insisted that he escort me home, even though the TRU was right down the street from the diner. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, explaining that he only had a couple more nights in town and wanted to spend some of that limited time with me. On the ride back to my apartment, we’d gotten caught up in a conversation about his family, so we sent the cab driver on his way and stood out on the sidewalk to continue talking. I wasn’t surprised to find that his mother still lived in that great big mansion up in Norman Hills. I was surprised to find that most of her time was being consumed with the task of caring for her sick husband.

  Apparently, Terrence Chester Wilmington II had spent the better part of the past decade in and out of the hospital, dealing with a slew of medical problems due to all that heavy drinking over the years.

  Trip tried to impart the news to me casually, but I’m sure it had to be tearing him up inside. I knew all too well how difficult it was to love someone who’d made your life so hard. Believe me, with a mother like mine, I knew.

  Sometimes, you get to thinking that it would be easier for everyone if that someone was just gone—poof!—vanished from the Earth, so you could just go on with your life, perfectly fine without them. Out of sight, out of mind. But it doesn’t work as cleanly as that. Because then comes the guilt of even thinking such a thing about someone whom you’re supposed to love. And then you get angry all over again that they can’t seem to find it in themselves to love you unconditionally back.

  When do you quit wishing for things to be different? Months? Years? Decades? You think that if a sufficient amount of time goes by, it should be enough to help you stop caring anymore. But it doesn’t. Ever.

  I changed the subject, trying to wind things down, hating the idea of ending our evening, knowing it was well past time to do so. There was just so much catching up to do and nine years was a long time to cover within a few, stolen hours.

  We considered going for a walk around Washington Square Park, but nearly abandoned parks in the middle of the night weren’t normally the safest place to be in the city, even though we knew that in all probability, the most dangerous people we’d run into would be the drunken frat boys walking home from the bars. The jazz club at the street level of my building would be too loud, we’d already been to a diner, and the coffee shop around the corner wasn’t even open yet, so I figured we’d just have to do our talking right there on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

  But then, because I’m an idiot, I found myself inviting him inside.

  Okay. Let me just stop right here and say that I know what you’re thinking. And I get it, really. Like, why would I go and put myself in such a dangerous position? Wasn’t I just guaranteeing that Trip and I would wind up rolling around in my sheets the second we got in the door? So, yeah, I hear you, I really do. But the simple fact of the matter is this:

  Trip Fucking Wiley asked to see my apartment.

  I had convinced myself by that point that I was older now, stronger, better able to resist him. I was sure I could handle myself accordingly. Hell, hadn’t we just proved that outside the diner? This was a once-in-a-lifetime reunion with not only the greatest boyfriend I’d ever had (aside from Devin, of course), but the last night I’d get to spend with a very dear old friend. Plus, I was never in the habit of telling that boy no.

  Especially since he was very, very good at getting me to tell him yes.

  So, I found myself leading Trip up the echo-chamber stairwell, all three flights of clangy steel and solid concrete that led to my apartment. I managed to get my shaking hands around my keys and unlocked the door, leading him inside with a sweeping motion of my arm. “Welcome to the penthouse.”

  He chuckled, then strolled into my humble abode, taking in the space with a peremptory glance around my living room. A vision of my dream passed before my eyes, picturing the scene that had played out right there on that very futon. I banished the image from my mind as he wandered into my kitchen and started laughing.

  The rest of my apartment was as tastefully decorated as I could manage, but my kitchen was like a pop culture museum. It was the one room I allowed my inner child to indulge. Some of the stuff I had hoarded away years before and had simply dug out of my father’s attic when I got my own place. But I was quite the shopper in those days, too; whether it was a garage sale in Jersey or popping in to check out one of the many quirky shops in NYC, I’d managed to buy back a few additional pieces from my childhood. The entire space above my cabinets was crammed with toys and games and stuff, and some of it had managed to trickle down into the rest of the room.

  Trip tapped at the Makit & Bakit “stained glass” rainbow suction-cupped to my window, ran his hand over the Wonder Woman cookie jar on my stove. He rifled through the basket of action figures on top of my microwave, giving Stretch Armstrong a good pull before arranging He-Man and Strawberry Shortcake into a compromising position on the counter, fairly pleased with himself. He spotted the Star Wars calendar on the wall and jabbed a finger at the square marked “Trip TRU 11:00”.

  “And so it begins,” he smiled out, looking right at me with a cocked brow.

  I was leaning in the doorway, smiling back, and all I could think was: It began long before that, pal.

  He turned, smirking, and I felt the alarm bells going off. He started coming right for me, and I was caught unaware as I watched him step purposefully in my direction. I froze in that split second… before realizing that he was merely brushing by me on his way into my bedroom.

  I shook my head, trying to jog my brain back into thinking platonic thoughts, and followed Trip into my room. I wasn’t surprised to find him doing a perimeter check.

  Always such an observer, this man. Always checking out his surroundings, grasping at the details, seeing everything. His ability to notice every aspect of his environment was undoubtedly the reason why he was such an amazing actor. Trip watched. He absorbed. Then he ran all those little pieces of data through the meat grinder of his brain, processing and pulling out the premium bits, rolling them into the creation of something new before presenting it, ever so uniquely, to the world.

  Standing before my framed Monet print, he completely astonished me by remarking, “Hey. Water Lilies. This was your old bedspread.”

  He was right. It was. I always loved that painting, and back in high school, it was the design on the comforter in my old room. Trip had only seen it a few times, and normally right as we were ripping it off the mattress in order to make out. “You remember my bedspread?”

  He stuck his hands into his pockets, turned his head to look over his shoulder, and aimed a ravenous grin at me. “I remember lots of things.”

  I felt my heart skip a beat as I tried to keep my knees from buckling. Yep. I pretty much died.

  But Trip didn’t seem to notice as he took note of the towers of books in the corner, running his fingertips over the spines. He moved to look out my window, which offered nothing more than a view of my fire escape and the roof of the restaurant around the corner. He went to open the pane, but it had been caked shut with about twenty coats of paint from over the years and was giving the big strong galoot some trouble. I went over to help him.

  “There’s a trick to it,” I said, as I gave a sharp smack with my palm against the lower right-hand corner, then slid it up with ease.

  The beautiful man in my bedroom nodded his head at me, impressed.

&
nbsp; I felt that familiar stirring in my heart, while my brain chastised me for giving such a damn. I never knew why it always meant so much to win his approval. Even for the smallest of things.

  He stuck his head outside and looked up, asking, “Hey. Can we go up there?”

  “To the roof? Yeah. I do it all the time.”

  His head reappeared, the most adorable smile on his face, like a kid who’d just found a hidden stash of candy. “Ya wanna?”

  I couldn’t help but smile back.

  Chapter 19

  PICKING UP THE PIECES

  I sashayed into the kitchen, grabbed a couple glasses and an opened bottle of wine from my fridge, then met Trip back in my bedroom. Jesus. He was just sitting there, waiting for me, on my bed.

  He stood, took the stuff from my hands, and offered, “Ladies first.”

  The “yeah, okay” look I shot him was rewarded with a flash of his white teeth. “What?”

  It was so like him. He was still such a boy, trying to arrange a peek up my skirt. “Trip. I’m wearing a dress, for godsakes. I’m quite sure that hasn’t escaped your notice.”

  “Well, then, take it off.”

  I punched his arm, causing him to bobble the glassware in his grasp as I said, “I am not going first. And the dress is staying on. Go.”

  He laughed his ass off as he ducked out to the landing and negotiated the rusty stairwell up to the roof of my building. Pretty impressive that he was able to climb a rickety staircase while holding all that stuff in his good hand, with only his bad arm to steady himself against the railing.

  “Hey, easy on that fire escape there, Mr. I-Do-My-Own-Stunts,” I called up to him, climbing out the window as well, almost knocking one of my dead plants off the ledge as I followed suit. “We don’t want you to fall and break your other arm.”

  I loved the roof of my building for sunbathing, but at night, the spot took on a magical glow from the neon of the surrounding restaurants and bars. Years ago, someone had strung white Christmas lights around the perimeter of the low brick wall and woven them through the two potted trees in the corners. Between them sat a wooden double chaise, and it was there that Trip had set up shop, sitting on the edge as he poured us our wine.

  Despite the mild evening, a chill ran along my skin as I flashed back to that magical summer of ‘91, when I recalled exactly how much better white wine tasted when licked from Trip’s back…

  …and that’s why my fingers were shaking as I accepted the glass from his outstretched hand.

  I took a sip, leaned against the low wall, and assessed the situation: I was sharing a glass of wine on the roof of my apartment building with, quite possibly, the hottest man this world has ever seen. That same man was lounging out on the double chaise, without a care to be had, as if there were no other place on Earth he’d rather be.

  I knew the feeling.

  He tipped his head up to the sky, patted the space next to him, and said, “Lay. My God. Will you look at this night? Come sit here with me and watch the stars.”

  I’d lived in the city for close to a decade, and I knew damn well how near-impossible it was to see any stars at night. There was the briefest hesitation as I stood there considering the implications of accepting such a contrived invitation. Dangerous? Yes. Stupid? Probably. But I did it anyway.

  I balanced my glass on the pebbly tar under the seat and stretched out next to Trip, adjusting my side of the lounger to recline, my arms crossed against my chest to avoid any inadvertent elbow kisses. I was looking up, registering the beautiful night and feeling the slight breeze blowing across my skin. So I felt, rather than saw, Trip turn his head to face me. The sound of his voice at my ear caused me to practically melt through the slats of the chaise. “Hey. Do you remember that day you left for school? The day after The Tent?”

  Holy Jesus, he used the T word.

  Do I remember? How could I forget? It was mere hours after the night—the only night—he and I had ever slept together.

  This was perilous territory, but I answered anyway. “Yes, of course.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught him swiping a hand through his hair. The move was so familiar, so very Trip, that the small gesture actually caused a physical pain deep within my heart. I didn’t want it to, but it did.

  He let out a breath and said, “Do you know what I did that day? How I spent the hours after you left?”

  Oh God. Did I even want to know? I know that I’d spent that day with my father and brother, getting set up in my dorm room, walking around the campus, checking out the neighborhood. But that night, after they’d gone home… I spent the evening bawling my eyes out. I’d been heartbroken and scared in a strange new place without even so much as one person to talk to, no one to help get me through it. Trip and I had just had our big farewell scene hours before, Lisa was in a car with Pickford halfway across the country, and my father, Bruce, and I had just spent the entire day together. There was nobody to call, no one left to see. My NYU days turned out to be an amazing chapter in my life, but that first night really sucked the big one.

  “No. What did you do?”

  He let out a heavy breath, turned his head back up to the sky. “I drove away from your house and I just. Kept. Driving. I couldn’t go home, I couldn’t stay in town. I knew that everywhere I looked…”

  …would remind me of you.

  He didn’t say it, but I knew that’s what he was thinking.

  He swiped his hands over his face, growled into the night air. “I just couldn’t stay there anymore. You were gone, off to some brand new place… It really sucked to be left behind in the same old one.”

  “I hardly left you behind, Trip.”

  I’d said the words before I even realized what I was admitting, but it was true. I took that boy with me, locked safely away in my heart, where I kept him for years following our separation.

  Only Trip took me literally. “I know you didn’t mean to leave me in the dust, but you did. You left. You were gone. And I didn’t realize until that minute that you were the only thing that was keeping me there in the first place.” I tried not to crumble from his words as he continued, “My old man… Things had started getting really bad by then, and my mother refused to do anything about it. I’d spent a really long time trying to watch out for her, but by then, she’d already made it clear what her decision was. She wasn’t going to force him to get help and she wasn’t going to leave him and I wasn’t going to stick around to watch. And here she is, faithfully by his side, still taking care of him. But she’s doing it alone.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” was all that came to mind.

  He turned to his side, propping his head up with his cast arm. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, Lay. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, but I’m sorry for leaving you. For leaving you to deal with all that by yourself.”

  “You were only living your life. I don’t blame you for that.”

  My head turned toward him on its own, and I really wished it hadn’t done that. Because just then, I caught the look on his face, and it was enough to rip out my insides. There he was, propped up on his hand, looking down at me with that endearing, half-lidded stare, his lips curled into that sweet, crooked smile… and it was like I was seventeen again. Back in a time when our biggest concern was what to wear to a party or how we were going to spend our night. Back in a time when we loved each other.

  We were both thinking it. I know I didn’t imagine it that time.

  He was the first to come to his senses and break the moment, turning away to sit up and grab the glass at his newly planted feet. His back was to me as I watched him down the rest of his drink and pour another. “You need?” he asked, holding up the bottle.

  “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  Fine was about the last thing I was.

  He took another swig before settling the wineglass back down, resuming his lounged position, crossing his feet at the ankles and propping an arm
behind his head.

  It’s funny how reassuring that was, to see him doing something so simple and familiar. I mean, I knew this man. I knew him inside and out. I knew his every facial expression, knew what his heartbeat sounded like under my ear. I knew how he played, and I knew how he lounged. Recalling the small pieces of the Trip that I knew brought me a bit of nostalgic comfort while dealing with the body of this famous movie star lying next to me.

  “Have you seen them at all—your parents—while you’ve been back here?”

  “Yeah. I mean, well, I went to visit my mom a few times. She kind of hinted around how she’d like to make the move out west, but she’s sort of stuck here for a little while longer, taking care of him. Drunken asshole.”

  I caught the muscle twitching in his jaw and figured it was best to leave that comment alone. He’d already said all he planned on saying about the old man. It was heartwrenching for me to think of Trip out there in California all by himself, but I guessed he must have had friends. I knew he had Sandy. I knew he had the underwear model. “Hey, how’s your sister?” I asked, suddenly remembering the existence of his older sibling, whom I’d only met once a million years ago.

  “Claudia?” He started to chuckle, and I was glad I’d changed the subject. “She’s good. Moved up to Santa Monica a few years ago, so I see her quite a bit.”

  “What does she think of all this? Of your…” I was about to say fame, but it seemed so cheesy. “…of your career?”

  “She’s supportive. Still thinks I’m a pain in the ass, but that opinion lightened considerably when I covered the down payment for her house.”

  It took the extra second to sink in, but that had us both laughing, acknowledging the absurdity that his life had turned into. That he was capable of throwing that kind of cash around. He’d grown up rich, but this was his money. I knew it made him feel proud, and all I could think was how I was proud for him.

  “A house, huh? Not too shabby, Chester.”

  He nudged his cast against my arm, giving me a shove, and I looked over to see him shaking his head. “Still with the freaking Chester. You know too damn much about me, Warren. If the Enquirer ever gets ahold of you, my career would be over.”