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

by Helena Newbury

  Sometimes, the cruelest thing someone can do is to offer help—because then you realize how much you need it.

  I could feel my defenses coming down. He had a maddening way of just deflecting the flurry of stuff I threw at him—flirting, teasing, anger—until there was nothing left but just me, bare-faced and vulnerable. I started to say something and was horrified to find myself choking up. What?! Tears? Tears, now? God, what was happening to me?! I’d held it together just fine, bar one or two slips, my entire time at Fenbrook. Yet suddenly, with Ryan around...it no longer worked.

  I took a couple of deep breaths. “I’m fine,” I said, in a voice that said I wasn’t. “I need to just—just—” Time. I just need time. Time to get my head straight. I was staring at the floor, trying desperately not to cry. I could feel Ryan getting closer and closer, leaning over me, and any second the first hot tear would tumble to the floor and then he’d pull me into his arms and I was fragile enough that I knew Jasmine was going to shatter into a million pieces, exposing what was beneath.

  “A SHOWER!” I said, my head snapping up. I did a huge grin, and hoped it looked as if my eyes were shining with excitement. “A shower. There are showers here, right? For cops? I need a shower. I kind of ran over here. I’m all….”

  Ryan was suddenly very close to me and the attraction hit me like a sledgehammer, able to smack me right where I lived now that I was exposed. I could feel the heat of his body radiating out and mine meeting it, our warmth throbbing into one another. His t-shirt was stretched tight over his pecs, a solid wall of strong muscle I just wanted to crush myself against.

  “...sweaty,” I said weakly.

  Ryan stared at me. “Yeah. There are showers.”

  ***

  I made it to the locker room, leaned back against the door and let out a long breath. This whole thing was completely out of control. Ryan was getting dangerously close to me, in a way no one else ever had. I had to figure out some way of shoring up my defenses, some new strategy for being around him, or it was all going to go horribly wrong.

  Someone yelled something about double shifts, and there was a collective groan.

  For the first time, I focused on where I was.

  It wasn’t so different to a locker room at a gym, except with full-size, gray metal lockers, a dirtier floor and more cursing. The women padding around half-dressed or wrapped in towels weren’t so different from the ones at a gym, either, I guessed (I couldn’t afford a gym, so I was basing this on my one guest-pass day at Clarissa’s). It was only when I saw one put on her uniform jacket and check herself in the mirror that it hit me that they were all cops.

  I was surrounded by cops. I was deep in the enemy’s inner sanctum.

  Just act normal. They think you’re an actress.

  What if they don’t? What if they can smell it on me?

  Don’t be stupid.

  A dark-haired, Hispanic woman who was shorter than me, slighter than me, more naked than me and yet somehow twenty thousand times more intimidating than me stepped forward. “You lost?”

  I started to reply, but she didn’t give me time.

  “You’re that actress, right? You’re partnered up with Ryan?” There was something about the way she said partnered up that made me jumpy.

  “Yeah.” Do Jasmine! I straightened up a little. “Yeah! Jasmine. Hi! I was wondering if I could take a shower?”

  “You want the full experience, huh? Be just like us?” She looked down at my jeans and t-shirt, my sneakers. Not all of them were in uniform. Some of them were still in civilian clothes, or changing back into them. But they still all looked...different. Serious. Grown-up. They had proper jobs, doing something important, and not being paid all that well for it. In their eyes, I was some idiot who pranced around in front of a camera for millions of dollars (people always think actors earn millions of dollars. Or that we’re broke. Never anything in between).

  At least, I assumed that’s what their problem was. I nodded and tried to look innocent.

  “You can put your stuff in Taylor’s old locker,” the woman told me, and pointed me toward a locker that didn’t have a name on it.

  “Jesus, Martina—” someone behind her muttered.

  “What?” The dark-haired woman—Martina, apparently—spun around and glared at the woman who’d challenged her. “What difference does it make?”

  The other woman muttered something and went quiet.

  Very slowly, I shed my clothes and hung them up in the empty locker. I could feel about ten pairs of eyes burning into my back. “Did she leave?” I asked, trying to make conversation. “Did she quit? Is that why her locker’s empty?”

  Martina shook her head and gave me a wretched look. My heart plummeted into the floor. I’d read a news story about a cop being stabbed a few weeks back, but—

  But what? But it didn’t seem important? But you stopped paying attention as soon as you’d verified it wasn’t Ryan?

  I swallowed. “Sorry,” I said, and gave her a deep nod of respect. Then, not knowing what else to say, I shuffled over the cold tiles to the showers, pulled the curtain across and turned on the water. As soon as the spray started, I leaned my forehead against the wall. You moron.

  I thought I understood, then. I thought they were hostile because I was just playing a role, pretending to be a cop when they had to be out there on the streets day in, day out, putting their lives on the line. But I’d got it wrong again. Oh, everything I’d guessed was true. They probably did think I was silly and giggly. They probably did think I was overpaid—which would have been funny, any other time. They definitely thought I didn’t know I’d been born...even though I’d likely had a gun pointed at me more times than they had. But they had a much bigger reason to be suspicious.

  I realized I hadn’t brought a towel. I stood there dripping for a few moments before I ducked my head out around the curtain and saw four female cops, including Martina, all staring back at me. Martina had a towel in her hand.

  “So,” she said. “Ryan.”

  Oh!

  “We’re just—” I stopped myself. What? Friends? Were we? If I kept pushing him away—and I had to—he’d probably wind up hating me, soon. “Working together,” I finished lamely.

  Martina glanced at her friends. “Really? Because he won’t stop talkin’ about you. Ever since he thought you were a hooker.”

  I flushed, even though she hadn’t said it unkindly.

  “And he’s going to have to snuggle up to you on TV, right?” she asked. “Kissin’ an’ stuff?”

  I nodded.

  “He stopped dating cops,” she told me. “But since Hux, he doesn’t date at all.”

  “You’re the first woman he’s shown an interest in,” said another—an intimidatingly tall, blonde woman.

  I stood there naked, the curtain clinging to my dripping body like a second skin. “Um.”

  Martina stepped forward. “He ain’t been the same, since it happened. Angry. Hurt. We wouldn’t want to see him get hurt again.”

  She looked me right in the eye. He stopped dating cops, she’d said. So he used to. And I had a pretty good idea which cop he’d dated last.

  I swallowed. “I’m not going to break his heart,” I said. “I’m not going to date him.” I tried to say it as if it was a ridiculous idea, but it didn’t come out like that. It came out almost sad.

  They all looked at one another, then back at me. At last, Martina threw me the towel. “Date him, don’t date him,” she said, her voice softening. “But don’t fuck him up. He’s a good guy.”

  They weren’t the enemy at all. These women were just like me—jealous when someone dated their friend or ex, worried when he was hurting. They just wanted to see him happy.

  And, whatever I did, I was going to wind up breaking his heart.

  ***

  Ryan was waiting for me across the hall from the locker room, arms crossed, that same look of suspicion on his face. I’d gone in there to buy myself some time to get m
y head together. But thanks to the intervention of the women—including Martina, who I was fairly sure was his ex—I had a whole new problem. Some tiny, traitorous part of me was starting to think…what if?

  It was something to do with their assumption. The way the female cops had confronted me just as the Fenbrook Girls would confront some guy who was on the verge of dating one of our own. They thought Ryan and I had a chance together, or they wouldn’t have bothered. And if they thought we had a chance…

  I dug my nails into my palms. Yeah, right. I could date Ryan. And then we could have a perfect life, far away from Chicago, the smiling little couple atop a wedding cake.

  And then my past would come crashing down like a baseball bat, smashing everything we’d built up. Sooner or later, he’d discover the truth. Sooner or later, my dad would find me.

  I actually wasn’t sure which of those two scared me more.

  The more of a life I built up, the more there was to lose. If I stayed as I was: single and isolated, keeping even my friends at a distance thanks to a shell they didn’t know was a shell, I couldn’t be hurt. I’d survive.

  But the thing about surviving is: you can only do it for so long.

  I think that’s why it came out of my mouth. In my head, I was going to make some wisecrack about the showers, but the sight of Ryan was making my heart futz and crackle, and it suddenly lashed out with one long spark and connected with my mouth. And I said, “Do you want to come over tomorrow night?”

  We stared at each other. He looked as surprised as I felt.

  “To run lines,” I said quickly. “I mean, I could cook something as well. If you want.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. I could understand his confusion. One minute I was pushing him away, the next I was...what was I doing, exactly?

  “I’d like that,” he said, and stepped closer, smiling. Suddenly, it was difficult to breathe.

  “Okay,” I said. “Eight. No, seven. Tomorrow. Bring your script. Okay? Okay.” And I turned and walked away, not looking back. It’s not a date, I told myself sharply. It’s nothing like a date. I’ll make that very clear.

  “It’s a date,” said Ryan behind me. I almost tripped over my own feet, then walked on.

  ***

  The next morning, as I sat staring at the TV without seeing it, Nick arrived.

  As soon as I saw the backpack, I knew this was it: he was expecting to move in. My own fault for not specifying a date. And, really, what did it matter? He handed over the money, just as he’d promised, and I could feel my finances go from flashing red: warning, warning, danger! to somewhere in the yellow.

  But the rolls of bills felt weird in my hand. The tight little cylinders took me straight back to Chicago: I actually turned them over to see if there was blood on them, before I could stop myself.

  He’s not dad, I told myself. He’d said he was clean, and he’d obviously done okay for himself, to survive in New York for over a year and to show up with a healthy wad of cash. Hell, he was the one saving me from eviction.

  I showed him the apartment, dug him out some blankets for the couch, and made coffee. And then we sat there and tried to be normal. If we’d been from any other family, we would have discussed our old school or who’d got married or divorced since I left, or how dad was. Instead, we talked about New York. Bars, diners, movie theaters, and a couple of clubs he went to. As if we’d never lived anywhere else. As if our lives only started when we entered the city limits.

  It hit me that he was going to be there when Ryan showed up, that night, and for a moment that worried me. Then it comforted me—if Nick was there, it would be almost like having a mood-killing chaperone, and God knows I needed to kill the mood stone dead and make sure things didn’t get out of control. And then it worried me again, because what if Nick let something slip? Letting Ryan and Nick meet was like bringing matter and antimatter together.

  And then I realized that I was going to have to tell Nick that a cop was coming over, and despite everything, despite how far I’d run from Chicago, it still felt like I was betraying my family. I saw his eyes widen in shock when I said it. He leaned right forward on the couch, staring at me—maybe wondering how the hell I’d changed so much, since the days he knew me. But to give him credit, he eventually just nodded soberly and said he’d cook for us.

  “You can cook, now?” I asked, amazed. Back in Chicago, he’d lived on franks and beans from a can.

  “A lot’s changed,” he said. He smiled, but his eyes were sad, as if he wished that even more had.

  Chapter 28

  Ryan

  You notice things, as a cop. Like paint peeling on a door.

  Jasmine’s building wasn’t the worst place to live. Far from it. The lights in the hallway worked and the landlord seemed to keep it mostly roach-free. But it was a thin veneer of quality over what was basically a cheap apartment block. The apartments, judging from how far apart the doors were spaced, would be small. The walls would be thin.

  I could just about get my head around a Fenbrook student living there, if they were on some sort of scholarship or something to pay the tuition fees. Not everyone at Fenbrook came from a wealthy background—Connor, for example, was there on a scholarship. But Jasmine? From her accent and her confidence, I’d assumed she had well-off parents, just like Clarissa and Karen. Yet this was a place for someone who was barely scraping by. Something wasn’t right.

  I raised my hand to knock. In my other hand, I clutched the bottle of wine. I knew about as much about wine as I knew about nuclear physics, but the guy in the shop had said it was good stuff, and wine was a good thing to bring on a date. It was what I’d used to do when I dated Martina, and that was only...what? I worked it out in my head.

  A year ago. It had been a year since I’d been on a date. I winced.

  A few months after Martina and I broke up, I’d met Jasmine in the alley. After that, I just hadn’t been interested in anyone else. I told people on the force that I didn’t want to date cops anymore and let them assume I was meeting women elsewhere, but the truth was, I hadn’t dated anyone. Then, before I could work up the guts to ask Jasmine out, Hux had died and I’d stopped thinking about women altogether. That’s why it had been such a shock, when I’d seen her at the screen test. It had been like waking up from a coma.

  And now we were going on a date. An actual date. With wine.

  Don’t fuck this up, said Hux.

  I knocked.

  A moment later, when she opened the door, it was like the world went from black and white to color. The copper of her hair, the way her purple top pulled and stretched around her chest as she swung the door wide...even the smell of her. Especially the smell of her, that scent she wore, like the way flowers smell when the sun is hitting them and bees are buzzing lazily around. The apartment was lit up behind her, all vivid colors and weird, ornate shapes, totally different to my own sparse apartment. And yet, weirdly, it was like coming home. I could even smell cooking: oriental spices and the scent of frying meat. My mouth started to water.

  “Welcome!” said Jasmine. She had that chirpy, bouncy tone in her voice again. Jasmine Jasmine, not normal Jasmine. And not the Jasmine I’d glimpsed a few times, the one who was scared and hurting.

  Okay. After the gym and the gun range, I wasn’t going to push. That didn’t mean I didn’t want answers—I could feel the curiosity itching away inside me. I couldn’t bear to think of her hurting and me not helping. Sooner or later, I was going to have to ask. But not tonight.

  I drank her in. I wanted to burn her into my memory so that I could carry her with me until next time. Her hair was loose and fell down her back in long curling layers, like the women in those old oil paintings you see. Her eyes were sparkling and joyous, like a kid on Christmas morning, as deeply green as some lush, British forest. Or maybe an Irish meadow. She looked very Irish, with the pale skin and red hair. I wondered if there was any Irish in her family.

  She was wearing a purple top that did a com
plex crisscross thing at the front—following where the fabric went meant taking my eyes dangerously close to her boobs and I was trying not to stare as it was. I had to force my eyes down to her black skirt, lever them away from her legs and then rush them past her boobs again to get back to her face. It took a while.

  When I finally made it back to her eyes, she had a questioning look on her face. I flushed. She’d probably been watching my gaze the entire time, amused at my lack of control. This is why I shouldn’t be playing Tony, I thought. He’s meant to be ice-cold. Tony would never get caught staring like that.

  And then I caught myself. Had I really just compared myself to my character? Maybe some of Jasmine’s teaching was actually rubbing off on me.

  “It smells amazing,” I said, because I realized I’d been just standing there looking at her for way too long. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “He does. Meet Nick, my brother.”

  I spun around. Walking toward me was a lean guy with a strung-out look. Not super-thin, but sort of gristly. As if he’d been thin too many times, and had never really put the meat back on. The family resemblance was definitely there. I could see it in his jaw line and cheekbones, although the two of them didn’t look as similar as most brothers and sisters I’d met.

  I held out a hand. The guy gave me a smile, but he had a jumpy, twitchy look I recognized all too well.

  He’s using.

  I was sure of it. I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe he was the disappointment of the family, or had fallen on hard times or something, and Jasmine had taken him in. Maybe he was bleeding money from her for drugs and that explained the low-rent apartment. I could totally see Jasmine being suckered in, when it was family. She was so innocent—drugs were probably far outside her experience. What if she didn’t know? Should I tell her?

  Stop being a cop, you idiot, said Hux.

  I gave him a grin, instead, and shook his hand. “Thanks for cooking. Smells great. Wish I could cook.”