Wrong Bed, Right Girl

by Rebecca Brooks

  No one who saw her and Stacey side by side would say they looked alike. But when Reed put it like that? The differences between them didn’t matter. Even if the guys had a photograph, it wasn’t like they’d study it with care. In the apartment, in the dark…who could really say?

  And they’d be more concerned with being thorough than with potential collateral. Shoot first, shrug later. They’d probably figure that even if Talia wasn’t the informant, she was close enough to Stacey to be living there after Stacey fled, so she might know something. She might need to be silenced anyway.

  She started to cry.

  It was embarrassing, but she couldn’t stop. It was late, she was tired, and her whole world had just been turned upside down by one man sneaking into her apartment and falling into her bed.

  Stacey’s bed, she corrected herself. Not hers. Not even for a night.

  She never should have been sleeping here to begin with. It was just like Reed said. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong bed at the wrong time.

  And now, on a night when all she needed was to get a solid eight hours of sleep so she didn’t look like an idiot at tomorrow’s rehearsal, she was sitting here blubbering in front of a stranger who she’d already threatened, flashed, and tried to beat up with a book.

  Although, he looked more uncomfortable at the tears than he had at any of her other transgressions.

  “I have no place to go,” she hiccupped.

  “You have a friend you can call? Some place you can stay for the night until we get this sorted?”

  Reed looked around the tiny studio like he’d rather be literally anywhere else—a den of lions, Jonnie West’s stronghold, hour seven of the opera with fire ants crawling up his legs and the Queen herself sitting next to him, so there was no way he could tear off his pants and run screaming.

  Talia shook her head. The sad truth was that there was no one she could call—and how many people did Reed want to have to explain this mess to, anyway? She’d moved out in order to give Jessie and Shawn their space—and to make amends for how she’d reacted when they first started dating. If she barged in on them at this hour, prattling on about gangs and the DEA, she’d look like she couldn’t leave them alone for even a night.

  Her other friend Rose’s fiancé would turn up his nose at Talia appearing all tear-streaked this late, then probably start a fight with Rose about it. Amanda was out of town, and Talia didn’t have a key—or the emotional bandwidth to navigate her roommates.

  And it wasn’t like she could take the bus home to her parents in Pennsylvania in the middle of the night. They’d freak. Plus, she’d never make it back to rehearsal in time.

  The rehearsal. She began to cry harder, tears hot on her cheeks.

  “I have this big day tomorrow.” She tried to explain about the role, Giselle, everything she’d been working for—even though it was hard to talk while the tears were flowing.

  God, why did she have to be one of those people who showed every emotion that thumped through their heart? She wished she could be cold like him, just standing there, not feeling. She wished “crying in front of strangers” was one of those things that never, ever happened to her. Instead of, well, just being a part of her life.

  Reed looked around the room like he was plotting how far it would be if he jumped through the window to make his escape. Eventually, he went to the bathroom and came back with a square of toilet paper. He passed it to her gingerly. What a gentleman. She wiped her eyes.

  “I sound so selfish. Worrying about me instead of Stacey.”

  “It’s stressful,” Reed said.

  “I spent all day moving in”—she gestured at the empty boxes and suitcases—“only now I have no place to go.”

  “I can take you to the DEA office,” he offered. “See what the night officer can do.”

  The thought of spending the night on some cold bench in a police station didn’t do anything to stop her tears. Her first night in a new place, only to be kicked out of bed and dragged to the police? She might as well call Hal and beg him to yell at her some more, because no way was a shot of wheatgrass and a few extra stretches going to save her now.

  “What about a hotel?” he suggested.

  “If I could afford to spend the night in a hotel, do you think I’d jump at the chance to stay in this apartment?”

  He made a face. Obviously he knew she had a point. “Fine. You can stay with me tonight.”

  “What?” She was sure she’d misheard.

  But he said it again. “You can stay with me tonight.”

  He ran a hand over his shaved head and pulled on the back of his neck. He looked pained. Like, physically pained. Either at her crying, or at what he’d just said.

  She burst out laughing. Not the funny kind, but nervous, exhausted, freaking-out laughter. He had to be kidding.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “That has to be against regulations.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Obviously not. But I can’t just—” A laugh again. “Go home with you.”

  “Why not? I can’t let you stay here, and you said you have no place to go.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, more strongly than she felt.

  “Or I can stay here,” he said.

  She hadn’t been joking when she’d texted Jessie about how small the place was. There was no room for a man of his size to stay. What would he do—stay up all night sitting in the bathtub? She certainly wasn’t letting him back in her bed.

  That would be…wrong. Awkward. Highly unprofessional. Or something.

  Stop looking at his biceps. Stop looking at his biceps.

  Plus, she did need to sleep, and spending the night curled up to Mister Hulking Stranger and the gun against his back wasn’t a good recipe for that.

  “I have a one-bedroom apartment that I used to think was small, until I set foot in this place,” he said. “You can take the bedroom, get a good night’s sleep before your—whatever it is tomorrow. I’ll take the couch.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Talia could talk for hours and hours, weighing all the pros and cons, agonizing over what to do. She could lose the entire night’s sleep just thinking about how she needed to sleep.

  But the way Reed said those two little words, it was done. He said it was so, and it was.

  It isn’t like I’m taking advantage of him, she reasoned. He was the one who’d busted into her place and fallen on top of her. She wasn’t being selfish for saying yes. She was doing what had to be done.

  “So,” he said. “We’re agreed?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “We’re agreed.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Okay.”

  She stared at him. He stared back.

  “Let’s go?” He said it like she was the problem. Was he dense?

  “Only if you turn the fuck around,” she said, and tugged at the lace strap of her tank top. Did he really want to find out what she had on her bottom half?

  Or, more accurately, what she didn’t?

  “I’ll wait outside.” He booked it out of there so fast, she’d have been afraid he was going to change his mind and leave her behind if she couldn’t already tell that would go against every principle of the Reed Bishop Ethics Manual for Women in Tears.

  When the door closed behind him, she scrambled out of bed, tore off her pajamas, and put on some actual clothes. Jeans. A shirt. A fucking bra. Maybe some chain mail and a chastity belt for good measure.

  She didn’t need to look at him the way she had been. She had rehearsal, dance, things she needed to focus on. Things that didn’t take kindly to boys in her head, messing around in there.

  “He’s just doing his job,” she muttered to herself as she stuffed a suitcase with the things she’d need. And it was just for a night, until they could sort this out in the morning.

  Then again, what i
f it was more? What if she couldn’t come back here for a while? She grabbed a second suitcase and started filling it.

  Her heart was only beating this hard because she’d been woken up in the middle of the night, informed about a drug ring, and was on the way to a DEA agent’s apartment with two suitcases and no clue what came next.

  The fact that his stare burned with such intensity had nothing to do with how frazzled she felt. The fact that she could tell from his description of his apartment that he was single was totally irrelevant to her packing, too.

  She was only folding a slinky red dress into the suitcase in case she wanted to go out sometime while she was stuck on the lam. Not in case she wanted to show Reed she could wear something other than pajamas and ballet clothes once in a while.

  When she wheeled the two suitcases out to the hallway, he was leaning against the wall, mouth tense in concentration, biceps flexed as he scrolled through his phone like he was going to snap the thing in half. “You’re kidding,” he said when he caught sight of her.

  “Take this.” She passed him one of the handles.

  “You’re not moving in.”

  “Can you tell me how many nights I’ll have to be gone?”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “We’re going to have to figure this out in the morning.”

  But he took the suitcase. Talia had a feeling right then that she wasn’t the only one who wished she hadn’t wound up in Stacey Moss’s bed that night.

  They carried her things down the four flights of stairs and he hailed a cab. As they slid into the back seat, he leaned over her to tell the driver the address. She was almost pressed against his hard body, her arm brushed by the hairs on his.

  Maybe it’ll just be one night, she thought weakly, trying to make herself concentrate on Giselle, rehearsal, relevé then plié…

  Don’t screw this up.

  But oh God. She was really doing this. The drumbeat of her heart reverberated all the way down through her toes.

  Chapter Three

  Reed wiped his hands down the front of his jeans. He couldn’t believe his palms were sweating. He wasn’t a guy whose palms sweat.

  He’d busted major drug rings. Put away the bad guys and let the good ones have a second chance at life again. He’d survived his dad dying, his fiancée leaving, and the hell that was the New York crime world.

  He could handle a cab ride with a gorgeous dancer with hair tumbling over her shoulders and eyes red from crying. He could get that woman out of an unsafe apartment and into his bed and park her there for the night. He could find a clean set of sheets and a pillow and collapse onto his couch.

  At least, in theory he could. One could. Someone in his position could hypothetically be able to do all those things and live to tell about it.

  But in reality, he, Reed Bishop, was sweating.

  “Where do you live?” Talia asked as the cab turned onto the FDR and drove north, the glittering lights of the city all around. Reed loved this view at night, with the buildings, the bridges, the whole city pulsing at all hours. It was a strange sort of beauty, a beauty of hard lines and unnatural stars.

  “Washington Heights,” he said, after a pause long enough that Talia was inhaling to repeat the question.

  “Yikes,” she said. “I didn’t realize we were heading that far. Guess it’s easy enough for me to get to rehearsal, though. How long have you been there?”

  “Eight months.”

  She was probably waiting for him to elaborate—something about the neighborhood, the building, where he’d lived before… But he didn’t. There was no need for small talk. And definitely no need to get into his personal life. His mouth had gotten him into enough trouble tonight. The sooner he could get out of this, the better.

  “You like it?” she asked.

  “No.” He leaned his head back against the seat. The lights pulsed around him. He closed his eyes, and they pulsed behind his lids.

  Slouching there with his eyes closed should have been the universal symbol for I’m beat and I don’t want to talk.

  But Talia either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

  “What don’t you like about it?”

  He gave a shrug without opening his eyes.

  It wasn’t like he hated where he lived. He wasn’t even sure why he’d said that.

  I’m just tired, he told himself. Out of sorts with this case. It had nothing to do with the woman beside him who wouldn’t shut up. Nothing to do with how much he didn’t want her to know he was the kind of guy who’d once watched his fiancée walk out the door.

  “You going to answer me?” she asked.

  “You like to talk, don’t you?” He still didn’t open his eyes.

  “It’s called a conversation. You may have noticed I’m trying to have one.”

  He tilted his head toward her and let one eye open. “I can see that.”

  “And?” she asked.

  “And I’m not.” He closed his eye again and went back to pretending to sleep.

  Case closed.

  But not to Talia, apparently. “Listen,” she said, so forcefully that he snapped to attention before remembering he was trying to be an asshole and erect twenty-foot concrete boundaries around himself before this beautiful, prying woman set foot in his apartment.

  His one-bedroom apartment, because it was built for one person to inhabit. Alone.

  “What?” he asked, in a way that should have signaled he didn’t want the answer.

  But Talia kept talking.

  “People who are nice, people who invite strangers to come stay with them after breaking into their apartments, sometimes talk to each other. They use things called words to communicate and show that they’re not psycho serial killers. So.” Her eyes bored into him, as piercing and bright as the city lights around them. “Where’d you live before? Why Washington Heights? Tell me something about yourself, since technically, I’m going home with you.”

  Was it just him, or was she pressing her lips together to try to not smirk?

  Like either of them might get confused about what it meant that she was “going home with him.” He was doing her a favor. Doing his job. Keeping her safe. That was all.

  Besides, he didn’t take women home. His night with Talia was all the proof he needed that his life was a shitshow, and it certainly wasn’t safe. Whether or not it was safe for him was secondary. He’d signed up for it—he knew what he was getting into.

  But safe for the person who got wrapped up with him? Safe for the one who’d have to do the waiting, the watching, the worrying about whether tonight was the night she’d get the call?

  He’d never do that to anyone. He wasn’t kidding himself that anyone would want to do that for him. Lisa was the closest he’d ever come to the real deal—a long relationship, cohabitation, an engagement ring. Talk of marriage, kids, the future. Plans.

  And even she’d decided she couldn’t do it. Not with him.

  “I’m not nice,” he said.

  “What?” He’d been quiet long enough that she must have forgotten what she’d just told him.

  “You said people who are nice. You should know that I’m not.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m gathering that.”

  She turned her face away from him.

  The gesture was so abrupt, so final, so obviously hurt, he suddenly felt bad.

  He opened his mouth.

  I used to live in Brooklyn. Six blocks from you, actually. With my then-fiancée, Lisa. We’d walk to the park every Sunday with her dog and get bagels and coffee at this place on Vanderbilt—Lisa always got those overpriced cappuccinos, extra foam, shot of vanilla syrup. I’d tease her about it, but I loved seeing her smile. I loved Lisa, and Sundays in the park, and those goddamn cappuccinos.

  I moved to Washington Heights to get the fuck out of Brooklyn and never look back.

  “Sorry, I’m not in the mood to chat,” he mumbled. It was a relief when the cab pulled in front of his building and their little
tête-à-tête was officially over.

  You can stay with me tonight. What had he been thinking when he let those words come tumbling out? He could just imagine what Aaron would say—once he got the power of speech back after his jaw slammed to the floor.

  Not that Reed was going to tell his brother at all. He didn’t have people over. He certainly didn’t have women over. Not after Lisa left. Not ever again.

  He went to work, he ran his cases, he came home. He didn’t get wrapped up in personal stuff. If his heart bled for every sad case he came across, he’d be bone dry. He wouldn’t have anything left to give.

  No. If he was going soft, then this wasn’t the job for him.

  But how could he tell a crying woman there was no way he could help her? Especially when the whole reason she was crying was because he’d busted in and screwed up her night.

  He’d had to make her stop being so upset. This way, he could contain the problem instead of getting who knew how many other people involved.

  At least that was what he told himself as he paid the driver and hoisted her suitcases out of the trunk. Had she stuffed a few extra bricks in there, just for fun?

  “Second floor,” he told her as he opened the door to the building.

  So he wasn’t much of a gentleman, directing her down the hall rather than holding the door and leading the way. But it wasn’t like this was a date. He didn’t go on dates. He didn’t lose his mind to women in distress. He just…needed this night to be over, and this was the best way to make it happen. It had made sense in the moment, even if it didn’t right now.

  He stopped outside the door of the apartment and took a breath. “I’m sorry I—”

  “—am a grouchy asshole?”

  “I was going to say, didn’t have a chance to clean up before my last shift, but sure, that works. Glad I made such a good first impression.” He turned his key in the lock.

  “It was certainly memorable,” she said, and he swore he saw a hint of pink creep up her cheeks.

  So maybe it wasn’t a good first impression. But it must have been an impression of some sort.

  Don’t think about that, he scolded as he followed her in and hit the lights. Don’t think about her body, her hair, the way she’d lunged for him with that book and he’d caught sight of her breast.