Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (19 page)

But, weirdly, she wasn’t looking at me as if I was an idiot. She looked more confused, as if she hadn’t seen me before. Then she looked down at the uniform and back at me. “Yeah,” she said at last. “Yeah, I do.” She glanced down the corridor toward the street. “Am I allowed to walk around like this outside? Get the feel for it? I mean, would I get arrested for impersonating a police officer or something?”

“Not as long as I’m with you.” I led her down the corridor. I can’t explain it and I know it sounds goofy, but I was excited at the idea of being cops together, even if she was just pretending. She was just an actress in a uniform but, somehow, walking through the doors into the sunlight with her, I felt more at home, more like a cop again, than I had with Hollister—or with anyone since Hux died.

Hey!
Said Hux. But he didn’t sound mad.

They’d given Jasmine a full equipment belt, minus the gun. She slid out the nightstick and swung it around in a lazy arc. I subtly backed off a few inches.

“So. Where should we go?” she asked, beaming.

I pointed toward a nearby shopping street and we moved off in companionable silence, the late fall sun warming our faces. I kept casting sidelong glances at her, drinking in the way the sunlight turned her auburn hair into gleaming copper. After nearly taking my head off a few times, she holstered the nightstick and started examining the faces of passers-by. After a few minutes, she said, “No one looks at us. I mean, everyone glances at us, but they won’t make eye contact.”

She was right. I’d just gotten used to it, over the years. I nodded.

“I feel like no one trusts me,” she said. “It’s like being on the other side.”

“Not the other side.” I said. “The other side would be criminals. Most people are just wary.”

She glanced at me and then looked away. “Yeah. That’s what I meant,” she said unconvincingly. “Wary.”

I didn’t call her on it, just walked along beside her and watched. She kept glancing down at the uniform and then at the people around her. Something was definitely up. “What?” I asked at last.

She wriggled her shoulders as if uncomfortable. “They’re not seeing me. They’re seeing a cop.”

I frowned. She said that as if it was a bad thing. An idea started to scratch, deep in my brain. Had she had a bad experience with a cop, once? “Yep. They don’t care who you are. You’re a cop, first. You become kind of...faceless.”

She looked sharply at me and then away. “That’s horrible.”

I frowned. “Really?”

“
Faceless?!
That isn’t horrible, to you?”

“It’s not a bad thing. I mean, yeah, I guess it is in a way. People maybe don’t see you as a person. But you’re part of something bigger.”

Her lips pressed together tightly. God, even when she was annoyed she was beautiful. “You never wanted to be a part of something?”

Just for a second, she looked a lot less sure of herself. She shook her head. Then nodded. Then shrugged. “You did?” she asked.

I looked around the street. Even though it wasn’t for real, it felt good—stupidly good—to be out on patrol again. “Yeah,” I told her. “Always.”

“Officer!” A woman in her sixties had bustled up to us. “Can you tell me how to get to Grand Central Station from here?”

She was talking to Jasmine, who looked utterly bewildered for just a second. And then she straightened up, growing an inch taller in the process, and pointed the woman in the right direction.

“Thank you, officer!” said the woman, and bustled away. Jasmine stared at her retreating back for a long time.

“Do they always call us that?” she asked.

I smirked, which felt weird for some reason. “
Officer
is a way down the list. There are a lot of other things we get called.”

She looked at me and again I caught a glimpse of something else underneath. I don’t think anyone else would have spotted it, but I was so smitten with this woman, so hanging on her every word and gesture, that I was catching things that maybe even her friends would have missed. There was a battle going on inside her, I swore it. I could see the emotions playing across her face. And then it was gone, and she was back to being flirty, confident Jasmine. She pulled out the nightstick and started playing with it again. “Are there any other upsides? Do you get women coming onto you, because you’re a cop? The uniform and all that?” She smiled. “The handcuffs?”

The flirting was back. It felt different, now that I knew she wasn’t interested in me. Friendly. I smiled again and this time I realized why it felt so weird. It had been a long time since I’d done it.

You morose SOB,
said Hux.

“The firefighters get it more,” I said, setting off walking again. “But...I’ve had a few.”

She tapped me playfully on the butt with the nightstick. “Ah, now we get to it. Ryan the studmuffin. No woman is safe. C’mon, spill. Did she make you wear the CSI latex gloves while you—”

I let out a snort of laughter, looking at her in amazement. The sun was out. I was out on patrol with a beautiful woman. Life was good.

And then I saw the sign for Brybecker and stopped dead.

“What?” asked Jasmine.

Brybecker’s a long street. We were nowhere near where Hux was shot. But that didn’t matter. I turned and I could almost see our patrol car screaming through the intersection, my speed sealing our fate. Rushing toward the moment when Hux would get shot for no good reason at all.

I felt my chest tighten up. I could feel the rage building and building, taking control of me part by part. My breathing. My muscles. My thoughts. Until I’d have no choice but to scream and smash and—

Something touched me on the back of my neck, just below my hairline. Given what was happening in my head, I should have whirled around in anger but, for some reason, I didn’t. It was cool and soft and comforting.

Her hand. Jasmine had her hand on my neck. And it was like a release valve for me, all the anger boiling away to safety. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could hear her tone, and it was like a soothing, mellow balm.
It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
I have no idea what actual words she was using, but that’s what it made me feel.

I turned around very slowly, afraid that if I moved fast I might break the spell. She was staring at me, her eyes wide, but she didn’t look frightened as much as concerned. As if she knew what I was going through.

I drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Sorry,” I said at last.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

Jesus, I couldn’t do that. Jasmine was the one pure, unpolluted thing in my life. Maybe she already thought I was fucked up, but at least I could kid myself that maybe she sort of liked me. I couldn’t let her know what was going on inside my head.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Chicken,
said Hux.

Chapter 22

Jasmine

My hand was still on his neck. I knew I should move it. The rage seemed to have passed, but—

But I could feel the muscles of his neck hard as wood under my fingers. I could feel the animal throbbing of him as all the scalding-hot blood rushed just beneath the surface. As his breathing slowed, I could feel mine beginning to fall in time with it.

I was overcome by the size of him, the raw physicality of him. It was like resting my hand on the neck of a bull.
What would he be like in the bedroom?!

I knew it was a mistake. I should never have touched him. He needed comfort, but he needed it from someone real, from someone who wasn’t even more screwed up than he was. But all I wanted to do was kiss him. I wanted to jump up onto him, wrap my arms around him and cling to his chest. I wanted to feel that gorgeous full lower lip against my mine, I wanted to be warmed by his panting breath. I knew, from watching him move, that he could hold me there in the air for as long as he wanted, solid as rock.

I dragged my eyes away from his face and forced myself to stare at a spot in the very center of his navy-blue shirt. I tried not to think about the broad curves of muscles beneath, or how wide his shoulders were, or how small he’d make me feel as he cradled me.

He. Doesn’t. Like. You. He likes Jasmine. And there is no such person.
She was smoke and mirrors and giggles and perfume. Perfectly convincing until he got too close.

I let my hand slide from his neck.

He caught my wrist.

I took a breath, my chest trembling, and looked up into his eyes.
Do Jasmine,
I thought automatically, and tried to give him my best
Down, boy!
look, flirty but warning at the same time. But it wouldn’t come. My mouth was open and my heart ached and I was completely defenseless.

“Thank you,” he said.

I couldn’t answer. Could barely think.

“Let’s do something,” he said, his voice urgent. “Let’s go do something.” And I knew what was in his head because it was in mine, too:
I don’t want this to end.
I was having fun, being with him. More fun than I’d had in a long time, more fun than I’d had on any of those drunken one-night stands with the guys from bars. I felt closer to him than them, despite—
because?—
I knew we weren’t going to have sex.

I took a breath and went to say something about how we couldn’t get involved. How we had to work together. How I liked him, but not in that way. But before I could even get the lie out, he said, “Not a date. Just...something.”

Something passed between us, in that moment. An understanding. He knew...or, at least, he suspected.
I know you’re lying,
his eyes said.
We can both keep pretending, as long as you stay with me.

I should have run. Instead, I nodded. “What?” I asked.

***

Two hours later, I walked into Ryan’s gym.

I didn’t even have a gym membership. Working out, for me, meant hours of crunches on a fitball in the privacy of my apartment. Gyms were for people like Clarissa, with her designer gym gear and designer sneakers and designer abs.

I’d stopped in at my apartment to grab something to wear and I was suddenly very glad I’d changed at home and thrown a sweatshirt over the top for the journey. I mean, logically, the gym must have had a women’s changing room somewhere, but I couldn’t see a single woman in the place. Everyone looked like a boxer or a marine and the equipment didn’t get any more advanced than big lumps of heavy metal to lift and punchbags. When I walked in, every head seemed to swivel to look at me, and my layer of
Jasmine
was worn too thin for me to completely ignore it, or relish it as I normally would.

Then I saw him, standing barefoot on a gym mat in gray sweatpants and a black tank top.He looked like a colossus, standing there with his feet braced apart and his arms folded. I swear a rhino could have charged at him and it would have bounced off.

I walked over to him, trying not to show my nerves. “Okay,” I said. “What are we doing here?”

He beamed at me. “Unarmed combat.”

My insides turned to ice. Why hadn’t he told me?! But why would he? He thought I was the happy, bubbly person I always sold to the world, without a single nightmare in her head. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.

I could walk away. I could tell him I’d changed my mind and just walk out. But then he’d know something was wrong and he’d start to suspect. I had to push through it and hope I could hold it together.

He must have seen my hesitation because he gave me a doubtful smile and said, “Relax! It’ll be fun. I won’t hurt you!”

I won’t hurt you.
A thread of memory pulled tight, glittering and sharp in my mind.

I made my feet take a step toward the gym mat.

“I’ll teach you how to throw me,” Ryan said. “You’ll get to toss me around. It’ll be fun.”

It’ll be fun.
The memory screamed and broke, like a guitar string snapping.

Do Jasmine,
I thought, and formed my mouth into a goofy smile, but it felt like trying to mold someone else’s face with my hands.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sure.” I was trying to slow my breathing down. “What do I do?” I walked onto the mat until I was within touching distance.

He was smiling again. The innocent smile of a friend showing another friend something cool. “Okay. Let’s say someone grabs you from the front.”

His huge hand reached out and gathered the front of my tank top. Gently, taking care not to damage it and making sure he didn’t brush a boob by accident. He was being the perfect instructor.

Except, in my mind, we weren’t in a brightly-lit gym. We were in the back room of a bar.

“Now what you want to do, as I pull you toward me, is resist the instinct to pull away. That’s going to put you off balance. Step forward, instead, quickly. Before he knows what’s going on.”

I can’t step forward I’m too frightened it smells like cigarettes in here—