Clusterpuck (Vegas Crush #9)

19. Stupid Clown Thumb Emoji

19 /

stupid clown thumb emoji

Lila

My stomach is really angry right now. It’s gurgling and cramping like nobody’s business.

Sure, it’s probably because I’ve just eaten my body weight in Christmas cookies after a plateful of turkey, mashed potatoes, and various other Christmas Dinner delights. But I’m allowed to indulge when in the comforts of my family home, right?

To be honest, my gluttony was ill-timed. I haven’t been feeling well for days. How could I think that binging on my favorite holiday foods wouldn’t add to my increasing misery?

“You okay?” my mom asks.

I blink at her across the table. “I ate too much. My stomach’s not great.”

“Oh,” she says sympathetically, “why don’t you go lie down for a bit. I can get you some ginger ale.”

I nod and stand slowly, picking up my plate carefully so I don’t pitch it onto the floor because I feel a little lightheaded all of a sudden.

“No, no, just leave it. Go lie down,” she orders.

“That last piece of pecan pie get ya, then?” my dad asks from the other end of the table.

I force a smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

I head to the stairs and up toward my bedroom, but I don’t even make it, nausea rising in my throat so that I have to race to the guest bathroom, vomiting violently.

My mom finds me there, head on the toilet seat. She pulls my hair away from my face into a ponytail and helps me to my feet, handing me some ginger ale to swish around. It calms my stomach somewhat—for about thirty-seconds. Then I’m right back down on my knees praying to the porcelain god.

“Geesh,” she says, putting the back of her hand against my forehead as moms do. “Can’t keep anything down then, hey?”

I cringe and shake my head.

“Well, you don’t seem to have a fever. Must just have a little stomach thing. Should I call Dr. Whitstone?”

“Dr. Whitstone was my pediatrician. Just to remind you, I am twenty-three now.”

“You want to go to urgent care then?”

I stand, shaking my head. “No, Mom. It’s no big deal…I’ll be okay.”

Of course, as I say that, my vision goes fuzzy, and I feel myself going weightless as my legs come out from beneath me.

Blinking back to reality is so strange. So many sensations to make sense of. Why am I on the floor in the guest bathroom? And why is my mom, the fashion designer, using a hand towel to fan my face?

Sometime later, hours or days or weeks later, I’m back in my bed because the covers and sheets are soft and soothing and smell like mine. I must have fallen asleep because I’m jolted awake by the booming voice of the doctor, who apparently still makes house calls.

“Well, you look taller than the last time I saw you,” Dr. Whitstone jokes.

I’m not. The last time I saw him was for a sports physical in my senior year of high school for swim season. Still, I take a moment to stare daggers at my mom, hovering over by the door. “Well, I might be taller, but I’m also a grown adult now so that’s to be expected.”

He chuckles lightly. “You are correct. You are now an adult, and I am technically a pediatrician. But your mother was worried, and when Melanie Marchmont calls, you show up.”

He’s not wrong. My mother is formidable. She’s tall and fit and looks ten years younger than she really is. Her long, light brown hair hangs in perfect waves over her shoulders. She wears a Marchmont Exclusive dress tailored specifically to her perfect body. Even if I didn’t know her, I wouldn’t underestimate her, even as she stands, arms folded across her chest, worried about her daughter.

“I’ll let the doctor do his work,” Mom says to me as she heads for the door. “Thanks for coming over on Christmas Day, John, that was very kind of you.”

“It’s all part of the job, Melanie.”

Dr. John Whitstone then goes about doing the normal vitals-check, taking my blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate. He has me open and say “Ahh” as he peers into my throat.

“I’m guessing something viral, but let me ask, when was your last period?”

“Right before Thanksgiving, I think?” I grab for my phone and open the app that tracks my cycle. Peering at it, I realize I’m overdue by more than a week. “I’m late.”

He lowers his voice to ask, “Any chance you could be pregnant?”

I start to say no. But the word won’t come out because I know it wouldn’t be true. Tripp and I had sex twice. He came inside of me twice. And I am not on birth control.

“Your silence tells me all I need to know,” he says, digging in his bag. “Can you go pee in this cup, please?”

I nod, my cheeks hot as I blush furiously, my stomach fluttering, my heart racing. Oh my God, what if I’m pregnant?

A few minutes later I’m handing that little cup over to my pediatrician—the doctor who’s been treating me since I was born—so he can test for pregnancy. After assuring me that, as an adult, my results are privacy-protected, Dr. Whitstone tells me he’ll call me in an hour with the results.

And when that call comes, I know the answer before it’s out of his mouth.

“You are indeed pregnant, Lila.” The five word sentence rings in my ears.

Over and over and over again.

I pace around my room, wringing my hands, trying to get my breathing under control. I don’t want this. Not now. Maybe someday far into the future, but definitely not now. I’m in a great internship. I have school starting next fall. This should be prime career-building time for me. I cannot, repeat, CANNOT have a baby. And not with a man who feels women should be raising said baby at home instead of working outside it at a career typically reserved for a man.

My fingers hover over the keyboard on my phone, typing about four different texts to Tripp, all deleted. Finally, I just send two sentences. The words of which are not kind or even particularly accurate because I have nobody to blame for this but myself. But still, the message is delivered, and Tripp will have been informed of the news.

Lila: You knocked me up.

Lila: I’ll get rid of it.

The bubbles light up as if he’s typing, but they stay like that for a very long time. I mean, I can understand if he needs a moment to process. How do you respond to a text like that? Especially after last speaking to each other six weeks ago when you shared a night of wildly indulgent but very unprotected sex. And, oh, it’s Christmas. Merry Christmas, Tripp.

Tripp: Are you in Toronto?

Lila: Yes.

Tripp: Let’s talk

Lila: Not here.

Tripp: I’ll get us a suite at the Hilton

Tripp: Give me a half hour and I’ll meet you there in the lobby

Tripp: Will give us some privacy

Lila:

I sent a thumbs-up emoji, which looks ridiculous, like a clown thumb. I hate that stupid emoji, but it oddly represents pretty much how I feel right now.

I splash some water on my face and get dressed in clothes I don’t really pay attention to and attempt to sort my hair into some semblance of respectability so I can leave the house without the cops being called.

I tromp down the stairs without thinking I should be stealthy about it because if my mom hears me and realizes I’m about to go somewhere, she’s gonna want to know where and why and how. As mothers do. You know, answers to the understandably logical questions you ask your daughter when she’s leaving the house to go out at night on Christmas Day?—

“Where are you going, Lila Jayne?” she asks from behind me as my hand literally touches the front door.

Busted.

I turn around and lie to my mother’s concerned face like the psycho I am right now. “I know it’s late, but Cassie’s in town. She leaves in the morning, so I’m just running over to say hello. I was just going to call an Uber, so…”

Cassie is my best friend from high school. She actually is in town, and she really did ask me to come over. However, she’s operating as cover for now. My mom takes the bait, though I can tell she’s a little suspicious.

“But are you sure you’re feeling up to it? You were so sick earlier.”

“I feel better now, and we’re just going to catch up. I’ll be back in no time.”

She makes a slash with her hand and a “mom noise” that ends further discussion on the matter. “Take my car, please. I don’t want you in an Uber on Christmas. And be careful.”

Be careful refers to the car, not to my personal self. My mother drives a shiny, black Range Rover that probably costs more than my college education. It makes me nervous to drive it, so nervous that I’m shaking by the time I hand it over to the valet at the Hilton where Tripp will be waiting for me. Or maybe I’m shaking because I’m about to see Tripp for the first time since we did the thing that got us to this point right here.

And he’s there, waiting in the lobby for me, just like he said he would be. Looking just as tall, handsome, and strong as always. As Tripp Blackburn has always been, all my life. He spots me and rushes forward as I sort of forget how to walk and talk. But it’s okay because Tripp sweeps me into a warm hug, his face buried at my neck, my face plastered to his chest. I start to cry the moment his strong arms enfold me, but oddly feel a bit more tethered to the earth than I did before.

“Come on.” Taking charge, he puts his arm around me, leading me towards the elevator bank.

It feels like forever that it takes us to get up to the floor and down the long hallway to the suite. And it is a suite, with a lavishly appointed living space, a lit fireplace separating it from a full kitchen, and a separate bedroom with a view of the city.

“This is awfully fancy.”

He stares at me for a moment before he speaks. “I thought you might be feeling trapped right now. I figured more space would be better.”

My mouth falls open. How thoughtful , is in my brain, though it doesn’t come out of my mouth. Instead, my mouth says, “I don’t want a baby.”

Tripp gestures to the couch, and I go over to sit down, still in my coat. He sits down, too, maybe a foot away and angled toward me.

“I don’t want a baby,” I say again. “I have never really wanted kids. At least not for a long time. I want a career. I have plans to get my master’s degree. I can’t have this baby. I have plans.”

It’s verbal vomit, for sure, but Tripp just listens. When I finally calm down, he says just two words. “I understand.”

“Do you? Because it’s not you that has a baby growing inside of your body.”

“That’s fair,” he says softly, his lovely blue eyes so focused and steady.

It infuriates me. His calm. His rationality. “Have you ever even given a shit about anyone other than yourself?” I’m lashing out at him and it’s totally not fair, and I’m being a crazy bitch right now, but I have to make him understand?—

“I have, in fact.” He frowns and settles into the couch, leaning his head back and looking up at the ceiling.

This surprises me. In all of his years in the spotlight, I’ve never heard of him having a relationship with anyone. He’s not known as a ladies’ man, either. I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t that he might have had someone at some point.

“When I—I was in Nashville.” His voice catches a little, but he recovers quickly. “I was with someone. Christy. I was in love with her, and I thought we were heading down a path toward marriage and kids, but when I asked her to marry me, she told me she wasn’t ready. I asked why and it was similar, I guess, to you. She was in banking, and she had all these career aspirations. She had things she wanted to accomplish. So, we stayed together, but it was hard. I was traveling all the time during season, and we hardly saw each other. We spent like two years in this relationship vacuum, kind of going nowhere. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either. And then I found out she was seeing someone else, so I confronted her, and she cried and apologized and told me she wanted to be with me, that she was ready now. But it was a mess, you know? I wasn’t sure I could trust her, and I asked her to stop working and just come on the road with me so we could work on things. But she wouldn’t, so we ended it.”

“And you just never tried again?”

He lifts a shoulder. “I got my heart broken. And it showed me that modern relationships can’t work. Two people can’t be going in different directions. She wanted her independence and her career and she prioritized that over our relationship.”

“I mean, so did you, right?” I push. “You probably had millions in the bank by that point. Why couldn’t you quit your job and stay home if that was how you wanted things?”

He scoffs. “That’s not how these things work.”

“You mean, if two people in a heterosexual relationship decide that one person should work inside the home, it should always be the woman?”

“My mom stayed home with us and it was great,” he says. “That’s my lens.”

“Well, your lens is old-fashioned.”

“What if a woman wants to stay home and take care of her family? Is that old-fashioned too, Lila?”

“You make a good point. But the point I’m making is that there are all kinds of households these days and if a woman decides she wants to work inside the home, that’s her prerogative. It should not be dictated to her against her will or held against her by her partner if she wants more.”

“How is it that every conversation we have devolves into some feminist manifesto?” Tripp snaps back at me. “I’m here to talk to you. To support you. Not to be told that I’m out-of-touch or whatever.”

“I’m sorry, but I just find you confusing. In so many ways, you’ve represented this dream guy in my head. Since I was a teenager, you’ve been this gorgeous, successful, kind of mysterious guy. I used to write your name in my notebook and fantasize about you being my first kiss. I was this awkward teenager who was obsessed with hockey, crushing on the older, hot hockey player.”

“And I’m sorry to disappoint.” His eyes look sad and hurt.

I give him the smallest of smiles. “You didn’t. At least, not in the kissing arena. Not in the other things arena.”

“We did have some outstanding sexual chemistry,” he says wistfully, reaching out through the space between us, his fingertips grazing along the edge of my thigh for a brief moment before he pulls his hand back again. “But we are very different people with very different ideals.”

“And now…” I can’t even finish the sentence. I nearly choke, trying not to cry again.

“I’ll help you,” Tripp says quickly. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”

“My inclination is to not have this baby.” The words coming out of my mouth don’t feel as convincing as their meaning though.

“If that’s your choice, I’ll be there for you every step of the way. But I also want you to know I think you’d be a great mom. I mean, I know you’ve said you don’t want kids, and I respect that. I don’t really want kids either—mainly because I think I’d be a crap father. But you, Lila? You’d be a great mother because you’re good at everything you do.”

I meet his gaze and he’s so sincere that I nearly burst into tears for the nine-billionth time in an hour. He means it, all of it, and it melts my heart. Tripp has his moments. He can be caring and sweet and tender. He can also be infuriating and annoying. I loved every minute that we spent together in that hotel room—apart from the moment he walked out on me. But even then, I understand what held him back.

“I didn’t do this to trap you.”

“I know.”

“I mean it, Tripp. I seduced you and didn’t even think once about protection. I—fucked up and I’m sorry for all—for everything—it’s my fault.”

“I know you didn’t do this to trap me.” He reaches for my hand and holds it. “Lila, I didn’t even think about using a condom when we were together. I was lost to whatever magic was between us in that hotel room. It takes two to tango, as they say. This is on me, as much as it’s on you. And we’ll figure it out together. Okay?”

“I’m only twenty-three,” I say stupidly. “And neither of us wants kids, so…”

“So, we’ll get back to Vegas and make an appointment if that’s what you decide.”

“On the down-low, of course. Our devoutly Catholic families won’t be keen on our decision if they find out.” Annnd , the sound of those terrible words coming out of my mouth makes me feel even worse—if such a thing were possible.

“Agreed,” he says, scooting closer, putting his arm around my shoulders.

I lay my head on his strong, warm chest and just let go, allowing the tears to fall while Tripp holds me, letting myself cry it out, our decision somewhat made.

Even still, it feels like this story could yet be undone.