Remember When 2 (15 page)

   “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.

  
Right?

   Damn, it was good to see him. I grabbed our tickets and looped a hand through his offered arm as I teased, “You little narcissist. Coming to see your own movie?”

   He plucked the tickets from my hand, offered them to the taker, and pulled his baseball cap down lower to better shield his already-hidden face. He waited until we were in the relative safety of an empty lobby before answering. “Actually, what I was really doing was spying at the line, but then I saw you. I didn’t know if anyone was going to bother coming to this thing. I was nervous.”

   It was so cute to see the Great and Powerful Trip Wiley get rattled with a dose of the nerves.

   “Well? Did anyone decide to show?”

   He led me across the lobby as he answered, “Well, there was a decent line, but who knows? Maybe everyone came to see
Big Momma’s House
.”

   I giggled as Trip slipped me a couple twenties and asked if I wouldn’t mind getting the popcorn. He was trying to keep a low profile. It would probably have been mortifying for him to get busted sneaking in to watch his own movie.

   I made my way to the counter and ordered two pails of Coke, a thing of Goobers, a bag of Swedish fish, and a barrel of popcorn with extra butter. While the snacktender was getting our stuff, I hazarded a look at my “date” for the evening. He’d found a corner to retreat to, holding up the wall with his leaning form, arms crossed over his chest as he scanned the lobby. He looked so adorable standing there, trying to seem like an ordinary person. The fact of the matter was, even without the fame, there was
nothing
‘ordinary’ about that man.

  
Aww.
My Trip.

   Whoa. Where the hell did
that
come from? He was certainly not my
anything,
especially not enough to require a heart-melting
aww
, and I shouldn’t have even been entertaining the thought in the first place. He caught me looking and gave a smile along with a quick salute, and I made a point to
not
take note of the strong, skilled hands that had just waved in my direction. Or his incredible, full lips that were smiling at me. Or his talented tongue. Or his gorgeous blue eyes, his chiseled jaw, his sculpted chest, or his great, big, beautiful-

  
Layla Warren! Eyes up front, please.

   I dragged my gaze away from his miraculous package and mentally slapped my cheeks out of the reverie as Trip came over to help haul our treats off the counter. He stuck the candy into his back jeans pocket and I swear, that’s the only reason my eyes were drawn to his ass as he led the way to Theater One. Really.

   Okay, whatever. I was checking out his ass.

   He pulled the heavy steel door open as quietly as possible, sending a quick surge of light into the theater, which was, as I could best make out, about half-filled to capacity.

   The movie had already started, so we ducked into the empty back row, grabbing a couple seats near the middle.

   He situated the bucket of popcorn on my lap as I slipped the sodas into our cupholders. I watched as he grabbed his and sucked down about half his Coke, those perfectly formed lips wrapped around his straw. I was instantly reminded of another movie outing with Trip, a million years before as we caught a showing of
Romeo and Juliet
at the theater back in Norman. That was when we were just friends, before we’d ever even started dating. Before I had firsthand knowledge of what those perfect lips felt like on mine. But now I knew better. Now I knew—

   “Here, hold this.”

   Trip was handing me the lid to his drink, the wet straw dripping onto my wrist.

   “Gah! You’re getting me all wet.”

   He stopped, raised a brow, and said, “Really? Hmm. Good to know.”

   It was all I could do not to slug him.

   He pulled a flask out from his jacket pocket, uncapped it and started refilling his soda cup.

   I whispered, “Trip! What the hell?” and laughed, watching as he reclaimed his lid and gave his cup an icy swirl. He just gave a wink and sucked on his straw. “Jack and Coke, babe. Want some?”

   With a scrunch of my face, I declined. I was never a fan of whiskey.

   “Who carries around a flask?” I asked, stifling my giggles as we refocused our attentions on the screen.

   He grabbed a handful of popcorn, and I tried not to play Electricity with his hand; his touch passing through the kernels, through the bucket, through my dress and into my—

   “See that guy?” Trip’s whispered question knocked me out of my wandering thoughts. His handful of popcorn gestured to the screen. “That guy is a
dick
. The asshole couldn’t block for shit,” he scathed, staring at the screen. “You know how many takes we had to do here? Aww, dammit. They used
this
one?”

   Aaand here we go again. I’d forgotten that Trip didn’t watch movies. He analyzed them. Incessantly. There wasn’t a video that went unscrutinized, a film that didn’t meet with his critique. Normally, I just watched a movie, and then decided whether I liked it or not. I noticed things like plot and acting and
maybe
the cinematography. But Trip? He had
categories
for appraisal. Like lighting. And sound quality. And all that other technical garbage you see honored for five seconds during the Oscars. Add in the element of him actually being a part of the production and oh Jesus, his commentary was tenfold. And
I
was the one with OCD?