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