I stammered at an apology, but he was already on his feet, tossing out too many bills onto the table before grabbing his jacket and storming out the door.
I sat, stunned, taking a moment to recover from the death stare and raging tirade he’d just aimed at me. I’d never been witness to either before, and if I didn’t know him as well as I did, his barely controlled malice might have even scared me. I knew he posed me no personal harm, but I didn’t know who that guy was in the body of my old friend Trip, turning those sweet blue eyes cold, angry at the world and speaking in a voice that wasn’t his.
It took an extra minute before my body remembered how to move as I exited the booth and met him outside. He was sitting at the curb near a pile of black garbage bags on the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette. Considering the basis for our little misunderstanding, I shouldn’t have been standing there thinking about how hot he looked while dragging on his Marlboro. But he did, so I did.
He took a long pull off his cig, and I watched the tension drain from his body on the exhale. I gave out a shaky breath myself.
“So you smoke now?”
He was calm, almost shy, as he returned, “No. My character does. It kinda sucked me in. I’m quitting once we’re done filming.” He stood and pulled a box out of his jacket pocket. “Want one?”
I’d never been a regular smoker, but I’d been known to indulge in the occasional ciggie every now and again. I slipped one from his offered pack and he lit it, cupping the end around the flame with his free hand, his fingertips grazing my chin.
I took a drag, only spurting out a small cough and wincing at the taste on the first pull. Then it was like riding a bike to continue smoking the rest of it.
“I think you misunderstood me in there,” I started in, gesturing to the diner behind us. “I didn’t mean-”
“I know what you meant. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I took it the way I did.” His expression was sheepish, his tone placating. “I wasn’t yelling at you.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
He aimed hopeful eyes in my direction, embarrassed by his outburst. “I’m really sorry, Lay. There’s no excuse for my behavior.”
There wasn’t. Except maybe all those drinks he’d consumed over the course of the evening. But I knew Trip was genuinely ashamed of himself, and it was time to let the poor guy off the hook. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to call you gorgeous.”
Trip opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he registered what I’d just said. We stood there staring at each other for a moment, until finally, he burst out laughing and I joined him, relieved to have broken the tension.
We recovered from our chuckling, and I got serious to add quietly, “I’d like to think I know you well enough that I can get away with saying that. You know that’s not all I think of you.”
His expression softened as he replied, “I know. It’s fine, coming from you. I forget that that’s a compliment in other parts of the world.” He took a long pull off his cigarette with lips that were just made for smoking and swiped a hand through his unruly hair.
Hell, cancer be damned. The move was so James Dean and he looked freaking hot.
I will remind you that I’d just been given permission to think that.
“Out there,” he went on, pointing to California as if it were around the corner, “it’s all anyone cares about. Appearance is like a religion to those people.”
By “those people”, I knew he was referring to the Powers That Be; the studio heads, directors, and casting agents he was forced to cater to, kiss a bit of ass, and smile through their show-pony appraisal. It had to be maddening to have to act so compliant about something so shallow, so exhausting to have to go through that just to get a job. A job not solely based on his abilities or talent or work ethic, but whether or not he looked the part.
Even with that aggravation, I still thought that he’d developed a rather short fuse. “But even still. Why are we fighting? This isn’t us.”
I shivered at having used the word us. The implication that there was actually any sort of us to refer to. Our past us had been pretty great, but I didn’t know if I had any basis to compare who we were with the people we had turned into. I didn’t quite know what this present version of us was.
“Don’t you know?” he asked softly, and I was momentarily staggered at the thought that he’d read my mind, until I realized I had asked him a question out loud.
He looked at me then, pure longing in his eyes... eyes which were travelling the length of me slowly, from the tip of my head right down to the pink nailpolish on my toes, before gliding back up to rest on my face. I actually felt the look along my body as though it were a physical touch, my skin tingling with the caress of his idle review. “When you want something you can’t have, it can get... frustrating.”