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.