That stopped me in my tracks. Intimidating?! How the hell could Nat and Clarissa and Karen be intimidating? They were the least intimidating people I’d ever met. But the anger that had been bubbling up inside me was gone. Now I was just confused.
He leaned closer to me. “Sometimes, I think you forget how special you are,” he said. He lifted one hand and ran his thumb over my cheek. “You’re like an angel, up there in this world of...actors and dancers and stuff. I’m just a beat cop. I’m down there on the ground, looking up.”
I blinked at him, amazed. Special? I’m not special! The others were, sure, but I wasn’t a real actress. I was just faking it. Didn’t he realize that?
And then he caught my eyes and my heart locked up tight in my chest. I didn’t even breathe. Because I could see in his eyes that he really believed it. He believed in me, in something deeper than Jasmine’s glamor and glitz.
“You’re like a goddess. You’re perfect. And for some reason you gave me a shot. Reached down to me. But the rest of you guys...those other actors who came over? I don’t know a damn thing about method acting. And I don’t know anything about classical music. And I don’t go skiing or drive a fancy car like Clarissa.”
“We’re not all rich,” I said. My words were catching in my throat because I was still overwhelmed by what he’d said. “I’m not. Nat wasn’t, before she met Darrell.”
“But you’re all...talented. And arty and... and... graceful and shit.”
I grabbed his huge shoulders and pulled him across the table, staring into his eyes. “You’re talented. You’re great at what you do. I’ve seen the way you watch people and handle people. You’re a great cop. And you’re getting to be a great actor, too.” I meant it. But my whole view of the night before was spinning and reforming before my eyes. Flicker had always been a refuge, to me. Almost everyone in there—even the staff—are Fenbrook and that made it feel like home. But to him, being surrounded by chattering students from an entirely different world, most of them from privileged backgrounds...it must have been hell. No wonder he’d drank. I clutched him to me, my head on his shoulder. “Sorry,” I whispered in his ear. “I didn’t think.”
He shook his head. “I should have tried harder,” he said. “Or not gotten drunk, at least.” He gently pushed me back so that he could look at me. “And I like your friends. Really. I’m just not sure how to talk to them, yet.”
I nodded quickly. “Next time maybe...not all of them at once, in Flicker. That was totally the wrong way to do it.”
“Next time maybe you can meet some of my friends,” he said.
“Cops?”
He nodded, watching my reaction.
“I’d like that.” And I smiled. Inside, I felt ill. Cops? Actually talk to real cops? I’d spent so many years running from them, distrusting them. To sit down at a table with them would be—”It’d be nice,” I lied, and hugged him tight.
He’d torn aside the mask I’d maintained for years and, when he’d seen the scared girl inside, he hadn’t run. He’d agreed to do things on my terms. The least I could do was to meet his friends. I’d just have to get over my fear of cops. If this thing between us was going to work, that was something I’d have to conquer anyway, sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner.
The door opened and a sound guy put his head in. “You guys done in here?” he asked. “Dixon just arrived. We’re about ready to go.”
Ryan and I looked at each other. Both of us looked worried...but hopeful. Scared and eager at the same time. Eager to take the next step. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re ready.”
Chapter 46
Jasmine
“Maybe he’s delivering drugs,” said Clarissa. She slammed in a gear change and the car surged forward. “Maybe that’s what it is. He rides from New York to Vegas every few months with a big package of cocaine.” She turned to me. “What do you think?”
I wanted to say a lot of things. I wanted to say that, from what I’d seen of the drugs trade back in Chicago, bikers were sometimes used to move drugs...but not one biker on his own and not all the way across the country. There was too much danger of him getting stopped, plus there must be about a hundred rival motorcycle clubs between here and Vegas who wouldn’t take kindly to Neil moving drugs through their territories. But I couldn’t say any of that. Partially because I wouldn’t be able to explain how I knew so much about that world and partially because I was gripping my seat with both hands.
Clarissa was angry. Her own very exacting, very focused type of anger, like a white-hot scalpel blade. And when she was angry, she drove her beloved BMW very, very fast.
It had been weird and disturbing, letting go of Jasmine for the first time in years. Only for Ryan, of course. To Dixon and the other actors and everyone else, I was still happy, bouncy Jasmine. But on breaks, when Ryan and I were somewhere quiet, I let myself relax into Emma for a few minutes.
Actually, relax isn’t really the right word. I couldn’t relax into it. Being Jasmine felt like my natural state, after all those years. To remove the mask I had to painfully rip it away, remembering all the reasons why I’d put it on in the first place. But, once it was gone, there was relief. Sort of like the feeling you get when you’ve been driving on the highway for a long time and you finally stop and open your door and feel the first waft of real, outdoor air on your face. We’d agreed that I’d go round to his apartment for dinner that evening.
Then Nat had called, all excited about something, and said that Clarissa and I had to come over to the mansion, right away. Clarissa had picked me up from the set as soon as shooting was done for the day. I was glad of the distraction. It stopped me getting nervous about that night.
We screeched around another corner. Hanging onto the seat didn’t feel secure enough, so I grabbed the grab-handle near the roof.
“Maybe he’s muscle,” she said. “Maybe he’s muscle for a casino.” She turned to me and her jaw dropped. “Maybe he’s muscle at a strip club!”
“Watch the road!” I said tightly.
She glanced at the road ahead, pressed the gas even harder, and overtook a truck. I winced as we pulled back in, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car.
“He still won’t tell me,” she said. “He thinks I’m just going to stay in the hotel or something while he runs around doing whatever it is he does out there. Well, the hell with that. I’m going to get some answers, even if I have to put on dark glasses and tail him.” She slammed her hand into the steering wheel. “And he’s insisting on riding there with me on the back of his bike, instead of taking Bartholomew.”
My fear was abruptly forgotten. “Who?!”
Clarissa flushed red and, to my delight, she eased off the gas. “Instead of taking my BMW.”
“That’s not what you said. You said Bartholomew.”
“No I didn’t.” She was beetroot, now.
“Is your car called Bartholomew?” I asked, almost bouncing up and down in my seat.
Clarissa seethed silently for a moment. “I’ll kill you if you tell the others.”
***
Natasha met us on the driveway and gave us both enormous hugs, then escorted us inside and asked whether we wanted Blue Mountain coffee or Belgian hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was actual lumps of chocolate on a stick, to be stirred into hot milk. “This is amazing,” I told her when I tried one.
“I know,” she said. “It’s fantastic. Once you try it, you can’t go back to the cheap stuff.”
It was just a throwaway comment, but it bothered me. Back before she’d met Darrell, when she’d lived in the apartment with Clarissa, she’d liked the cheap stuff. We’d all liked the cheap stuff. Including Clarissa, who we’d thought of as the rich one, back in those days. We’d drank it and discussed boyfriends and watched movies and, when one of us didn’t get a part, we’d done Orange Skittle vodka shots. Happy times. I couldn’t see the new Nat doing any of those things. Cheap hot chocolate wasn’t good enough for her anymore. Were we?
; Natasha darted off to take a mug down to Darrell, who was working away in his workshop down in the basement. While she was gone, I exchanged a look with Clarissa.
“Give her a chance,” said Clarissa. “She’s still adjusting. Back when we shared, and she couldn’t pay her rent, she’d never let me help her out. She’d eat noodles for a solid week if she had to. She was even antsy about me buying coffee in Harper’s. Now suddenly she’s got all the money in the world. It’s going to take a while for her to find her way.”
I looked around at the gorgeous, designer kitchen, all polished stainless steel and marble. “You sure that’s all it is?” I was thinking back to Flicker. “I feel like something’s wrong. Like she’s drifting away from us. Karen, too.” I was moping a little, now, and I knew it. “You, too.”
“Me? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Apart from Las Vegas.”
“I’ll be back in a week.” She cocked her head to one side. “What’s up with you? Everything okay with Ryan?”
“Sure. Going well. Going great. It’s just”—I heard Nat coming back—”I’ll tell you later.” In a way, I was relieved. I wanted to talk to someone...but I couldn’t tell Clarissa or anyone else about opening up to Ryan. They didn’t know about Emma and they never could. They were Jasmine’s friends. They wouldn’t even like Emma.
Nat swept back in carrying a gray dress. “Da dah!”
My eyes bulged. The thing was gorgeous: low cut but tasteful, sleek, and elegant. And—”No way does that fit you.” It looked clingy, but it was still cut for a far curvier figure than Natasha’s.
“It doesn’t,” said Natasha. “It’s for you. That’s why I asked you here.”
I looked between her and the dress. “It’s...what?”
“It’s for you. It’s a present. It’s a present for you.” She grinned and thrust it out toward me as if this was completely normal.
Clarissa and I looked at each other and then at her. “Um...thank you,” I said. “But...Nat, this is, like, a five hundred dollar dress. I can’t take this!”
“Oh, don’t be silly. I was shopping and I saw it and I loved it, but I knew it wouldn’t work on me. But you, with your hair? It’ll be gorgeous. Go on—try it on.”
I looked to Clarissa for help. She looked as lost as I did. “Nat, seriously, I can’t take it. It’s way too expensive. It’s not even my birthday or Christmas or—”
Natasha sighed. “Jasmine, its fine. Look, I just want to do nice things for my friends.”
“And that’s great, but—”
“Go and try it on!”
She thrust the dress at me again and I took it. I didn’t know what else to do. I gave Clarissa a last talk to her! look and went to one of the mansion’s many bathrooms.
The dress was gorgeous and it was a perfect fit for me. It clung to my boobs and showed off a very eye-catching slice of cleavage, but the cut wasn’t so low that it looked trashy. It hugged my hips and managed to turn my curves into something to be proud of. It was the sort of dress you could wear anywhere, the sort you’d get a lot of use out of rather than it coming out of the closet once a year for a party. It was the sort of dress I wanted, but couldn’t afford. It was the perfect present.
But I couldn’t take it. Could I?
Back in the kitchen, Clarissa and Natasha both went ooh and, however much I made desperate faces at Clarissa, she completely refused to step in and help. In the end, I had to accept the dress and apologize for being weird about it. We all hugged and Nat told us about the charity event she was going to throw and how they were thinking about getting the fountain outside cleaned which was—apparently—eye-wateringly expensive.
When we got back to Bartholomew, I elbowed Clarissa in the ribs. “Thanks a lot!”
“What? What did you want me to say? It’s a great dress.”
“But it’s totally weird. And inappropriate. You don’t just buy your friends $500 dresses on a whim! It makes things awkward!”
Clarissa sighed. “I know that. That’s why I never did it with you and Nat. But she’s new to all this. Give her some time.”
I shook my head. “Something’s wrong. She wasn’t like this when she was dating him. It’s since she moved into the mansion. She’s suddenly all about charity parties and fountains and how much to pay the gardeners. She’s not her anymore. She didn’t talk about the four of us, or Fenbrook, or ballet, or sex, or anything we used to talk about.”
Clarissa nodded understandingly but then shrugged. I could tell she was too distracted, probably by her worries about Neil and Vegas. If I wanted to fix things, if I wanted to get the four of us back to how we used to be, I was going to have to do it myself.
When she dropped me off at my place, she hugged me tight. “I’m riding off with Neil tomorrow, sometime,” she said. “Not sure when I’ll be back, exactly, but a week at most.”
She released me, but I clung to her arm like a child. “Don’t go,” I said suddenly.
She grinned at me, thinking I was joking. “You’ll be fine.”
But I wouldn’t let go of her arm. “I mean it. I have this feeling, like something bad is going to happen. I want you here.”
She gave me an extra squeeze. “You’re just nervous because it’s early days with Ryan and you really like him.” She hesitated. “You were going to tell me something, back at Nat’s place. What was it?”
My throat closed up. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to spill it all, right then, about Emma and Chicago, all the stuff I’d been keeping from her and Nat and Karen all those years...but I couldn’t. “Nothing,” I said. “Just what you said. Nerves, because I like him. I’m not used to taking it slow.”
She looked at me carefully to see if I was telling the truth. And, for just a second, I wanted her to find me out. I wanted her to see it in my eyes and shake her head and purse her lips and drag me inside my apartment and demand that I tell her everything.
But I was too good an actress. She smiled at me, squeezed me one more time, jumped into Bartholomew and sped away.
Chapter 47
Jasmine
Despite the weirdness with Natasha, I was glad we’d driven all the way out to the mansion. It had been great to see her and Clarissa again and it had stopped me worrying about the date. I barely had time to get changed and get a cab over to Ryan’s place.
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.”
Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3 - New Adult Romance) Page 27