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“I’d forgotten how much it could hurt. I mean, my brain remembered but my heart didn’t. I just want to stop feeling the hurt…”
“Lauren, I’m coming over. Stay there. Okay?Don’tgo anywhere.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Lauren?” Augie had his phone pinned by his shoulder and was trying to drag on his jeans. “Promise me you’ll be there.”
“I’ll be here.”
“I’m leaving now.’
“Whatever.” She disconnected the call.
Augie scrounged up a t-shirt and didn’t even bother with socks before he jammed his feet into his sneakers. In the hall, he kept pressing the elevator down button over and over, as if that would make the doors open faster.
Outside, he hailed a cab and jumped in the back. Traffic was light but the trip still felt like it took forever. When they arrived, Augie literally threw the fare at the driver as he leaped out of the cab. He ignored the obscenity the cabbie hurled at his back and raced to the desk. Carlos, the night concierge, looked up in concerned surprise.
“Mr. Stone?”
“Lauren called me,” Augie said as he went right to the elevator. “She knows I’m coming.”
“Is everything alright?” Carlos asked.
Augie hesitated, not wanting to reveal too much, but not wanting to lie to the man outright. “Ah, guy trouble,” he finally said.
The gilded doors crawled closed, and the elevator made its leisurely ascent to the top floor. Augie paced back and forth and squeezed through the doors before they opened fully. Lauren’s apartment door was locked when he tried the knob.
“Lauren? Lauren!” He banged it with the flat of his hand. “Open up. It’s me!”
The lock clicked. With her red eyes and blotchy cheeks, Lauren looked like hell. For a moment her expression was blank, and then she threw herself into Augie’s arms. Tears gushed. Augie hugged her and ground his teeth. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of when he realized that Danny was back in her life.
“Okay. Let’s go inside.” He managed to untangle himself from Lauren. She headed back into the apartment, and he followed. Lauren went to the sofa and curled up in a corner, hugging a pillow close to her, a fistful of tissues in her free hand. For the next hour he let her cry and talk and yell—whatever she needed. After a time, the tears lessened.
“I love him so much,” she said. “And I’ve loved him for so long.”
“I know.” It felt like a meaningless platitude, but there was nothing else he could say.
She jerked her head up and looked at him. “What’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Of course, there is.” The tears started again, and her gaze wandered to the window. “There must be. Twice I’ve lost him. What about me isn’t enough?”
“You got it all wrong,” Augie said. “It isn’t that you’re not enough; you’re too much for him. You always have been. I know you love him, but you have to think about it.”
“I am thinking about it.”
He didn’t believe her.
“Sharing you with your fans the way he’d have to would blow his mind,” Augie said. “I know you don’t want to hear this. But one way or another, this relationship was going to end.”
Her face twisted, and she curled up tighter. He hated saying it while she was hurting so much, but it was the truth. It killed Augie to see her like that. Breaking up with Danny all those years ago had torn open a part of her heart and soul. Now Danny had ripped it open all over again, as raw and painful as it ever was before.
Augie wanted to beat him senseless.
A morose sigh slid out of Lauren. “I’m an idiot, Augie. A goddamn idiot. What made me think he would ever love me enough to come with me?”
Augie wanted to shake her and repeat what he’d said. Remind her thatDannywas the one who was lacking. Thathewas the one who wasn’t enough forher. But she would have to come to that conclusion herself. He couldn’t force her to see it.
