DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING.
CHAPTER FOURTY-EIGHTThe large manila envelope sat on my dining room table, opened, contents spread out for inspection. I had received the envelope two months after that wonderful night, the same day that Troy returned for a short visit while he took a break from recording. We'd spent just under four weeks apart… four sleepless, miserable, lonely, longing weeks… and didn't even make it up the stairs when he'd walked through that door. I had pulled an oversized t-shirt and a pair of panties on afterwards, picking up the discarded clothes to place them in the laundry. Troy was standing at my dining room table wearing his boxer briefs and pulling on a white button up shirt when he saw the papers.
"What's…this, Gabi?" he asked, giving them a once-over before turning to me, looking so damn sexy buttoning his shirt that I completely missed his question.
"Hmm?" I asked when he waved his hand to pull me out of my daze.
"This…these papers." He picked one up slightly, placing it back down, a frown crossing his face.
"It's a copy of the new lease," I said, knowing I wouldn't have lied to him anyhow.
"Yeah, I see that now."
Troy and I had many long talks when he'd stayed with me, about how wonderful it had been for us to have all that time together. He'd even stayed after I went back to work, helping out around the house…well, in his own way. As much as I love him, he's definitely not a neat freak. He would listen to my rants and raves about work, I'd listen to the beautiful music he was creating. When that dreaded call came and it was time for him to go, it was devastating. By the time he was walking out the door I was an absolute mess, and he wasn't much better. I was still taking intermittent gasps for air from crying so hard when he slammed the door and had begged me to go with him.
I couldn't.
I had obligations. I had my job, they were short-staffed as it was; my mother's estate was coming out of probate and many of her belongings had been left to me; Lisa and her husband had separated, and even with Troy there I'd done everything I could for her and didn't want to leave her at Shelly and Tracey's mercy; Taylor was still having a difficult pregnancy, and I had promised I'd be there for her at the drop of a hat if she needed me.
I just… couldn't.
The timing sucked.
We promised each other that when he came back on this break that we would talk about it, and I wasn't breaking my promise to him. The fact still remained that my lease was up for renewal, and crunch time was coming fast. So, the papers sat on my dining room table, places highlighted that I needed to pay closer attention to, and a short note beside them with Troy's arrival information.
"Troy…"
"We were ordering in, right?" he asked, turning away from the table, tousling his hair.
"Yes… did you want Chinese or pizza? Or, if you want, I could cook something." He shrugged in response, walking back into the living room and sitting on the far end of the couch. I watched as he silently, sullenly picked up the remote and turned on the TV, only a trace of a smile when he realized the channel was still on TV Land before he was frowning again. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
Have I mentioned that no one on this Earth sulks or seethes with anger the way this man does? The fucker even has the audacity to look sexy when he does either one of them.
"Alright, but this means you're at my mercy."
No response from him as I ordered the pizza, possibly because I was being nice and got the kind he liked, without even having to ask what it was. I pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge, opening them up and walking out to the living room. I handed him his and he took it without a thank you or even a glance, drinking a good third of it in one gulp.
"Are you angry with me?"
He sighed. Well, at least that was somewhat of a response.
"Troy, I asked…"
"No, I'm not…" His hands gestured as he continued, "…angry. I'm not angry."
"Then what's wrong?"
He looked over at me. "Gabi, what the hell have we been talking about every chance we get?"
"About us… about me moving out there."
"Right. To be with me." He pointed at the table. "So what the hell is that?"
"It's an unsigned lease."
"For here, this…" There his hands went again. "This apartment, across the entire fucking country…don't give me that look! Almost then, okay? Almost across the entire fucking country."
"We never came to any decisions."
"No, you never came to any decisions. You couldn't decide, Gabi. You."
"So on a whim, because all of a sudden you decide it's what we should do, I should drop everything?" I asked, my temper slowly rising to the surface. "We don't even know if…"
"What the hell do you think we were doing before?" he asked, his voice rising slightly. "What, because I didn't put in a change of address we weren't cohabitating? That's nice to know, Gabi, because I felt…"
He stopped suddenly, as he always did before saying something he thought he would regret. Beer still in hand he stood up and started pacing, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "It's funny," he continued. "I remember this one conversation we had, when you told me that when it was time for me to leave, you'd beg me to stay."
"I don't have the right to," I said softly. He stopped and looked at me then; no tears, but the hurt displayed all over his face.
"So…I don't… have the right to ask you to come with me, then? Is that what you're saying?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying."
"Then what is it?" he asked. "Is it… Lisa, or…or Taylor? Gabi, last time I checked they were adults, and they would be okay if you weren't here. I mean…shit, how many brothers and sisters do you have? And what about Kelsi, or… or Sharpay? Can't Taylor call on them?"
"Troy, that's not fair."
"Or is it the hospital? You're still working in the cardiac wing, aren't you?"
"Yes I am, you know I am."
"So what did they do all that time that you were out due to the accident?" Since I had no reply for that one, he continued, this time kneeling right in front of me. "Your parents are right here," he placed his hand over my beating heart. "Everyone else is just a phone call, or a plane ride, away."
"Troy…"
"How have you been these last few weeks?" he asked suddenly, taking my hands in his, those eyes a deep blue as his gaze held me captive.
"Miserable," I replied softly. His features softened slightly at my admission, but he had to already know that.
"I love you, Gabriella," he said, for about the thousandth time since he'd walked through my door an hour before. He smiled softly as his fingertips traced the outline of my lips. "So you can tell me I'm absolutely crazy," he continued, mirroring his words from that long ago message on my machine, "and I can say no…I'm just crazy about you."
"You don't fight fair."
His smile widened.
"Good," he said, standing up and finishing his beer. "Geez, woman, I realize you're a nurse and all, but the beer? Come on."
I know he wasn't in near as good of a mood as he was pretending, perhaps for my sake, to be. He pulled on a pair of pants as the pizza delivery person knocked on our door, and since I was still only in a t-shirt and panties Troy was nice enough to answer and pay…and throw in an autograph, of course. "Babe, your cover's blown. I didn't tell him not to say anything." Troy smiled at me as he brought in our dinner.
"My cover? What about yours?" He shrugged.
"I'm used to it. Scoot over, gimme the remote."
"Scoot…over…give you the remote? What the hell? I haven't said yes yet."
"Yet?" he asked, nudging me gently as he sat down, reaching over and prying the remote from my hand.
"Convince me," I said half jokingly. He sat there looking at me, his eyebrows doing that furrowing together that just drives me to the brink of insanity.
"Okay." The word was soft, but spoken in a way that caused a knot in my stomach. He set his plate and the remote on the table and walked over to his bag.
"What are you doing?" I asked with a giggle, almost expecting him to have some sort gag gift in there, something that I would find insanely funny to help laugh away all the tears I'd cried the entire time he'd been gone. Imagine my surprise when he pulled out a small wire bound notebook. Just as I was about to ask him what the hell he was doing bringing it back into my house, I realized this one was… different. Newer. Still beat up, but… but this one wasn't the same notebook I had flipped through looking for even the slightest mention of my name.
He sat beside me, staring at that book for a long while. "I took this with me, out on the road," he said softly, still staring at it. "It was where I kept… everything; my thoughts, some lyrics… anything that caught my attention that I thought I should store for later. That's what it was supposed to be for, anyhow, and it's not that…"
He sighed, glancing over at me, and when our eyes met he didn't look away. "I had one of these before, one that I wrote in during those lovely teenage angst-filled years." He flashed that half smile. "You knew that, though." One brief pause before he asked, "Jess told me you knew what was in it." For once my face didn't flair at the mention of her name. "I never did tell you why you weren't mentioned, did I?"
"No, you didn't."
"It would have been…awkward at best," he said softly, watching his fingers trace the outline of the notebook in his hand. "I was writing that whole notebook for her, to show her how everything I did, everything I said was about her." His fingers stopped and he looked at me. "But this… us… it wasn't about her. At all." He reached over pushing a stray curl out of my eyes.
"I was honest with you, Gabi. Completely honest with you. No, don't… don't feel guilty about all that shit, I understand," he stopped me from interrupting him. "Just… I'm just trying to, I don't know… explain. For the first time that I could remember, it… God, Gabi, it had nothing to do with Jess. It had to do with you. I wasn't with her at the time and…" He paused, biting his bottom lip slightly before continuing. "And when I was with you, I didn't want to be… with her." The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile and he shrugged. "That's it. Pretty simple, no big drama, no conspiracy."
"I never said there was, Dork," I replied, nudging him softly. "But what's… what's that?" I pointed at the notebook in his hand.
"This is mine," he said, still smiling. "So it wasn't written… to you." He gently placed it on my lap. "If you would like."
I curled up next to him on that couch and spent the next two hours asking him to hand me yet another tissue as I read. I had my head on his chest listening to the soothing rhythm of his heart when I reached the day after we had come face-to-face, the day after we had destroyed that hotel room. The first line ripped my fucking heart out.
'What have I done?'
Instead of an entry where he wished he'd never laid eyes or hands on me, here he was pouring his heart out to a sheet of paper. He wished he'd made me stay. He wanted to believe that I didn't get the messages. He had been so afraid of rejection… rejection?!… that he didn't want to repeat what his messages had said. His heart… his heart was breaking, and he didn't know how to fix it. He wanted to call but was afraid to. God… Everything… everything I had been feeling, the days of just going through the motions…
I read about how he'd move Heaven and Earth to be there after my mother died… and he had.
I read about… God, I read about how Jess had finally gotten in touch with him.
I read about his struggles to get to Vegas, actually laughing at his list of people that needed to die.
I read about…after…
How one day, shortly before we started talking again, he'd had lunch with Jess. How it was so hard for him to explain, how he didn't think she'd understand that he couldn't go back, he couldn't be with her…
Not when his heart belonged to me.
I couldn't finish, I couldn't read another line I was so emotionally drained. Troy hadn't said a word while I read; I'm not even sure he was watching me since he'd found a rerun of Family Jewels. He was softly playing with my curls and staring at the television when I put the journal down.
"Troy…"
"You're right, Gabi, it is completely selfish of me to just expect you to walk away from your life."
I wasn't expecting that.
With me stunned silent, he was able to continue without interruption. "This is your home, your life, your friends, your family. You wouldn't ask that of me and… it was presumptuous of me to think you'd be okay with just…" His voice trailed, his sentence unfinished as he stared at the TV screen.
"I'm sorry I made you angry," I said softly, my voice sounding odd due to my persistent crying.
"I wasn't angry, Gabi," he disagreed and kissed the top of my head.
"Then what were you?" I asked. He waited a moment before answering.
"Hurt."
I sat up slightly, reaching over and turning his face towards mine. "Hurt?"
"I thought you were running, or pushing me away, or…"
"I'm not, I swear I'm not."
"It's okay, Gabi." He smiled softly. "As long as you tell me we'll still have… this… it's okay."
"Why would you think that…" My tears started again and he gathered me up to him, my head once again resting against his chest.
"No more tears, please," he whispered, rocking me gently. "You're breaking my heart, Gabi."
"No…no, it's not like that."
"Let's…we'll… talk about it tomorrow, okay?" he asked. "Different day, different perspective. Deal?"
"Deal." I said, wiping my tears away. "Troy?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
We sat there curled up together in silence, flipping through different channels after that show was done, both of us deep in thought. God, was he right? Was I running? Was I pushing him away? And… what about all the things he had said? Were they just excuses I was making up to keep this distance?
Could I stand another four… possibly even more… weeks without… this? Without his arms around me? Would I be content with his voice on the telephone?
The clock on the wall read a resounding 12:01 am when I glanced at it.
It was officially… tomorrow.
"Troy?" I felt him jump slightly at the sound of my voice, we had been silent for so long.
"Yeah?"
"Could you make sure we're here when Taylor's baby's born?"
His arms tightened slightly around me as he took in a shaky breath. "Of course," he replied.
"I'll still get the right side of the bed?"
"Unless you're on top of me."
"Will you start putting that damn cap back on the toothpaste?"
"I don't know about that, Woman," he drew out his words. "I am the king of my castle, you know."
"Oh, whatever."
"Whatever?" He pulled back, looking down into my eyes. "Whatever? I won't tolerate such insolence from you."
"You and your fucking ten dollar words," I said with a roll of my eyes as I stood up. "Is that supposed to impress me?"
"It does impress you," he said matter-of-factly, following me as I headed towards the stairs. "You love a man who uses his brain. You find it…" He bounded quickly up the stairs behind me, his breath hot in my ear, "…sexy."
I shivered in spite of myself and he laughed before hooking one arm around me and carrying me up the rest of the stairs to the bedroom. "You… are taking entirely too long, Woman," he said as he placed me on the floor by the bed. "Take your damn clothes off."
"Take my… listen here, Bolton,"
"Mmmm, I love it when you talk to me that way," he teased, his hands under my shirt rubbing against my bare skin.
"Troy!" I said with a giggle. "Oh…" The last word was a breathless sigh as he began teasing my neck with his teeth and tongue.
"Damnit, Gabriella, you've got to stop doing that to me," he breathed in my ear.
"Not on your fucking life."
He cradled my face in his hands, his eyes serious once more.
"I love you, Gabriella."
I knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that was all I needed.
