Remember When 3: The Finale Part 6

He turned back to my dad and changed the subject. "Hey, you'll never guess who I ran into at the Super Bowl last month. Your nephew, Jack."

"No kidding! Loo, did you know that?"

Obviously, I did not. I was going to have to remember to murder my cousin the next time I saw him. How could he just forget to tell me something like that? "No, I didn't. I just talked to him last week and he never mentioned it!"

Dad chuckled and said, "Well, maybe he just didn't want to look like he was bragging about hanging out with powerful movie stars."

From anyone else, a line like that would seem pretty cheesy, but the way my father said it, it came across as funny. I got the impression that Dad found it amusing that the carefree teenager he once knew had just been named to TIME's Most Influential list. I couldn't say as I blamed him. I'm sure he still saw Trip as that same punky young kid, as opposed to the world-famous actor presently sitting in his living room.

Trip just smiled and took the hit with his usual charm. "Trust me, I wasn't the most powerful guy in that skybox. He was there with Lutz Hamburg."

"Lutz Hamburg? Who's that?" I asked.

Trip grabbed my hand casually, and I could tell by Sylvia's expression that the little move hadn't gone unnoticed. But I didn't think Trip was even aware that he'd done it. I loved that.

"He's a music producer. The guy's a pretty big deal, and Jack was his guest. I was there with the director for my next film, and I was introduced to them both. Turned out, Carlos had invited them to talk about working on a soundtrack for the movie."

Jack used to be in a band that found some moderate fame back in the mid-nineties, but he gave up the rock star lifestyle when he got married and had kids. He still played some local bars just for fun nowadays, but how the heck did he wind up in a skybox in Jacksonville with Lutz Hamburg? I wondered just exactly what was going on there.

Dad shot me a smile as he announced it was time to go. Trip stood and shook his hand, but he gave Sylvia a kiss on her cheek. She actually blushed and was fl.u.s.tered and stammering just the slightest bit as she offered, "It was very nice to meet you."

I realized that Sylvia had been sucked into the Trip charm, maybe even a little blown away by it. She didn't have the advantage of knowing him as the goofy teenager he once was like my father and I did. I could barely handle him at full capacity, but at least I was able to ease into it over the years. Poor Sylvia was getting smacked with the overwhelming force of Movie Star Trip right out of the gate. And let me tell you, that guy's presence was intense enough as it was, even when he wasn't being him. He had that effect on people. It's what made him so famous.

Chapter 10.

WHERE THE TRUTH LIES.

We said our goodbyes to Dad and Sylvia, and as the door closed behind them, Trip said, "She's really great!"

I nodded my head in agreement. "She really is. I told you. And she makes my father happy. He deserves that."

Trip winked and shot back, "Doesn't everybody?"

I sure as heck hoped so.

I led him downstairs into the family room, where I'd lain out some snacks and sodas. Trip flopped onto his old spot on the couch and grabbed the bowl of Cool Ranch, munching away as I rattled off our movie choices for the evening.

We settled on Boogie Nights, and I snuggled into his side, that crook in his body that was always pre-destined for me and me alone. It was only slightly bizarre to be sitting in my house next to America's Biggest Movie Star. It was actually stranger to have my ex-now-current boyfriend there with me.

It was a miracle that we were able to watch the movie and have him shut up through the thing. He only offered commentary at a few spots, but I guessed it was easier for him to watch a film in which he had no personal investment. It's not like I would have suggested watching one of his anyway.

Trip must have been thinking along the same lines, because out of nowhere, he said, "I see you didn't offer any of my movies as choices for the evening."

He sounded almost hurt, and I didn't really think that that situation was one that would need explaining. "I thought it might be awkward. Why? Did you actually want to watch one of yours?"

"Never. I guess I kinda just expected you to throw on Swayed or something. You know, finish what we started and all that."

We never did get to see the end of his movie. At least I hadn't. "I don't have that one." His face sort of fell at that, and I thought there was a chance he'd taken my statement as an insult. "I have all the others, though."

I hoped he understood what I was getting at.

"Oh. Thanks," he offered, before getting lost in thought for a minute. "But not Swayed?"

Guess not.

It was probably his greatest role to date. He'd been nominated for Academy Awards before and since, but actually took the statue home for that one. But for obvious reasons, I could never bring myself to watch that movie ever again.

I opened the TV cabinet and pulled out a stack of DVDs, showing him the pile of his movies that we owned. What I didn't tell him is that my father was the one to buy them all. A couple even still had the plastic on them. After what had happened between us in New York, there was no way I could stomach seeing him onscreen. I hadn't seen any of his movies since then.

"No. Not Swayed," I answered.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air between us. I grabbed the remote off the table and hit pause.

He ma.s.saged the back of his neck and said, "I guess we're doing this now, huh?"

"Yeah. I think we need to."

The past days had been a whirlwind. We were just so happy to be back in each other's lives that we'd avoided having The Talk. But we couldn't bury our problems forever. May as well get it over with so we could move on.

I settled my back against his chest again and his arm twined around my waist as he offered, "You're right. We do. Okay. Let's fill in the blanks."

"I'm not going to hold back," I said. "You should prepare yourself for the new and improved brain-vomit version of me." I absently played with his hand around my middle. "I don't even know where we should start."

"Well, let's start at the beginning. Why didn't you come to the hotel?"

I was startled by his question, and Trip could feel me tense against his body. He tried to calm me, rubbing a palm along my shoulders.

"Oh, Trip. It was truly the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. I just... I don't even know if I'll be able to talk about this."

"We have to. C'mon. Brain vomit away."

He was right. We had to do this. It was time to just lay everything out on the table. I took a deep breath and launched in. "I was scared. You need to understand that I'd spent ten years living my life in a daze, and I didn't even realize it. I pushed myself to do well in college, then I pushed myself to get a good job. The job I ended up with wasn't a good one, but it had promise, and I kept waiting for it to get better. I had this blinders-on focus just to keep moving forward, live my life like a real adult. A very powerful man asked me to be his wife, and I thought marrying him was what I was expected to do."

Trip winced at the reference to my ex-fiance, but I had no words of comfort for him. If we were going to get through this, we both needed to hear things we might not like.

"I was finally on the verge of achieving everything I'd worked for, everything I'd ever wanted. Or so I thought." I smoothed a hand over his to continue, "I'd finally gotten a shot to prove myself as a reporter-interviewing you-and I figured my life was really beginning. It was, of course, but not because of my job and my fiance, like I'd thought."

"What do you mean?"

"My life had started because of you. Because you'd come back into it. Only I was too stupid to realize it. I didn't know... until after."

Trip repositioned himself on the couch, settling me between his legs and leaning me back against his torso. I could sense his reluctance to speak as an uneasy silence crept between us. Finally, he asked, "How long after?"

"Not long." I hesitated for a second, but decided to just forge on. "I may not have gone to the hotel that night, but I went the next day, you know. I went there for you. But you were already gone."

"Is that why you tried to call? Because you didn't get to say goodbye?"

Oh, holy Jesus. I knew we had to do this. But he really had no clue.

"Not exactly. But you wouldn't even speak to me."

He let out with a heavy breath. "I was hung-over and heartbroken, babe. When I realized you weren't coming that night, I got stinking drunk. That next day, I woke up Hunter and had him b.u.mp up my flight. I didn't want to be in that city an extra second. I was at the airport when Sandy called to tell me you wanted my number. I poured out the whole pathetic story, told her to call you back, but then to pull the battery from her phone the second she hung up with you. I set her up with a new number so you couldn't get in touch with me." He sounded guilty about all that, but he had no idea what sort of chain-reaction he was truly responsible for.

"I tried everything I could think of to contact you. You didn't even give me a chance to explain."

"I didn't want to hear you say it. I didn't want to hear you say you picked the other guy."

Hearing him lay that right out there caused a fracture to form, right down the middle of my heart; I could feel his being broken. G.o.d. I really hoped we were done causing each other so much grief. "You really spent the whole night drinking?" It was ludicrous to feel relieved at his admission. But the drinking, I could handle. s.e.x with a replacement, I could not.

"Drinking doesn't cover it. I got completely polluted." He chuckled, but it was just a cover. "What about you? What did you do with your night after you kicked me out of your apartment with a raging hard-on?"

It was so difficult to talk about, even after all those years, even with him sitting right there, back in my life, the idea that our future together was an established possibility.

"Well, I didn't sleep much, for starters. At all, actually. The next morning, I went into work, only to find I didn't have a job waiting for me. Devin had fired me so casually, and I got offended enough to break off our engagement. But it was more than that. I realized he wasn't... He wasn't nearly the right man for me. That's when I went back to the hotel to find you, but you had already gone. I already knew I'd made a huge mistake by not showing up the night before, but I didn't realize how huge until I saw the package waiting for me when I got home."

Trip's face fell. "Wait. You didn't get it until..."

"Right. That next day."

His hand clamped into a fist and a muscle was working furiously in his jaw.

"I died, Trip. I swear. I had no idea that you were trying to do anything other than take me to bed the day before. When I saw that lunchbox..."

He grabbed me and pulled me to him, crushing his arms around me, trying to hug the pain from us both. The tears slipped down my cheeks.

"And that's when you tried to call Sandy... to tell me..." There I was, in his arms, and he still didn't want to believe that I had really wanted him. I couldn't blame him. We'd screwed this up so many times before.

"To tell you I loved you, too."

He let out a breath that was part relief, part agony. We were both in tears, but he still didn't know the whole story.

"You haven't heard the worst of it," I said into his shirt.

"It gets worse?"

"Exponentially."

"I don't know if I can take it."

"Well," I started in, hesitantly, "I wasn't exactly thinking rationally at the time. I mean, I moved back here but-"

"I see that."

"It uh... it wasn't really part of the plan."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"Well, I had already packed everything. I had no job and didn't have much of a choice. The landlord already had new tenants lined up. I thought... I figured I'd be moving somewhere new. Hopefully, with a roommate."

I turned in his arms to face him, but wimped out and kept my face buried against his chest instead. My eyes were gathering tears again and my voice had begun to shake. "I'd rolled the dice and I lost. I'd gambled on you. I was coming to California to be with you."

"You came out to California? You were there?"

"No, I... I never made it."

His hand stilled. "Wait. When was this?"

"A few days after I got your present."

I raised my head to gauge his reaction and could see the understanding dawning across his features, putting the timeline into perspective, realizing what prevented me from coming to find him. But the martyr in him wanted to hear me say it. "What... stopped you?"

"I'd have to say it was the fact that you'd just announced your engagement to Jenna Barnes." I put a hand against his neck, buried my face in his chest again, and added, "When she got out of that limo... G.o.d, Trip. I thought I'd die. It killed me."

He wrapped his arms around me tightly, and I could feel his jaw clenching under my palm. "You loved me."

"I did. I do."

"You should have come anyway."

"Ha! That would have gone over well."

"You could have saved me from myself."

I tensed at his words. I'd suffered years of guilt for his downward decline. And there he was, confirming that it was my fault.

Trip felt me stiffen in his arms and pulled back. His brows were furrowed in confusion. He had no idea what he'd just said.

"Trip... I've completely beaten myself up over that very thing. How could you-"

"Oh my G.o.d. No. Babe, no one could have saved me from the bottle, let's just get that straight right now. Yes, I fell hard after you, but it was only the excuse I needed. I was sinking on my own long before you destroyed me. Those were my choices, and mine alone. If you don't hear anything else I say, hear that." He paused and turned my face to him, his eyes solemn. "My choices, Lay. Don't you dare put that burden on yourself." He held my gaze until I nodded slightly, relenting. He gave me a brief smile, then continued. "I meant you could have saved me from the years of pining for you. All these years we wasted, loving each other and not doing anything about it. It was supposed to be a joke."

"Good one."

"It was a bad one. I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

"Why didn't I what?"

"Why didn't you come for me? If you loved me so much... why-"

"Lay. I was stuck in a bottle for years. Even after I broke it off with Jenna and cleaned up... I never thought I could contact you. I thought I'd made it very clear that I was in love with you, and you just... turned me down. I thought I was saving face by announcing my engagement, running in another direction, thinking it would ease my pain. It didn't. I was trying to destroy you, and I hoped that I did. Wanted to hurt you even if I wasn't sure you'd even care. I couldn't very well just call you up to say 'hey' after that. Look at it from my side. Why would I have thought you even wanted me to? I always thought you'd chosen the other guy. I figured I was long out of the running."