Crazy Love (10 page)

With Trip sprawled carelessly in the passenger seat, we made our way toward Broughton Street. My curiosity ate at me like a starving piranha, and finally I worked up the moxie to begin my overdue inquisition.

“How did you lose your license?” I could tell I’d caught him off guard and he paused.

“I don’t think you’d continue to like me much if you knew.” He sounded resigned, as if he knew we were going to have the conversation one way or the other.

“Try me.”

“It was a dark time, Angel. I was very drunk and got it into my head to drive to Mama’s and yell at her. I didn’t get more than a couple of blocks from home before I ran into a tree. Fortunately, I wasn’t going fast.” He stopped, licking his lips nervously. “Maisie was in the back seat. Blitzed as I was, I had her fastened in the car seat, thank God. ”

My stomach dropped, and I thought about the blistering look in Violet’s eyes when she’d brought up Trip losing his license. I didn’t blame her at all. Drunk driving with her little girl in the car! If he’d been my husband, I would have put him in traction.

“That was the second time Sam had to drive me to rehab. He railed on me for the entire car ride. He told me I needed to ‘get my shit straight’ or he’d disown me. Ever since the night of the accident, he treats me like a stranger. And he’s not the only one. Violet served me divorce papers while I was in rehab.”

Conflicted, I grasped for something to say. I relished that he’d trusted me enough to confide in me, but I began to understand and even respect Sam’s hesitation about Trip. I’d been burned by my mother’s selfishness and felt the shame when I’d fallen for her false promises to “do better.” At age fourteen, I’d spent several nights in budget-planning classes, courtesy of Gambler’s Anonymous, while she was out pissing away our child support. That ever-present, ingrained leeriness rumbled around inside me and probably always would. That said, I was burdened by the openness I recognized on Trip’s face, and my mind raced for an appropriate response. He seemed as if he were waiting for a well-deserved slap in the face that he had no intention of blocking. I felt compelled to speak, so I blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“Thank you for telling me.” I watched as a storm gathered behind his eyes.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…yadda yadda,” he muttered crossly, pointing out a prime parking spot.

When I opened the car door, he was there to offer me his hand. I reached out for it, and he pulled me up. We stepped onto the sidewalk and began the hunt. As the afternoon progressed, we wandered through some rather upscale shops. Wherever we went, Trip seemed to silently command a sort of awe from the shopkeepers, who brushed their employees aside in an effort to serve him themselves. It was evident that they knew him by sight and that the name Beaumont meant something serious in Savannah. At one point, he leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Thanks for treating me like a normal person.” He squeezed my hand tighter, and I looked at him wide-eyed. It surprised me that Trip knew how unusual their treatment of him was, especially since he’d been born into the good life. As the day wore on, we got cozier, walking arm in arm or with his arm around me. We held hands often, and I sometimes got the feeling he was using me as a human shield. The younger shop girls (and one of the shop boys) openly regarded me with jealousy. Trip had mastered the art of cool, but I was starting to see small cracks in his façade, like a china doll that had been painstakingly repaired, but would never quite look the same. His money and status made him powerful, but also very anxious and wary. Try as I might not to feel it, it was hard not to be drunk with power by osmosis. Being pampered and doted on was incredibly addictive.

By the time we neared the entrance to Marc by Marc Jacobs, we had several bags of goodies, including a stuffed kitty for his daughter and a pair of sterling silver cufflinks shaped like boxing gloves for his asshole brother’s twenty-fifth birthday. Trip mentioned that the anniversary of the blessed event of Sam’s birth was at the end of the December. But still, we had no dress. Trip paused on our way into the store.

“Is all the groveling annoying you as much as it is me?” He ran a hand through his messy hair, looking outright flustered for the first time all day long.

“I’ll live,” I replied with a tired sigh. He tilted my chin up and seemed to assess my level of fatigue. His smooth confidence returned, and I smirked. My contribution to his ability to seize control of himself aroused me. I suppressed a shudder that had threatened to surface.

“If we can’t find something suitable here, I’ll have a dress made for you. I have an excellent tailor, but it’ll delay the sitting, so I was hoping to avoid it.”

I had no response, as I was a total fish out of water, so I merely nodded. Who has a tailor? Stinking-rich Beaumonts do, apparently. The air conditioning felt lovely as we crossed the threshold. The vast store stood nearly empty, as it was 5:30 and most shoppers were clamoring for a dinner table at one of the nearby restaurants. The overly accommodating manager enlisted all available employees to pull every potential white dress, skirt and blouse in the joint. Trip immediately insisted they remove all the skirts and blouses and take them away. When they brought us both an unrequested glass of wine, Trip gently waved the stemware away and asked for Cokes instead. When the manager returned with two frosty bottles, he unceremoniously dismissed her and told her to take her employees with her. Considering how uncomfortable the VIP treatment had made him all day, he certainly knew how to play the game. I took my Coke into the dressing room and tried on two dresses, which I modeled for him. Neither of us was particularly impressed with either of them.

At that point, my lack of food and sleep began to cripple me. I started to feel petulant and bored, like a small child long overdue for her afternoon nap. I pulled a plunging silk gown from its hanger and stepped into it. The zipper was unreachable, and I poked my head out of the dressing room. The store’s speakers pumped a seductive beat, and I saw Trip lounging on a nearby sofa. His bored expression changed when he looked at my body in the unsecured dress. He slowly sat forward unconsciously, as if about to pounce. The look of rapt attention he wore had me suddenly feeling playful. I glanced around, noticing no one else in sight.

“Can you zip me?” I asked, afraid to step out of the room for fear of falling completely out of the open gown.

“I’m at your service.” He drawled, climbing to his feet and sauntering in my direction. I licked my lips at the sight of his cocky swagger, and when he was close, I turned to present my bare back to him. I released the dress from my grasp, and could feel the slick material expose me in the back all the way down to my waist. I looked over my shoulder at him and saw his eyebrows rise and his lip curl in a testosterone-fueled smile.

“That’s one hell of a dress.” His voice sounded husky, and I felt him take the zipper in his hands. He paused, and his fingertip grazed the length of my spine, slowly… admirably. On impulse, I turned and pulled him into the dressing room by his shirt collar.

He pulled back a bit, apprehension plastered on his face.

No. That won’t do. Not at all.

I attempted to lure him in with a sly smile, beckoning with my finger for him to come closer. His eyes flashed hungrily, and he responded to my invitation by swiftly swinging the door shut and pinning me against the wall of the dressing room. He held me with his heated gaze, his finger slowly trailing all the way from the hollow of my neck to the area between my breasts. I gasped as the need for his touch overruled my judgment. I reveled in the power I had over him, at the blatant fascination in his cobalt eyes.

A small voice cried out in the back of my mind, begging and demanding me to stop. My compulsive need to have his undivided attention won out, and I slammed shut the vault on that voice, spinning the lock. My hands were in his rakish hair, as I tugged at it to pull his mouth closer to mine. Our lips locked in a scorching kiss, and he tasted like a naughty mix of nicotine and salty goodness. His talented hands easily brushed aside the unsecured straps of the gown, exposing my bare breasts. He pulled his lips from mine and his lustful eyes roamed my flesh. I sighed and closed my eyes victoriously, knowing I held all the cards as his skillful mouth trailed down my ear to my collarbone. As I leaned my head against the wall of the dressing room, that old familiar numbness slowly trickled over me. Like my own unique morphine taking hold, it was like I was hovering outside of my body looking down on us. Trip’s lips were on mine again, and my thoughts drifted to my past sexual mishaps. I suppose I could thank my childhood monster for grooming me to be a world-class fuck up.

A collage of my transgressions flashed on the blank screen of my closed eyelids like one of those war propaganda news reels from World War II. My carnal misconduct….my fucking inability to stop myself from jumping into a situation crotch first. Moment by moment, I recounted the sepia highlights of my necrotic sex life. Unprotected sex with my amateur tattoo artist, Nick… inappropriate behavior my senior year with an innocent freshman boy…my filthy tryst with a married T.A. when I was an undergrad. Even as I scolded myself, I felt my hands grasp the button of Trip's jeans on autopilot.

He grabbed both of my wrists suddenly, stopping me millimeters short of my goal. He pulled back, and his conflicted expression both infuriated and humiliated me. He seemed to analyze every pore on my face, and I felt bare and exposed under his scrutiny… and not in a good way. I darted my eyes away, suddenly feeling like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“Annie.” Trip’s voice was a hushed whisper, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed with far too much effort. Humiliation at my own tawdry behavior had already shoved arousal aside. I had a feeling whatever was going to come out of his mouth next would be bad news, and if I hadn’t been half naked, I probably would have fled. “You’re amazing. I have no doubt we could have all sorts of fun. But I need to be completely honest with you.”

My anger dissipated as mercurially as it had appeared and shame took its place. I had been trained to recognize and understand my behavior. This scenario was far from new. I was “acting out sexually” as my therapist often called it. It was bad enough when I pulled crap like this with some unsuspecting schmuck at a bar, but Trip? It was so uncool of me. He was trying to get better. The last thing he needed was me to drop my matching baggage on him.

That’s you, Ugly Mutt. You could fuck up a wet dream.

I was failing spectacularly, letting my body get ahead of my brain. Zero to 100 miles per hour, gone in 60 seconds. Messing with him was such a bad,
bad
idea.

“I can’t start a new relationship—not at this point in my recovery.” An expression of exasperated grief was etched on his handsome face, and he raked through his near-black hair with one hand. “And…and I still love Violet. Dammit, I wish to God I didn’t. But it’s out of my control.”

This was his huge revelation? My gaze met his, and he seemed to be waiting for me to punch him or claw out his eyes. He may as well have told me the sky was blue, or water was wet. “I know, Trip.”

Wide eyed, he seemed confused by my reaction, but pressed on. “She’s my soul’s better half. I think you deserve to have that. I’m not anywhere near ready for a fraction of that. Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s not a future possibility. That kind of thing only comes around once.” He looked ill, and it was obvious that his frankness was harder on him than it was on me. Overwhelmed with pity for him, it was hard not to admire his seemingly limitless courage.

Reality seeped back into my cloudy brain. I had a zen-like moment of clarity as I calmly considered the facts. None of this was meant to be, and for once I had the opportunity to make the healthy call. I surprised myself when I proceeded to do just that.

“You’re right. I do deserve more. So do you.” I awkwardly pulled away from him and returned my gown to its rightful position. Feeling uncomfortable with my state of exposure on more than just a physical level, I shielded myself, crossing my arms in front of me. Suddenly sheepish, I turned away from him with my face on fire.

So this is a normal response to a virtual stranger seeing you half dressed. How about that?

Way to go, ‘Ho.

“I’m sorry,” Trip offered, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I noticed his eyes closed. He shook his head, wearing a look of remorse that wasn’t warranted.

“Trip, I’m not some school girl with a crush. I’m not going to cry and beg you to love me.” He looked relieved at my reply and placed his palms on his eyes with a frustrated groan.

“This whole thing sucks, Annie. You’re so beautiful…and I really like hanging out with you. ” He removed his hands, but kept his eyes locked on my face, studiously ignoring me from the neck down. His contrite expression really seemed over the top, and I had to roll my eyes. Our current predicament struck me as preposterous, and I couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, we can still be friends, Trip. In fact, I insist on it. Now zip up this damn dress. I’m starving.” I turned away and felt his shaking hands fumble with the zipper. I brushed past him and left the dressing room to look at myself in the tri-fold mirrors. I tried not to look as impressed as I felt at my own appearance, which reminded me of a Greek goddess in old picture books from when I was a kid. Trip’s eyes met mine in the mirror.

“That’s the dress, alright,” he concurred, as if reading my mind.

“Great. Buy it, already. I’m craving a cheeseburger.”

Trip smirked at me and pulled out his cigarettes in anticipation of leaving the confines of the retail world. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Twenty minutes later we were kicked back in a booth at B&D’s. It was my kind of restaurant-- casual with unpretentious, yet supremely delectable, food. On my way in the door, I’d spotted Jayse’s boyfriend, Dale, seated on the opposite side of the restaurant. He was eating in a booth with his parents. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice us; I was in no mood to explain my fledgling relationship—or lack thereof – with anyone.