Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3 - New Adult Romance)

by Helena Newbury

  “It’s nice,” I said. “Tasteful.” I was still reeling from the idea of her having something pierced. This was the girl who wasn’t even allowed a TV in her home, growing up.

  “We thought we should get something with the first check from the record company,” said Karen. “Something we’d always remember. And I can wear it under my dress when I’m playing with the orchestra and no one knows.”

  “You should have said,” I said without thinking. “I would have come with you to get it done.”

  Karen turned and smiled. “It’s okay. I was fine on my own.”

  It was just a throwaway comment. It shouldn’t have even registered but, for some reason, it bothered me. As they all trooped back to the table, I stood there in the restroom for a second, staring at the closing door. I felt like a mother watching her daughter grow up...too fast. Karen had always been the innocent one, the naive one, the one I needed to help and guide, even though she was a year older than us. And now….

  She didn’t need me anymore.

  Chapter 15

  Ryan

  Technically, I was on a leave of absence in order to be in the TV show. I wasn’t suspended, so in theory I could have just put on the uniform and pulled a shift, but Barnes had warned me that he didn’t want to see me on the streets. The only exception he made was if it was part of Jasmine’s training for the show. Filming didn’t start for several weeks, so there was no hurry. I could have just stayed in bed.

  And yet at 7am, I was at the gym, the same as any other morning. It was familiar, I guess, and enough cops went there that it was almost an extension of work. It let me pretend that nothing had changed.

  I slid weights onto a barbell—enough that I’d have to struggle. The anger was like an animal that needed feeding. What it really wanted was for me to hunt, to destroy...but, failing that, a good hard weights session kept it from boiling over completely.

  I was in sweatpants and a tank top, the old vinyl of the weights bench as comforting as a favorite armchair under my back. I heaved the bar up, feeling my muscles go hard as they took the strain. Lower. And lift.

  And immediately, she was right there in my mind. Jasmine.

  Lifting weights was my one escape from Hux. Something about pumping iron seemed to shut him up, leaving me blissfully alone for an hour. The anger retreated for a while and took him with it...but that meant I couldn’t help but focus on her.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  I grunted, muscles bunching as I lowered the bar to my chest and heaved it up again. I tried to focus on the move, but lifting weights doesn’t require a lot of brain power. My mind was flooded with her: her eyes, her skin, the bounce of her hair and the way she walked. I kept lifting, sweating freely now, my chest on fire, panting for air.

  It felt like I was swinging wildly back and forth between two extremes. One moment, I’d think about that look in her eyes when I’d pulled up alongside her a month ago. That tiny glimpse of something else...I couldn’t explain it. Like seeing the real person behind a mask. I’d seen it again for an instant in the screen test. She did like me….

  And then I’d think of all the awkwardness, every time I spoke to her. What if she just thought I was a jerk, and I wasn’t getting the message? What if I’d just ruined everything by hurling myself into the center of this TV thing? What if she hated me, and now she had to act with me?

  I heaved the bar up one last time and dropped it into its rests, panting. And immediately, Hux was back. You know what you have to do, he said.

  I made a decision, jumped up and stalked over to my locker before I could change my mind. My chest was still heaving as I gasped for air...

  There was a folded sheet of paper in my wallet that had been there since the winter. I smoothed it out against a wall and stared at it. A receipt from some music shop: sheet music by some guy called Shostakovich. And, over the top of the printed words, Karen’s handwriting. “Jasmine,” and a phone number.

  I dialed.

  Chapter 16

  Jasmine

  I was lying on my bed when my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “Hi.”

  Ryan. I sat bolt upright, the phone clutched to my ear. Shit! This was too soon. I had no idea how to play it. Push him away gently but firmly? Flirt a little, then pull the “we’ll be working together, so we shouldn’t get involved,” line? I should have rehearsed this! “Hi,” was all I could manage.

  There was silence for a few seconds. He sounded as if he was still getting his breath back, as if he’d been running or something.

  Running. Those powerful thighs pumping, his muscled ass firm under his shorts—

  I closed my eyes and took a breath. Focus. We needed to talk. We needed to work out where we stood. “We should get together,” I said, careful to keep my voice neutral.

  “I was thinking the same thing.” His voice was just as guarded as mine. “What if we did a ridealong?”

  “A ridealong? In a cop car?”

  “I could start getting you used to the way we do things. And we could talk.”

  In a cop car with a cop. Pretty much my worst nightmare, for most of my youth. But it would be private. We could say all the things we needed to. “Deal,” I said, and gave him my address.

  ***

  He pulled up an hour later and stood leaning against the car, arms folded. He dwarfed the car—it seemed like a miracle that he fit in it. And he looked so good in the uniform that my chest hurt.

  Ever since we first met, I’d had to look at him in little glances, in case it became obvious that I was looking. But now I could drink him in in big, hungry gulps. The pants that showed off his toned waist and firm ass. The navy blue shirt stretched tight over his broad pecs. I dragged my eyes up to his face and that was a mistake because then I was staring into those eyes, such a deep blue they almost matched his uniform, and so clear! It was as if I was falling into them. I was still holding the doorknob of my apartment building and it felt as if, if I let go, I’d fall right down the steps and into his arms. Arms that would wrap around me and—

  Stop it!

  That couldn’t happen. Nothing even remotely along those lines could happen. I had to keep my distance, somehow. But how?

  I hadn’t had long to change and no idea what was suitable to wear on a ridealong, so I’d opted for jeans and a Fenbrook sweatshirt—the least sexy thing I could think of. I’d kept my make-up to a minimum, too. Maybe if he saw me without the full Jasmine wardrobe and styling, he’d come to his senses. But the look he gave me as he held the car door open told me it hadn’t worked.

  I took a deep breath and climbed into the passenger seat.

  It wasn’t like being in a normal car. On the one hand, it was high tech—it looked like someone had bolted half the contents of an electronics store to the dashboard. On the other hand, it was primitive. Directly behind our seats, there was a metal grille to stop any prisoners in the back from attacking us. I tried to imagine being trapped back there, handcuffed, unable to open a door or even a window, and the panic started to rise inside me.

  I looked fixedly out of the side window, trying to focus on the outside world with all its space and air, and that’s when I noticed the third thing about being in a cop car: we weren’t part of the normal world anymore.

  There were two teenagers ambling along out there, arms swinging, heads bobbing to their music. But then, as they neared the car, everything changed. They stiffened up and stared straight ahead at the end of the street. As they passed, I could see the one nearest to me was breathing faster. I wasn’t so close I could see the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, but I knew it was happening...because I’d had that feeling myself. I’d been that teenager carrying a dime bag of weed or a boosted stereo. I’d existed in that world, the normal world, and now I was outside it.

  Being in the car was like being the scientist in the white coat, watching all the little rats scuttle around the maze. We got to sit in judgment
over them. We could ruin a life, just by calling someone over and checking their pockets. They were afraid of us, and rightly so.

  There were people out there who weren’t scared of the cops. They lived nice little lives in nice little houses with their nice little kids and they probably drove a minivan.

  I wasn’t one of them. I never had been. Cops, to me, had always been on the other side, and now I’d joined the enemy.

  I closed my eyes. I’m not Emma anymore, I told myself. I didn’t need to be scared. But I knew it wasn’t true. Jasmine was a thin veneer of respectability. If Ryan scratched the surface he’d find my real life underneath. If that happened, it’d be the end of the show, the end of my career...I might even wind up dead, if Ryan started digging and somehow alerted my dad to where I was. One thing I knew for sure: if I went back to being Emma, the memories would destroy me. I’d created Jasmine for a reason.

  I felt Ryan start up the car and pull out into traffic. When I opened my eyes, we were cruising along the street. I could see the reaction of the other drivers around us. I’ve never seen so many people suddenly follow the speed limit.

  “I figured we’d drive downtown,” Ryan said. “We’ll flip on the radio and you can hear some calls come in.”

  So this was the way it was going to be. Not a mention of what had happened during the screen test. I figured he was waiting for me to say something, to see how I wanted to play it.

  Which was a problem, because I still didn’t know. Ask him to back off? Tell him it would get too complicated? All while wanting him more than any man I’d ever known. I kept noticing things about him, and not just the obvious things, like the way the swell of his biceps filled out his shirt sleeves. Things like his neck: strong and solid. And the dark hair at the base of his scalp looked so soft…I wanted to wrap my arm around his neck and pull myself to him, my fingertips caressing those soft curls of hair, my breasts crushing against his chest—

  This was going to be impossible. Even his neck was sexy.

  I looked quickly away, searching for something safe to look at. I glanced at the footwell on Ryan’s side and, suddenly, I was frozen in my seat. There was a shotgun strapped there and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

  Ryan saw me looking. “What?”

  I was frozen. I heard the clu-click of the shotgun as it was pumped, echoing through the woods.

  “Jasmine?”

  I looked up into his worried face and—shit!—just for a second, it wasn’t Jasmine looking out through my eyes. It was a terrified, eighteen year-old girl.

  I took a deep breath, trying to slow my heart. I shook my head. “Nothing. Just, um...you know. Guns and stuff.” As if I’d never seen a gun before. As if I was a nice, normal person.

  I expected him to chuckle, or give me some speech about how civilians didn’t understand how much danger officers were in. But he just looked soberly at the shotgun, and then at the handgun in his holster. “Yeah. I know.”

  We lapsed into silence. We needed to clear up what was going on between us—whatever the hell it was—but, just as I opened my mouth, something fell into place. How come I was sitting in the front, not the back? Why was this seat free?

  Where was Hux?

  And then his reaction at the screen test and the way he’d looked at the guns all slotted together.

  “Ryan?” I asked in a small voice. “What happened to Hux?”

  I said the words slowly, expecting an explosion with each syllable, but none came. He just checked the mirrors and then calmly pulled over to the side of the road and switched the engine off. He sat there, hands on the steering wheel, staring out of the windshield for so long that I had to say something.

  “R—”

  “He’s dead.”

  I thought I was going to throw up. “What? WHAT?! How? When?”

  Ryan took a deep, shuddering breath in and I realized he was trying to control himself. I couldn’t tell if he was about to explode into anger or burst into tears. Maybe both. “He was shot. The day we talked to you outside Fenbrook.”

  He still wouldn’t look at me. I sat there staring at him in profile: lips pressed together, eyes distant. Reliving something, again and again.

  I knew how that felt. I’d been doing the same thing, only moments before. I’d been back in the woods. I put my hand on his wrist, skin on bare skin. Instantly, the muscles in his arm went rigid, his whole body reacting to my touch. His head snapped around to face me.

  I was staring into those eyes again, but now he was the one who was wide open. “Did they...did they catch him? They guy who did it?” I don’t even know why I asked. Did it really matter? But I just wanted there to be something on the other side of the balance. I’d barely known Hux, but I’d liked him. He’d been the comedian to Ryan’s straight guy, and just…nice. I couldn’t imagine him ever being cruel or evil to anyone. He was the kind of man I would have wanted as a dad, instead of the one I actually got.

  “Yeah. They found him. They found him within about five minutes. Within a block.” Ryan was smiling, but there was no humor in his voice. “He was still holding the gun. You believe that? He hadn’t even tossed it.” Ryan’s hands squeezed the wheel until his knuckles whitened, but his voice stayed light, almost singsong. “He confessed. And do you know why he did it?”

  I shook my head. My eyes were hot and I didn’t trust my voice.

  “He couldn’t find the key for the back door. See, he’d broken in through a side window to burgle the place and then we showed up. We hung around out front for a while, shootin’ the shit, assuming the burglar would be long gone. And the whole time, he’s in the living room peeking out of the blinds at us, freaking out because he’s about to be caught. Can’t go out the front. Can’t go out the way he came in because we’ll see him. Can’t break another window because we’ll hear it. Back door’s locked. So he’s running around the house, trying to find the key, but he can’t find it, and then”—he swallowed—”and then...Hux goes up and knocks on the door. And the guy panics and shoots him through the wood and runs.”

  He turned back to the windshield, but his eyes were distant. “And when I went in the house later, you know what I saw? The key for the back door, hanging on a hook right by it.” His voice was close to breaking. “The guy must have looked right at it like ten times and not seen it because he was panicking. Isn’t that funny?”

  I could feel big, hot tears threatening to spill. “Jesus.”

  Ryan took a deep breath. “So. That’s what happened.”

  I thought back to the screen test. How’s Hux? I’d asked merrily. I closed my eyes. “I’m such a bitch,” I whispered. “Ryan, I am so, so sorry.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” he told me. But that didn’t make it any better.

  ***

  He started driving again a few minutes later and I just sat there and watched him, letting the tears dry on my cheeks. I’d thought there’d been something different about him when I saw him at the screen test and now it made sense. God, he’d worked with Hux for years—hours and hours, every day, just the two of them in the car together. It must have been like losing a brother, or a father. He looked haunted...a little like Darrell had looked sometimes, when I’d first met him. Darrell had needed Nat to bring him out of himself, to start the healing process. Who did Ryan have? No one.

  …

  No. Don’t even start down that path. Jesus, as if I could help him anyway! I knew now what caused that deep, dark anger that lurked inside him, the anger I’d glimpsed at the screen test.

  I studied him as he drove. It’s not often you get to look at someone—really look at them—because they always sense you looking and turn around and meet your eyes. But Ryan was staring determinedly at the road—waiting, I suspected, until he trusted himself enough to speak again. Dark brows and dark lashes, accentuating those deep blue eyes. He’d let his hair grow a little longer, that clean-cut look now a little looser, a little more tousled, and the summer sun had lightened his hair t
o a dark brown. I wanted to run my fingers through it, staring into his eyes as I leaned in to—

  I caught myself. Get a grip! I still had to deal with this whole situation before it got any more out of control. Ryan was in pain and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him more...but the quicker and cleaner I could shut this thing down, the less painful it would be. I needed to be Jasmine more than I ever had. What would Jasmine do?

  She’d play dumb. She’d pretend she thought he was acting in the screen test.

  I was about ninety percent certain that he hadn’t been, but if I played dumb it allowed him a way out. He could take it all back and claim he’d been acting...or he could say he hadn’t been, and then I’d have to be shocked and maybe a little embarrassed and tell him how I didn’t feel that way about him. It would kill him, but it was the only way. I really hoped it didn’t come to that.

  “That was pretty amazing, in the screen test,” I said.

  I saw his hands clench on the steering wheel. He must have known it was coming, but maybe he’d been putting it off as long as possible. “Yeah,” he said. Then, “Thanks.”

  He was being just as guarded as I was. Feeling me out just as I was feeling him out. Well, alright then.

  “I didn’t know you could act like that,” I said.

  He looked across at me for a second. “I can’t.” His eyes were burning in their intensity.

  Shit!

  But then I saw the battle in his eyes, and he wavered. “I mean: I can’t normally. But with you...I had a good partner.”

  I nodded. Okay. Whew. So I’d been right: it had been for real. But he’d realized it was a mistake and was backing off from it. Thank God. Now we could go forward, and everything would be fine.

  Except...there was a part of me that wasn’t happy with that. A part that had been sent reeling when he first said I can’t. It had felt like my heart had grown lighter, somehow, like it had lifted, and it was a long, long time since I’d felt something like that. I wanted to feel it again.