Wrong Bed, Right Girl

by Rebecca Brooks

“Then what are you doing? Just being prepared?”

  “I have to get back to the city.”

  “What?”

  “You can stay for the rest of the day. Enjoy your family time. Tell your grandmother happy birthday again from me, it was lovely to meet her. But if you could give me a ride to the train station, I need to go.”

  Her voice was steady. Firm. She wasn’t even looking at him.

  “Did something happen? Is everything okay?” He imagined bad news, a phone call, an emergency she had to take care of. Even, for a second, a call from Stacey Moss. From Jonnie West himself.

  But Talia stood in front of him, shaking her head.

  “Then what?” he asked, closing the door so they could at least pretend to have some privacy in this house of prying ears and eyes.

  “I heard you downstairs,” she said.

  Fuck.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Don’t play dumb with me.” She folded her arms. “It’s not serious, guys. I’m just fucking her for kicks, until I find someone I like better.”

  “That’s not what I said.” Hot fingers seared his chest, radiating up his face.

  “It may as well have been.”

  “Look, can we talk about this later?” He glanced nervously at the door. All he needed was everyone hearing him arguing with Talia, her voice spitting out the word fuck.

  “Take me to the train,” she said, quieter but no less upset. “Please.”

  She pushed around him and started walking down the stairs, carrying her things. It was automatic when he reached out and took her suitcase from her. Because he wanted to help her, not help get her out of there. But he could see from the pain in her glare how the gesture came out wrong.

  He stopped her before she reached the bottom of the stairs. “What am I supposed to tell them?” he whispered, nodding toward the kitchen where everyone was talking, laughing, eating. Like nothing in the world was wrong.

  Talia shrugged. “Tell them your casual fling you don’t care about and see no future with realized she’d better get her ass back to New York and rehearse for her show that opens in a week, instead of wasting her time making nice with the family of a guy who doesn’t give two shits about her.”

  Reed stood there on the staircase. He knew he should say something. His head was roaring at him to say something. But he couldn’t find the words.

  Talia could hiss at him a mile a minute under her breath. But inside, he was so panicked that everything went blank. He kept thinking about Lisa walking away, leaving her ring on the counter. How everything could fall apart so fast.

  He’d thought things with Talia were different. So how could she do this to him?

  “If you want to leave,” he said, stepping aside, “then leave.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it. But everything was jumbled up inside him, filling him with boiling heat so that there was nothing to do but clamp down hard and keep it from all spilling out. Even when he opened his mouth, trying to fix it, trying to tell her that wasn’t what he wanted, it wasn’t what he meant, there was nothing.

  Talia stared at him for a beat, like she couldn’t believe it. The next thing he knew, she was in the kitchen peppering his family with the sweetest goodbyes, saying how nice it was to have met them, how bummed she was that she had to get back to work early.

  His family was just as gracious. But no one, he noticed, said anything about how they hoped to see her again soon.

  He knew they were following his lead, toning it down after he’d made it clear this wasn’t some “welcome to the family” weekend together. He also knew every ounce of self-control it took for Talia to keep that smile plastered on her face.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said as soon as they got in the car.

  She sat, eyes straight ahead, until he drove down the block and away from the house. Finally, when there was no chance of anyone watching them, she turned in the seat to face him.

  “Reed, are you kidding me? You spend all this time with me, you introduce me to every single member of your family, from your grandmother down to your third cousin’s boyfriend’s brother’s kid from his first marriage. And then you have the audacity to turn around and tell your mother I’m just some fling?”

  “I didn’t say you were a fling, Talia. I just—” He hit the steering wheel helplessly with the flat of his palm. “She was so excited, and I wanted her to cool it.”

  “Yeah, God forbid she might be happy for you. God forbid you might be happy, Reed. God forbid you might actually give a shit about someone who’s not related to you or part of a case.”

  Now that wasn’t fair.

  “You’re twisting my words,” he said. “You’re making everything sound worse. It was just one of those things that comes up in the moment. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

  She fixed him with a hard stare. “I’m not going to marry her. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Doesn’t it seem a little early to be going around dropping the m-word?” he said, starting to feel hot and itchy all over the back of his neck.

  He’d sold the ring he’d bought for Lisa. She’d insisted he keep it, and since he couldn’t bear to look at it, he’d sold it as fast as he could. That was what he knew of engagements, and just thinking about it made him want to pull off the side of the road and start screaming.

  “I’m not the one who brought up the word to your mother,” Talia said. “Of course it’s too early. I’d never expect that—especially not this weekend. But now that you’ve publicly announced that you don’t see me as marriage material, can you forgive me for feeling like shit right now?”

  “I just wanted to keep things easy with my family.”

  “Easy,” she repeated. “Yeah. Whatever the easy route is, might as well take it.”

  Now he was getting annoyed. “I didn’t mean it, Talia. I didn’t mean anything. You don’t have to take it so seriously.”

  He wasn’t trying to be dismissive. But this wasn’t the end of the world. Why couldn’t she understand that it was such a small thing?

  But Talia surprised him. “I know it didn’t mean anything,” she said.

  “Then why—”

  “The whole fact that it didn’t mean anything to you is kind of the point.”

  He turned. She was looking out the window, but he didn’t have to see her face to know by the red tips of her ears, and the tremble of her fingers covering her mouth, that she was blinking back tears.

  It was his kryptonite. When she’d cried at Stacey’s apartment. When her cheeks had flushed after her Tinder date canceled. It broke down every defense within him, every stone of the wall he’d put up around his heart to say no, you can’t come in here, nothing you do can hurt me.

  But this time, it was too much. Their night together. The way she’d felt in his arms. Everything that had made his family sit up and take notice. Enough notice to start hounding him the very next day.

  He couldn’t take it. He kept his eyes ahead on the road, hands at ten and two, forcing himself to stay strong and not look over again.

  “Do you have anything else to say?” Talia asked quietly.

  Yes.

  No.

  Yes.

  No.

  “It was just family stuff, just bullshit,” he said, trying again to make her understand. “My family is huge. Everyone’s up in my business. I was trying to carve out some space for myself.”

  It made sense when he said it. He thought it sounded good. Forgivable. Maybe even true.

  But Talia turned to him squarely and said, “Bullshit.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “You think I’m an idiot?”

  He snorted. “Hardly.”

  “You knew sound carries in that house,” she said. “You spent all night reminding me to keep my mouth shut so you could fuck me.”

  “Because I didn’t think the seven-year-old twins camping out in the living room needed to hear yo
u come. Are you really going to give me grief for that?”

  “Of course not. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what are you talking about?” A burst of anger flooded him. He inhaled quickly, sucking it back. Keeping his cool as he drove.

  Why was this so difficult? Why was everything going so wrong? The more Talia said, the more she confused him. What the hell had become the problem now?

  “You need to stop pretending it was some big accident that I heard you,” she said. “That it was all made-up stuff you didn’t mean. You knew I would hear. You knew the house is old and anything you say in the kitchen drifts upstairs. You can hear people down there when you’re lying in bed. You grew up in that bedroom—obviously that’s no surprise to you.”

  Ten and two. Eyes on the road as he pulled into the parking lot. He had no idea where she was going with this. But he didn’t want to find out.

  “But you didn’t keep your voice down,” she continued. “You didn’t tell your mom you’d talk about it later. You didn’t change the subject. You didn’t even get your typical Reed reticence, saying as little as you can get away with, like you think that protects you. Like you think a one-word non-answer can hide you from the world. You may as well have been speaking right to my face when you said I didn’t mean anything to you. So all I can think is that you wanted me to hear you, Reed. You wanted me to know.”

  He parked the car, slamming on the brakes harder than he’d meant to, his patience wearing well past thin. A few words he’d said to get his mother off his back and now he’d never live it down. Talia didn’t come from a family like his. She didn’t understand.

  “Why would I want that?” he snarled in frustration. “Why would I want to be sitting here in the fucking parking lot of the Long Island Railroad having this fight, when I could be hanging out on the beach with my brothers, popping open a beer?”

  “I don’t know,” Talia said, and he was startled by how soft her voice was. Quiet. The spark of anger gone.

  But he knew better than to think that meant this was over.

  “All I can think is that you wanted this to happen,” she said. “Somewhere deep down inside, this is what you were looking for.”

  “What?” He almost wished she was still shouting. That, at least, he knew how to deal with. Instead of this steady, sad calm as everything was breaking all around them.

  “Because, Reed. Now you can make me be the one to end this without doing the messy work of using your words. You can have an excuse, and make it my fault, and be done.”

  A heaviness hit him hard. He wanted to tell her she was wrong. He hadn’t meant any of those things. He certainly hadn’t meant for her to hear them. He didn’t want this to be over. He didn’t want her gone.

  How could he possibly have hoped for any of that?

  But a wave was crashing over him, and then another, and another. Like the time he was thrown overboard from a sailboat in a thrashing sea and couldn’t come up for air. He’d kept flailing and swallowing sea water, hoping for just one break in the waves, one chance to raise his head, get one more gulp of air to keep him going.

  But Talia didn’t extend her hand, didn’t throw over a rope and say, “I’ve got you, Reed. I’ve got you, even when things are tough, and I’m not letting go.”

  Instead, she turned away from him. Silent, as though all the words had poured out of her, and now she, too, had none.

  He knew, somewhere even deeper than his gut, somewhere in the hollow of his bones, that this was a coldness a simple touch, a kiss, an “I’m sorry,” maybe even—dare he think it?—an “I love you” couldn’t thaw.

  He was frozen, unable to make his jaw move, unable to make the words come out.

  He couldn’t think of what to say, even if he’d been able to make himself say it. He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, heard the bite of anger on her tongue. But he was useless. Worse than useless. He couldn’t soothe her, he couldn’t help her, he couldn’t make it all okay.

  “Talia, can we just— Can we talk about this later?” he finally said, exhausted.

  It sounded so stupid when he said it out loud. So out of sync with the moment, with anything she’d just said.

  When did he think later was going to be? Some magical time when he suddenly found the right things to say?

  He knew how to handle a case, a murder, a robbery, a deal gone bad. He knew who the good guys were, and the bad ones, and which side he was on. He knew how to solve the puzzle and make it turn out right.

  But Talia wasn’t a perp. She wasn’t a dealer. She wasn’t a thief.

  She wasn’t a wrong answer, a bad seed, someone to get to and then to take down.

  She was right and wrong. Hurting and complicated. Raw emotion twisting up inside her. And he didn’t know how to handle any of that.

  She bit her lip. “Train’s coming,” she said.

  When he didn’t respond, she sighed. “I guess that’s that. I have to go. Thanks for everything, Bishop.”

  Sounding the way his brothers did, an intimacy in the use of his last name. But also a coldness, a distance. Like she’d never had her thighs around his face, her legs trembling against him as she came. Like she was someone he worked with, someone who knew only his public self. Agent Bishop, DEA.

  Not Reed. Not a man she’d been as close to as two human beings could get.

  He knew she wasn’t thanking him for the weekend, or the ride to the train. It wasn’t even for having her stay with him when she needed it. It was more than that. When she said “everything,” that was what she meant. Everything.

  Breakfast, coffee in bed, her smooth skin soft against his sheets. Her cries in the night as he used his tongue to do all the things to her that never came out in words. Their laughter. Her hand in his as they swayed to music together the night before, Reed’s cousins’ kids, little boys in bowties and girls tearing off their taffeta, racing underfoot.

  But he didn’t say, “Get back in the car, baby, let’s talk about it.”

  He didn’t say, “I’m sorry I panicked and pushed you away.”

  He didn’t say, “I’ve been left before, and it ripped a hole through me that I don’t think can ever be healed.”

  He didn’t say, “I just want to hold you.”

  He sat there mutely, his jaw clenching and unclenching, as she slammed the door and walked away. A man with no feelings. A man with no heart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Talia sat on the train with tears running down her face. There was no use hiding it. It had taken everything in her to keep it together in front of Reed’s family. She couldn’t pretend anymore that every inch of her didn’t hurt.

  How could Reed have held her all night and then turned around and basically told his mother, his brothers, everyone important, that she was nothing?

  Some part of her knew it was a defense mechanism. It wasn’t like he’d fully thought through everything he’d said. It had happened in the moment, and if that look in his eyes was any indication, he was probably wishing right now that he could take that moment back.

  But that didn’t make it sting any less.

  Because Reed was careful. Quiet. Intentional about what he did and the words he said.

  He didn’t fly off the handle. He didn’t show his emotion on his face. No way would he bawl his eyes out on a train, so that a man came by and offered her a tissue, and another woman told her pityingly that whatever it was, she hoped Talia would be okay.

  It was what was wonderful about him. It made him steady, reliable, the kind of person who could face unimaginable situations at his job and keep his cool, and wake up the next day to do it all over again.

  And it was infuriating. Did she really want to sit there in the car with him and have to drag out every word? Maybe he was right and there was no future between them, because how could she be with someone long-term who couldn’t be honest about what was in his head, let alone in his heart?

  Like it would have been that hard for
him to say to his family, “Yeah, Talia’s awesome.” Not, “I’m asking for her hand in marriage after knowing her for four weeks.” Not, “Mom, brothers, fourth cousin twice removed, this is the one.” But something easy. “I don’t know where this is going, but so far it’s great.”

  He could have blown off his mother with a characteristic Reed non-answer, a grunt as he refilled his coffee and trudged back upstairs. That at least she’d have understood. They could have laughed about it—his pestering mother, all eyes eagerly watching to see if his bachelor days were over.

  But no.

  He’d done everything he could to make sure they knew—and she knew—that whatever was happening between them, it wasn’t what she might have thought. It was just a fling, a little hanky panky to tide them over. No caring about each other. No feelings involved.

  He could have whispered. He could have insisted to his mother that they talk about it later. She could still hear his voice echoing through her mind, the way it carried throughout the house. Talia and I are just casual. It’s not like I’m going to marry her. She knew she was right that he’d expected her to hear him. And then when she said something about it, he could barely stammer out a reply.

  But what had she expected? Being with him was like being with a porcupine. No wonder she’d gotten stabbed.

  She lugged her bags from the station to the subway, then took the train up to Washington Heights. The trip felt endless, nothing like the drive with his hand in hers, a breeze through the windows, the endless ocean coming into view.

  The city was sweaty and cramped. She was jammed in the subway car with her bag and too many noises, everyone jostling against her. By the time she made it to Reed’s building, she wanted to collapse, exhausted from the long trip and the hole in her heart.

  But there was no time to rest. As soon as she stepped into his apartment, she knew she couldn’t stay there anymore. She couldn’t sleep with him, not with this ache in her heart. But sleeping in his bed while he slept on the couch would be worse.

  She’d put it off long enough, pretending she had no options just so she could get closer to him.

  But it was time to bite the bullet. She pulled out her phone.