My stomach just about burst into smithereens. I sat there, trying to catch my breath as I looked at the pieces of Trip’s heart scattered around me. There I was, thinking of hiring a skywriter, and Trip had hired someone to do this.
I pulled my Nokia out of my back pocket and called him. I was actually hoping he wouldn’t answer. If he didn’t pick up the phone, it would mean he wasn’t there. And if he wasn’t there, then maybe he was…
“Hello?”
No such luck.
I had barely said hello back when he launched in breathlessly, “Where are you?”
I pictured him sitting out by his pool, enjoying the warm weather, the California sun shining on his beautiful face. “Oh, you know. Just sitting in a tree.”
He didn’t say anything at that, and I knew it was major confession time. I had my reservations, but I owed him this. “I’m sorry, Trip. I should have just said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you about your dad; I should have tried to be more understanding about your life out there.”
I heard his release of breath, the breath he’d probably been holding for the past twenty-four hours. “I’m sorry I let you leave. I let you walk out that door thinking that I wanted you to go.”
“I was a jealous lunatic about those other women.”
“I wasn’t exactly rational about seeing the way other men looked at you, either.”
“I was a total bitch about your ex.”
“So was I.”
That made me laugh. I gripped the phone in my hand, wishing I could turn into vapor and slide right through the receiver to be with him.
“Look,” I said. “We’re not doing this anymore. If this is going to work, I don’t think either of us should leave the room anymore if there are unanswered questions. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we didn’t used to be the best communicators. I thought we were making some pretty good strides in that department, when we could calm down and just talk about stuff. Even the fighting was better than just clamming up and wondering. I’m not going back to that. I’m not wasting any more time. If there’s something that needs saying… we’re going to say it. We’ve wasted too much time by not telling each other what we really mean. Got it?”
“Brain-vomit at every turn. Got it.”
“And I swear I’ll try to be more understanding about the fame thing. I’ll lay off the tabloids. I’ll be polite to your fans and your ex-sluts. They don’t matter to me. They have nothing to do with us. And I won’t push you anymore about stuff you’re not ready to face. I’ll help you along, but I’ll let you work on it at your own pace.” I snickered and added, “Maybe we need a safe word or something.”
“My ex-sluts—and my sanity—thank you.” I heard him chuckle as he added, “And yeah. You’re right. There were times when we did pretty great with all that relationship stuff. I don’t want to go backwards either. I’ll try to stop exploding and start talking from now on.”
Oh, God, was I in love with that man. Every part of him. I realized right then in that second that that love even included his past indiscretions, his present stubbornness about his father, his future fame. It was okay to just let that stuff be what it was. We were so much more than the sum of our parts.
“But even more important, it’s time to let go, Trip. We need to let go of our bad habits from the past. Let go of the hurt. The hurt we caused one another, the hurt other people caused us. Can we do that? Do you think that we can try?”
Suddenly, a black truck screeched to a stop in front of the house, and Trip’s voice was coming from two different directions. “Damn. The birds have gotten huge since I left town.”
I watched his beautiful form walking toward me as my jaw dropped. I flipped my phone shut in a daze, my heart practically bursting out of my chest. “You’re here! What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re here to check out my vandalized tree. Wait. You got a cell phone?! And you learned how to have your calls forwarded?!”
He crammed a fist into the front pocket of his jeans as he laughed. “Well, who do you think did all this?”
“I thought you hired somebody. When did you do this?”
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “Middle of the night. You have no idea how much self-control it took not to throw pebbles at your window.”
I smiled, reminiscing at the sweet memory. “You really did this? You’re such a jerk!”
“Call me crazy, but I was expecting a different reaction.”
That made me laugh. “No, I meant I was just sitting here trying to think of something awesome to do for you, and you go and beat me to it.”
“Guess I’m just more awesome than you. Why? What was your plan?”
I bit my lip. “It may have involved an electric guitar-playing clown singing ‘Paradise City’.”
“Damn. I would’ve liked to have seen that. Can we pretend I didn’t do this leaf thing?”
“Like I could ever forget this.” I jumped down from the tree and stood in front of him, feeling almost shy as I did so. “You’re here.”