Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (39 page)

I had no clue what to wear. Part of me wanted to go for a full-on seduction outfit—wow him with some cleavage and dive for the bed before we’d even finished eating. Every time I thought of him, I wanted him. Filming the love scene had left me aching for him. But another part of me wanted to explore this strange new world of
dating. Not
having sex with a guy, not feeling under that pressure to...that was something I hadn’t experienced since Chicago, and my first few boyfriends. Before the really bad times started and no one wanted or dared to be near me. I wanted him...but I didn’t want to have sex with him so early in our relationship. I wanted it to be perfect, when it happened.

In the end, I went for black leggings and a soft, imitation-angora sweater in snow white, with some strappy silver sandals. There was zero skin on show and I straightened my hair and went light on the make-up. It was demure, for Jasmine.

Ryan lived in Brooklyn, in an area that had once been all graffiti and gangs and now was rapidly turning into farmers’ markets and Priuses. I pressed the button for his apartment, expecting him to buzz me up, but he told me
one sec!
A moment later, I heard running footsteps and then he was swinging the front door wide.

I blinked. “You didn’t have to come all the way down!”

He was panting and grinning. “No problem.”

It was a tiny thing, but I was so unused to a guy being chivalrous that I went mushy inside. He was wearing black jeans and a soft blue shirt that brought out his eyes. He was also...
big.
God, he practically filled the doorway with his height and those shoulders. I want mushy in a whole different way.

I realized his eyes were gleaming as he looked at me.
What?
I wasn’t even in seduction mode. It was just leggings and a sweater.

“You look incredible,” he said. And he said it with such honest enthusiasm that there was no doubting that he meant it. I felt myself flush.

“You too,” I said, one eyebrow raised, turning it into a joke to hide my embarrassment. But the truth was, he
did
look incredible. And, when he turned around to lead me up the stairs, his ass in those tight jeans teased me all the way up to the fourth floor, strong and luscious and hard as rock.

I was enjoying this
actually dating
thing, after three years of one night stands. But I was starting to wonder if I’d make it through the date without pouncing on him.

His apartment reminded me of mine: a few cracks in the plaster, air conditioning that
nearly
worked and a thick, heavy door. Not a bad place to live. But clearly, beat cops at Ryan’s level didn’t make much.

The difference between our two places was that I’d gone to great lengths to hide my walls. I’d stapled green fabric all over them; he’d just left the cracked plaster on show. He didn’t feel the need to lie about his situation as I did.

Tonight, though, he’d made an effort. He’d turned off the lights and lit about a billion candles around the place. Everything was lit up in a warm, flickering glow and the fact he’d done this
for me
made it more romantic than any five star hotel. “It’s lovely,” I said, and meant it.

He turned around and looked at me. Between the candlelight and those blue eyes shining in the darkness and that body, my heart went into overdrive. I felt nervous and skittish, not at all like the coolly seductive Jasmine.
Is this what it feels like, when you’re not putting on an act?

I had to say something or I was going to just hurl myself into his arms. And I didn’t want that. I wanted to enjoy tonight, to experience being a real couple on a real date, where sex might or might not happen. “So your dad still lives around here?”

He nodded, never breaking eye contact with me. “A few blocks away.”

“He’s a cop, too?”

“Was a cop. Right here in Brooklyn. He even tried to get me into his old precinct, when I graduated from the academy, but I wanted to make my own way, you know?”

I nodded, but I had to think of Karen and her famous musician dad to really understand. One thing I’d never had to worry about was living up to a parent’s expectations.

“I live around here so I can keep an eye on him. Although it’s really him keeping an eye on everyone else. He still walks his old beat, even though he’s retired. Everyone in the neighborhood knows him.” Ryan shook his head ruefully. “Still insists on carrying a gun, too.”

He put on some low, soft music and showed me to where he’d laid a table in the kitchen. “Is this cool?” he asked. “I have to stir a couple of things, so if you sit here, I can talk to you.”

I nodded dumbly. Cooking. He was cooking for me, actually chopping things and peeling things and—God, that was a recipe book over there! None of the guys I’d ever dated as Jasmine had cooked...or, at least, they’d never done it for me. Maybe they’d saved it for the women they really cared about. The ones they were serious about marrying, or taking to meet their folks.

He brought me over a glass of wine. And then he brought out a small, gift-wrapped box. “I bought you something,” he said.

I was so surprised I actually put a hand to my mouth. I looked up at him. “I didn’t get you anything!” I squeaked. Was this a
thing?
Did people buy each other gifts on their second date? It had been so long since I dated like this that I had no idea.

He shook his head to dismiss my concerns and offered the box again. I took it with shaking hands and tore off the purple gift wrap. Inside was a black, velvet jewelry box and inside that….

It was a necklace. A simple pendant made of onyx, the candlelight reflected in its gleaming blackness. Aged, dark silver surrounded it.

“It wasn’t expensive or anything,” Ryan said quickly. “I just…” He gave me a goofy smile. “I dunno, this’ll sound weird. But....the morning after I met you for the first time, in the alley, Hux and I got a call. Some store had been hit by a gang of shoplifters—organized, professional, the kind who’ll work through the whole street. So Hux and I were going door to door, warning people to be on the lookout, asking if they’d seen anything, that kind of thing. And there was this old place selling vintage stuff—looked on the verge of closing down, I think I was the only person who’d been in there that day. And right in the window was this necklace, and I saw it and I thought of you. But that was crazy, because I’d only just met you. And
you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you,” I said quietly. “I just acted like I did.”

“Anyway, time goes on, I run into Karen walking through a bad neighborhood with that damn cello of hers and Hux and I give her a ride. I get your phone number out of her, but I’m too dumb to call. But later that day, we’re cruising past that same store and I see the necklace again, winking at me from the window. And before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve gone in and bought it. I don’t even know why. I didn’t call you. I didn’t ask you out. I knew I wasn’t on your level—”

“You were!”

“But anyway, I shove it in my pocket with some crazy idea of giving it to you. Not long after that, we hear there’s a fight going on in Flicker, so we head over there and pull Connor off some Harvard piece of shit. And you’re there again. And I have this thing right in my pocket. And I talk to Karen and she asks why I hadn’t called you, and I tell her: cop and actress. Different circles, you know?”

I could feel my eyes welling up, now. We’d missed each other. We’d missed each other so many times.

“So I tell myself to forget about you, but I can’t. I wind up cruising past Fenbrook every chance I get, with Hux telling me to ask you out and this thing burning a hole in my pocket. And then Hux got shot—” His voice broke. “And then....I took it out of my pocket and I put it in a drawer at home.”

I grabbed his hands. He pulled me up out of my chair and touched his forehead to mine.

“I didn’t think we’d ever be together. I didn’t think you’d want someone like me anyway, and then after Hux I was too damn broken to be anything to anyone. But then I saw you again at the screen test and my whole life felt like it restarted. Turn around.”

I turned my back to him and lifted my hair out of the way. I wasn’t quite crying, but the tears were heavy in my eyes, threatening to spill. I felt his huge hands on my shoulders, then on the soft skin of my neck. The pendant settled onto my chest, heavy and somehow very solid, as if it possessed a weight beyond its size. I felt him do up the clasp, but his hands didn’t move away. They stayed resting on my shoulders, his thumbs on the back of my neck.

“I’m in love with you,” he said. “I have been since I bought you this.”

He gently turned me around. My eyes were brimming pools, now. “I’m in love with you, too,” I managed, and then hurled myself into his arms. He crushed me against his chest, wrapping himself around me, and I laughed and cried and left dark smears of mascara on his shirt.

***

In his bathroom, I repaired the damage to my make-up and then took a look at myself wearing the pendant.

I loved it. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

And wrong.

Utterly wrong.

It wasn’t retro in the fun, light, kitschy way that Jasmine favored. It was dark and heavy and sort of brooding, almost gothy. It wasn’t Jasmine at all.

It was Emma.

He’d bought the perfect gift for Emma, back when he met me as Jasmine. What the hell did that mean?

***

We talked as he cooked. Occasionally, he’d let me stir something but, most of the time, he was adamant that I stay in my seat and let him do all the work.

We talked about Fenbrook (harder work than it looked) police academy (not like the movies) and donuts (Dunkin’ preferred, Krispy Kreme allowable). He told me about growing up in Brooklyn which was great, but that led onto me and my life in Chicago and I needed to quickly swerve us onto safer ground.

I thought desperately as he served the first course: French onion soup, deep brown and fragrant, with a crunchy hunk of toasted baguette dripping cheese into it.

Ghosts. That was light enough and stupid enough.

“Karen thinks Fenbrook might be haunted,” I lied as he sat down.

He blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” My brain was working overtime. “By a dead ballerina. She was secretly having sex with her teacher—”

“Karen
was secretly having sex with—”

“No! The dead ballerina. I mean, when she was alive, she was secretly having sex with her teacher. But they got caught, and so they couldn’t see each other anymore, and so, um, she killed herself.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” I tried to think of a convincing way a ballerina could kill herself. “Threw herself right off the staircase on the top floor and went all the way to the bottom. Broke her neck.” I leaned forward, getting into it, now. “They say that you can still hear her crying, if you’re practicing alone at Fenbrook, late at night. And that’s what Karen does all the time.” I’d let my eyes go wide and frightened, but inside I was feeling very pleased with myself.

“Wow. You believe that?”

No. I made it up.
“I don’t know. Do you? Have you ever seen anything like that? A ghost?” I guess I should have felt bad about lying, but it came so easily to me that I didn’t even think about it. If you lie often enough and hard enough then, eventually, it becomes as easy as telling the truth, as easy as breathing. That’s the secret to making it convincing: you have to not even realize you’re lying.

And anyway, it was just a stupid ghost story to get him off the subject of Chicago. What harm could it do?

“No,” he said slowly. “I’ve never seen anything. But—”

I smiled encouragingly. “What? You’ve heard something? Go on.”

He looked at me very seriously. Why was he suddenly so serious?

“Hux,” he said.

I could feel my face going pale. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
What had I done?!

“Okay,” I said slowly.

He shook his head. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

I put my hand on his. “No! No, not at all. Go on.”

He watched me carefully, looking for any sign that I was laughing at him. I wasn’t. I couldn’t have been further from that. Inside, I was screaming at myself in fury. Why had I had to lie to him? Why had I had to pick
ghosts?!
God, I was an idiot!

“I hear him. Sometimes. It’s like he’s there.”

I nodded slowly.

There was something deeply unsettling about the way he said it. He was embarrassed—clearly, he thought he was cracking up. But he was so serious, so sure about what he was saying….

The table we were at sat four. Ryan and I were facing each other across it, leaving two empty sides of the square. I could feel my exposed skin growing cold and, suddenly, I didn’t want to glance across at either of the empty spaces. “Is he...here now?”

Ryan shook his head. “It’s mostly in the car. When I’m doing cop stuff. When he’d normally be there, if he hadn’t—Anyway, he’s with me. Watching. Commenting. Drives me
nuts.”
He sighed. “Or maybe I’m already nuts. I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You’re the first person I’ve told.”