Too late.
“Asshole!” he spat, throwing a fist at the wall next to his father’s head, denting the sheetrock. It wasn’t a satisfying jab, I guess, because he threw another punch, this one harder, cracking the wall. And then he took another. I stepped backwards as he continued thrashing the wall, eventually going for his real target, landing a punch against the man’s smiling jaw, splintering the glass. “Son of a bitch!” He ripped the picture fully off the wall and threw it to the ground.
At that, his angry rage quickly turned to collapsed sobbing as he buried his face and elbows against the damaged wall, his arms wrapped over his head, his right hand a bloody mess. “I hate him so much.”
I didn’t know the right way to console him, and I was hesitant to do so when he was in the middle of such a tirade. I decided to try out a rational angle when I said, “Trip. You don’t mean that.”
He whirled on me then, his eyes chips of ice as he answered, “Yes, I do! He died a long time ago, Lay.” He pointed to the ruined picture on the ground. “That man who was my father died years ago.”
I am the poster child for stubbornness during my anger, so I decided to let Trip have his. I smoothed some hair off of his forehead and kissed him there, soothing the raging beast. I slipped a hand down his arm and gripped his wrist, saying, “Okay. But let’s get you cleaned up, alright?”
He looked down at his hand in confusion, as if the appendage attached to his body wasn’t his own, finally realizing that it was bleeding. I took him into the bathroom and ran his hand under the water, picking out the occasional shard of glass imbedded in his skin. I worked in silence, not knowing what to say. He was angry, and I wasn’t used to seeing him like that.
But of course he was angry. He had every right to be.
I Bactined and Band-Aided his knuckles, then dug out a dustpan and broom from the same closet where I’d found the first-aid kit.
“You don’t need to do that,” Trip said as I ignored him.
I swept up the glass and drywall debris while he gathered the remains of the portrait, depositing it in a spare bedroom, a sheepish expression on his face. We worked in silence, Trip in no mood to talk and me not wanting to say the wrong thing. The mess had been taken care of, but there wasn’t much we could do about the wall at that moment.
He pulled a new picture down from the spare room, and I used my heel to hammer its nail in the appropriate spot. That must have been enough to break the last of Trip’s anguish, because he kind of laughed as he looked on.
I held the shoe up and gave it a wiggle. “Girl hammer.”
When I was done, I slipped it back onto my foot, hung the picture over the hole, and dusted off my hands. “Well, that’s that.”
He had his hands jammed into his pockets as he nodded his head toward the wall. “Remind me to get someone over here to fix that tomorrow.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll give Rymer a call in the morning.”
“Rymer’s a contractor?”
“Rymer’s a little bit of everything these days.”
Trip was silent at that, letting the new information sink in. He stood there for a beat, looking embarrassed, his tail between his legs.
“Look. I’m sorry, Lay. I’m sorry you saw that.”
I could have used the opportunity for some big psychoanalytic development, some it-wasn’t-your-fault, Good Will Hunting-type breakthrough. But it’s not what he needed from me at that moment. I knew we’d get through it eventually; it just didn’t have to be right then. So, instead of opening my big mouth, I shut up and slipped my arms around his waist for a hug.
He sighed, running the fingertips of his damaged hand along my back, lowering his lips to the top of my head. “I really am sorry.”
It had been an emotional day. Nauseated to trepidatious, heart-swelling to heart-breaking. Sad to happy to silly to sexy to contented to furious to remorseful.
What can I say? It was the Trip Wilmington roller coaster ride all over again. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I squeezed his waist and gave him a shy smile. “I know.”
Chapter 8
YOURS, MINE AND OURS
I took a break from the computer when I heard the troops heading up the stairs. I tended to get lost in a zone whenever I was writing and didn’t even hear the doorbell ring. But nothing could ever distract me from the sound of Lisa in the vicinity.