Understanding passed between us in an instant, the destiny that had been mapped out years ago finally coming to light. Suddenly, in that one flash of time, everything had become excruciatingly obvious.
Every choice we’d ever made, every road we’d ever travelled brought us to this place.
Every bad decision, every stupid screwup, every bit of drama.
Every beautiful second together, every miserable hour apart… led us here.
All the tumblers had unexpectedly fallen into place, unlocking our fate with an almost audible click! and we didn’t realize how much our lives had been on hold until that moment.
We loved each other.
We belonged together.
And we were finally, finally ready to acknowledge it.
We hadn’t seen each other in over four years, but that didn’t mean a goddamned thing right then. The time apart almost visibly shed as we stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. For all our heartache and yearning and our many, many mistakes… it was simply the past. We were bound by it, but what we were really seeing was our future.
It was there, in that spot, in the middle of the Malachi Bros. Funeral Parlor on Colfax Avenue in Norman, New Jersey, that we finally recognized our forever.
Trip closed the gap between us in five long strides, and there we were, falling into each other all over again. He grabbed me, his arms like a vice around my middle, gathering me to his crumpled form, just bawling into my neck. My arms clamped around his shoulders, holding him to me, the tears streaming down my face as well.
Trip cried like he did everything else: completely. His body racked with trembling sobs, and I joined him, crying so hard I thought I’d never stop.
There were no words that needed to be spoken, but I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Trip. I’m so sorry,” and I was apologizing as much for his father’s death as I was about ever letting him go.
He pulled back, not even trying to hide his pain, peering at me through a haze of tears. “Oh, God, Layla. Oh, God, how I’ve missed you.”
My heart positively stopped, but even still, I tried to explain. “I didn’t even know… I never really thought…”
He shook his head, cutting off my words, trying to pull himself together. “No. We’re not doing this here. We’ll talk later, but right now, I just want to hold you.”
So I let him.
We held each other and we cried and there was no one outside the two of us, there, in that moment.
It did not matter that we hadn’t been in the same room together for almost five years. It did not matter that we both almost married other people. It did not matter that he was an insanely famous actor and known the world over. It did not matter that I was not.
He was simply Chester and I was Lay-Lay.
We were us again.
Chapter 3
AT LAST
After an eternity, Trip released his hold on me to plant his hands on either side of my face. He swiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs as the smallest of smiles escaped from his lips. “You’re here.”
I gripped his wrists in my hands, smoothing them with my palms. “I’m here.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, kissing the spot near my temple. “You ready for this?” he asked, as his hand slid down to grasp mine.
I’ve been ready for fifteen years, pal.
But as it turned out, the “this” he was referring to was our immediate situation, because he led me over to his mother. I could see that Mrs. Wilmington had hardly aged at all. What little age I could see on her face could probably be more attributed to the immediate stress of the situation rather than the passage of time.
I gave her a quick hug and offered my condolences as Claudia reclaimed her jaw from where it had fallen to the floor. I guessed her brother and I had made quite the scene. “So, this is the infamous Layla Warren. You were right, Drip. I actually do remember her.” Then she directed her next comments to me. “Let me ask you something. Is this Rymer character an actual person?”
I had to remember where I was and stifled the laugh at Claudia’s question and her nickname for her little brother. (I logged it away for future torture.) But her jab had lightened the tone in the room, enough that by the time the first mourners filed in, we found ourselves chatting casually with them. Well, as casually as possible with a dead body in the vicinity. I’ve always been amazed at the lengths people will go to just to avoid talking about the real reason why they’re in that room in the first place. It seems borderline disrespectful to the person in the box. Maybe when someone had been dying for years, it made for an easier time once it finally became official.
Trip kept me glued to his side on the receiving line, introducing me to every family member and business associate as “my Layla,” leaving no room for doubt just exactly who I was to him. It was incredible that he’d just assumed we were together, the split decision having been made (sort of) only moments prior, yet there was Trip, treating me like I was his long-time girlfriend.