Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,211

tonight. Please. I need you.

Frowning at my phone in the dark, I wondered what this could be about. We’d broken up well over a year ago, and though we’d maintained a cordial if stiff relationship since then, we hadn’t had a private, in-person conversation since the night we split. While I was considering how to politely handle this request, he texted again.

Tripp: Please, Gogo. It’s important.

I softened slightly at the nickname, not because I liked it that much, but because it reminded me of better days. We’d known each other a long time, our families were close, and once upon a time, I’d thought we’d spend the rest of our lives together. I could be gracious.

Me: OK. Give me a minute. Front door.

I used the minute to yank out my ponytail, put on a bra under the Vassar t-shirt I’d been sleeping in, and slip into a pair of pink silk pajama pants. A heavy summer rain drummed against the roof of my townhouse, so I hurried down the stairs to open the front door, but of course, Tripp was perfectly dry.

“Hey,” I said, standing back as he closed his dripping umbrella and entered the foyer. Hot, humid air followed him in, and I quickly shut the door against the heat, then snapped on the light.

“Hey.” He set the umbrella in the stand near the door and ran a hand through his neatly trimmed dark blond hair. He wore a pink button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and it was tucked in to a pair of white shorts with kelly green whales embroidered on them. He had pants with little embroidered whales on them too, in multiple colors. My eyes lingered on his familiar Sperry deck shoes. No socks.

“Thanks for letting me in,” he said.

“What’s going on?” I twisted my long hair over one shoulder and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Can we sit down? I need to talk to you.” On his breath, I detected a whiff of scotch, and upon closer inspection of his face, I noticed his eyes were bloodshot.

“Can’t we talk right here?”

He fidgeted. “Look, I know the way things happened with us wasn’t cool.”

“That was last year. I’m over it, Tripp.” It was mostly true. Sometimes I still felt a tug of sadness when I thought about the three years we’d spent together and the hopes I’d had we’d be engaged or even married by now, but my therapist had me mostly convinced it wasn’t so much about the loss of him as it was the loss of the dream life I’d envisioned for us. Secretly, I still wasn’t sure what the difference was.

“Well—what if I’m not?”

I shook my head, taken aback. “What?”

“What if I’m not over it, or over us?”

“What do you mean? That makes no sense, Tripp. You were over us before I was. It was you who said you didn’t want to marry me. I was ready.”

“I never said that. It wasn’t personal like that.” His thick slab of a chin jutted forward. “I just said I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married.”

“Well, I was sure. And I wasn’t going to wait around for you to decide once and for all. I moved on, Tripp. And so did you.” Moving on was a bit of a stretch for me, since I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since the split. But he’d been seen around town with a whole slew of sorority girls. Lately he’d been dating someone my friends called Margot 2.0, since she was basically a younger, blonder, bigger-breasted version of me. (But according to Muffy, none of that mattered because she was new money; i.e., completely unsuitable in the eyes of Tripp’s parents, Mimi and Deuce.) “What about your girlfriend? Does she know you’re here?”

“Amber?” He frowned. “No, she doesn’t. She thinks I’m with my father, and I was with him earlier. He…” The frown deepened, and Tripp swallowed hard.

“He what?” For the first time, I started to get a little worried. Deuce was over seventy, with high blood pressure and a penchant for thick steaks and stiff drinks. He’d had his third heart attack at the end of last year. “Is your father OK?”

“Yes. He’s fine. But—” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his wet shoes squeaking on the wood floor. It occurred to me I had never seen Tripp this nervous or uncomfortable. On any other day, he was Mr. Confident, especially after some good scotch—brimming with all the entitled self-assurance of a