The Husband Hour(56)
She felt desperate to hold on to him.
That winter break, Lauren didn’t go with her family to visit her grandparents in Florida. Her decision to stay home sparked the first real argument she ever had with her parents.
“Your grandmother will be so disappointed!” her mother said. Lauren knew this and felt guilty, but her pangs of conscience were nothing compared to her desperate need to cling to Rory.
Two nights before Christmas, her first of total freedom, Lauren and Rory went out for Chinese food in Ardmore, saw a movie, and then returned to her house.
When the place was empty, they typically hooked up on the couch. But that night, she suggested they go up to her room. Rory knew her well enough to understand what the change in scenery signaled. When the two of them were stretched out side by side on top of her lavender Pottery Barn comforter, he propped himself up on one elbow and gazed at her. “Are you sure?” he said, scooping one arm around her, pulling her close. She nodded. And in that moment, it felt right. In that moment, she could almost imagine they would never be apart.
Afterward, they stood barefoot in the kitchen eating leftover Chinese and ice cream. She felt giddy, high, on drugs. He couldn’t stay over—his mother would know something was up. When she was alone, she huddled underneath her covers, the bed still smelling like him. All of her anxiety lifted. She had never felt more certain of them, or of their future together.
First thing in the morning, he called. She smiled at the sound of his voice, sitting up in bed, her room taking on new meaning as the place where she had become his in every way. Nothing would ever change that.
“Lauren, it happened,” he said. He sounded so excited. Yes, she thought—it happened. They’d slept together. And then he said, “I got the hockey scholarship. I’m going to Harvard.”
“Rory, I’m so happy for you,” she said automatically.
It was the first time, but certainly not the last, she felt she’d lost him.
In the kitchen, Lauren looked at Neil. “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I’m tired. You’ll have to excuse me.”
Matt shouldn’t have been at Robert’s Place drinking, but he was so consumed with editing, so mired in the film, he knew he wouldn’t sleep if he didn’t find a way to bring himself down a few notches. And he was still freaked out from Craig’s call about the other Rory Kincaid movie in the works. At least Lauren shared his concern; maybe it would be the nudge she needed to trust him. The lesser of two evils.
He nursed a beer, watching the Phillies game on the screen at the end of the bar closest to the door. If he wasn’t consciously waiting for Stephanie to show up, he certainly wasn’t surprised when she did.
“Howdy, stranger,” she said, sliding onto the stool next to him.
“Where’s your new boyfriend?” he asked.
She snorted. “Oh, he’s probably busy setting a wedding date with my sister.” She waved Desiree over and ordered a shot of tequila.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
She downed her shot. “Let me set the scene for you: I spent the first half of this night banned from the house because Neil was invited over for dinner with Lauren.”
Matt felt an inexplicable pang, a decidedly negative rush of emotion.
“Lauren is dating that guy?”
Stephanie called for more tequila, downed shot number two, and shook her head. “My parents wish. No, she’s not dating him. She was probably miserable tonight. But it’s always about her. Always, always. See, my parents think I’m not good enough for Neil, but the truth is, guys like me.”
“I’m sure they do.”
She glared at him. “They like me more than her. Even Rory liked me.”
“What do you mean, he liked you?”
“Buy me a drink, and maybe I’ll fill you in.”
Matt, his storytelling nerve twitching, flagged Desiree. Stephanie ordered a Tito’s on the rocks.
“Make it two,” he said.
Chapter Thirty
Lauren could hear her mother in the kitchen doing dishes. Her father’s and Neil’s voices carried up from the living room. She locked her bedroom door.
She opened her closet. The pile of boxes took up all the floor space and obscured some of her clothes. Not sure what she was looking for, she pulled the top box down. It was unwieldy and she lost control of it, so it landed with a thud. She froze, hoping the noise wouldn’t summon her mother. A few seconds passed, and she felt safe enough to start cutting through the tape of the box marked Rory/LA/Press Clips.
The first thing she found inside was a copy of the LA Times from May of 2011. The LA Kings had made the playoffs for the second consecutive year, this after a seven-year playoff drought. But by that point, Rory was in a drought of his own. He suffered a streak of games with no points. Lauren tried to help him put it in perspective: No one expected him to be the star of the team. The Kings were doing great—wasn’t that the important thing? Everything she said seemed to make him feel worse.
It had been so tempting to look for outside help, for outside answers.
She called Emerson, a move that would prove to be a tragic mistake.
“I’m worried about him,” she told Emerson. “Maybe you can talk to him?”
Emerson came to visit the first week in May. The second night he was there, something happened to take everyone’s mind off hockey: the U.S. military killed Osama bin Laden.