Wrong Bed, Right Girl

by Rebecca Brooks

  But Reed couldn’t celebrate. He couldn’t stop clenching his fists.

  “Be happy,” Aaron told him. “We nailed it. Jonnie’s going away for this, and he’s not coming back.”

  Reed whirled on his brother like he was a stranger. “How could you let her do that?” he hissed. “I told you no, and you went ahead and did it anyway.”

  “Whoa.” Aaron held up his palms. “She’s the one who came to me.”

  “I don’t care!” Reed’s voice was loud enough that anyone walking by outside the van could have heard them. “I don’t give a fuck what she did,” he repeated, calling on every ounce of self-control to lower his voice. “You should have known better than to put her in danger.”

  “She helped us,” Aaron said. “She knew what she was getting into, and she did it anyway. You wanted me to say no to that? You wanted me to forego the case and give up what we just got? I know it wasn’t perfect, Reed. But let’s be realistic. It was the best chance we were going to get.”

  But Reed didn’t care about the case. For once, what pulsed behind his eyes when he blinked wasn’t the outline of the bodies Jonnie had brought down. It was Talia walking into that row house. Talia with a wire clipped to the button on her shirt. Talia in danger. Talia hurt—because of him.

  “Didn’t you care about her at all?” Reed asked, his face hot, his hands still clenched into fists. “Didn’t you stop and think about what you were getting her into?”

  Aaron stared at him. “I thought you guys broke up.”

  “So?” Reed shot back.

  “So…I thought you weren’t serious about her. You said so. At Mom’s. It just sounded like not a big deal to you anymore. I’m not saying I’d sacrifice any of our precautions,” he added quickly. “I wouldn’t let anyone into a situation I thought was too risky. Neither would the captain. Neither would any judge worth their salt. But come on, Reed. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

  Reed’s jaw tightened. Tightened so hard, he thought it might snap.

  Overreacting.

  Like Talia meant nothing.

  Like this danger was nothing.

  Like it was all just another day to everyone else.

  Get a wire, nab a few bad guys, head on home.

  Like his heart wasn’t right now twisting inside him, all the blood wringing out of him, pooling on the floor.

  “I can’t,” he stammered. “I just—” He ran a hand over his head, his mouth moving but no words coming out except, “I can’t.”

  “Holy shit,” Vicky said, one ear on the headphones, listening to make sure Talia was safely out, the other ear soaking up Reed’s conversation with Aaron. “That’s your girlfriend in there?”

  Her eyes widened, but Reed shook his head. “Ex-girlfriend. Ex-something. Whatever.”

  The woman snorted.

  “What?” Reed demanded.

  “I don’t know you from Adam,” Vicky said. “But that’s not a ‘whatever’ to you.”

  Reed took a deep breath, ready to go off on her for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Then he let it out, and the rush of heat went with it.

  “Does anyone have a mirror?” Aaron asked suddenly.

  “What?” Reed looked at him, confused.

  “I just wish you could see your face right now, man.” Aaron shook his head, a smile stealing across his features. “I wish you could see what’s written all over it.”

  Reed tried to look normal. Just another batshit crazy day at work. Happened all the time. Nothing to see here.

  But it was too much. The adrenaline, the pounding of his heart. The fear over protecting Talia. The fear over protecting himself.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said to no one in particular. To Aaron, to the technicians, to himself. “Obviously my job is a mess. I can’t go dragging her into my shit.”

  “I’m pretty sure she dragged herself,” Aaron said. “And anyway, this is about to be over. How likely is it that Talia’s going to get to know a slew of other dealers around the city? This isn’t going to happen again.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened once,” Reed snapped. “I shouldn’t have done this to her.”

  “For the last time,” Aaron said. “You didn’t get her involved. You didn’t introduce her to Stacey, you didn’t get her that apartment, you didn’t drag her into the case, and you didn’t make her go in there just now. She could have run the other way when she took one look at you, but she didn’t. She stayed in your shitty apartment. And danced the electric slide with Nana. You think she had to do any of that? You think you made her?”

  “Offering a woman’s perspective,” Vicky piped up, “I wouldn’t meet someone’s grandmother unless I seriously, seriously liked them. And even then.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’d have to be pretty special.”

  It was. The thought came to him unbidden, but no less clear for its unexpectedness. It was the exact opposite of what he’d told everybody. But it was entirely true.

  It was special with Talia. Everything was.

  And he’d gone and thrown it away anyway. Even though it was special. Or maybe precisely because it was.

  “I can’t let Talia get any closer to me,” Reed said. “It’s over, and it has to stay that way. Not even this crazy stunt can change that.”

  “She didn’t do it to get you back, Reed,” Aaron said. “She made me promise not to tell you—she knew you’d be pissed. Why do you think I didn’t let you know what was happening?”

  Reed couldn’t answer.

  And then, Aaron kept talking.

  “She’s not Lisa,” he said quietly, inching toward him on the bench in the van where Reed had somehow found himself sitting.

  “I know that,” Reed said, wincing involuntarily at just the name. “But Talia still has to stay away from me. From this. Us. This kind of life. I don’t know how you do it with Maggie, but I can’t. I tried with Lisa, and it just—” He took a jagged breath. “It didn’t work for me. Okay? It didn’t work.”

  “Did that sound like Lisa on the wire just then?” Aaron jutted his head toward the audio equipment.

  “No,” Reed had to concede. Lisa never would have done anything like that. Not in a million years.

  He put his hand on the handcuffs clipped to his belt, feeling the cold metal press against his palm. If he had to think about how different Lisa and Talia were, it went so much deeper than anything Aaron could know. It wasn’t just Talia’s voice on the wire, walking into danger and nearly charming the pants off of it.

  It was Talia with her arms clasped behind her, wrists in handcuffs, bent over the ledge of the roof, crying Reed’s name until she came apart for him.

  Talia grumpy in the morning before she had coffee. Talia laughing her head off at nothing. Talia talking a mile a minute, never letting him get away with shutting up. With shutting himself off.

  He kept saying he couldn’t be with her because of his job. The same way he kept telling himself his relationship with Lisa didn’t work out because of his job. As opposed to not working out because he and Lisa weren’t right for each other, period.

  Because here he was, doing his job, and the impact on his relationship with Talia was nil. He hadn’t broken up with her because he had work to do, and that work was dangerous. He’d broken up with her because he had work to do, and that work was dangerous, and even that wasn’t holding her back from being with him. From giving herself to him.

  Nothing was holding her back from him.

  And that was scarier than every gang leader in New York City combined.

  “She’s out,” Vicky said. “She’s heading to the subway.”

  “Is someone going to meet her?” Reed asked.

  Aaron shook his head. “Not if there’s a chance one of West’s guys could be trailing her to the subway to make sure she’s clean.”

  “But she’s going back to the DEA office, right?” Reed asked.

  “Nah,” Aaron said. “She said she had somewhere to be.”

  Ree
d checked his watch. It was only early afternoon. That was when it finally occurred to him to think of the date. He swore.

  “I have to go,” he said to Aaron. “I have to take a shower, clean up. Tell the boss you did good today.”

  “Don’t you want to come back to the office, be there to follow up?”

  He knew what Aaron was asking. Didn’t he want to make sure the chain of command saw him there, demonstrating leadership, taking responsibility for their success?

  But Reed shook his head. He had more important things to do right now than secure the next step to lieutenant.

  This time, when he went to open the van door, nobody made a move to stop him. Even Vicky grinned at him with her green hair shining and told him good luck.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You’re late, Ms. Lassiter!” Hal Burton scolded, clapping his hands to hurry Talia along. “Where on earth have you been that’s more important than tonight?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, rushing to the dressing rooms. “The trains were delayed, and I—”

  But he’d already stalked off to the next disaster, muttering to himself about the heart attack he’d had, or was having, or was about to have tonight. She collapsed at her mirror as the makeup artists descended upon her, everyone going on about how there wasn’t any time. She needed to warm up, get in costume, have her hair done, all while six pounds of makeup were slathered on her face thick enough that it wouldn’t sweat off.

  She just had to remind herself that it was worth it. She’d done something important, and she didn’t regret it. Even if it was crazy. Even if it had made her impossibly late. There was no going back now and changing things. She could only move forward with her life.

  She let herself be poked and prodded, then squeezed into Giselle’s floating blue and white peasant dress for the opening scene. At least running from the subway counted as something of a warm-up. She started doing relevés backstage, urging her legs to wake up.

  “Hey!” Chelsea came over in her costume, a loose, easy smile on her face. “How do you feel?” She flashed a secret grin.

  “Great,” Talia said, trying to match that same conspiratorial tone. “Really great.”

  She thought about the baggie of white pills she’d shoved to the bottom of her gym bag and Jonnie West’s hand grazing hers. She almost shuddered right in Chelsea’s face.

  But she had to keep it together. She had to act like that afternoon had been exactly what she needed. Now she’d float through the performance like a dream, all because she’d swallowed those special round pills.

  If she looked terrified, or the least bit sore, she’d wind up with Chelsea frowning at her. Or, worse, bringing her a glass of water and even more “help.”

  No. Talia had to stop worrying. For the next two hours and fifteen minutes, all that mattered was Giselle. Jonnie West couldn’t exist in her mind. Or Stacey, or Chelsea, or anyone else.

  Not even Reed.

  Especially not Reed.

  Thinking about him was enough to make her legs go wobbly underneath her, her mind spinning off in a thousand directions. Was she really never going to see him again? How could everything have gone so wrong?

  Focus.

  She was not going to lose everything to a man. She wasn’t going to let herself down like that. Again.

  She could spend all of opening night feeling bad about what she’d lost. She could think about Reed instead of Giselle and go home in disappointment, knowing she hadn’t given it her all. Not even needing to look at Hal’s face to know it was over for her.

  Or she could suck it up and dance.

  She knew the steps. She’d gone over every second of the routine more times than she could count. Now, what she needed was to trust her body and let it listen to her commands. She needed to get out of her head.

  Chelsea squeezed Talia’s hand for luck and skittered off to take her place in the wings. There was a flurry of commotion as everyone got prepared. The next thing Talia knew, she was counting out the beats as the music began, her heart pounding and pounding as she waited for her cue.

  For a second as she stepped on stage, she felt herself falter. The spotlight was blinding. The heat overwhelmed her before she’d even started to move. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t handle this. She was doing it all wrong.

  But she’d already survived the performance of a lifetime, going up to the Jonnie West and doing her best acting job. And she’d nailed it.

  Not for Reed. But for herself.

  To know that she could. That even if she and Reed were over, she was still the same person inside. And that person was capable. Stronger than she’d ever realized—no matter how many tears she sometimes shed.

  Even if her heart was shattered, she knew that person was going to be okay.

  Better than okay. She was going to soar.

  How could she be nervous after wearing that wire? How could she ever feel like there was something she couldn’t do?

  She wasn’t in the corps anymore, in the back of the stage. She wasn’t surrounded by other dancers, one among the crowd. She had no one to lean on, no one to hide behind. No one to protect her if anything went wrong.

  But she didn’t need protecting. She didn’t need to hide. She loved Reed, and she could admit it. She didn’t need to run from her feelings or pretend they didn’t exist. She didn’t need to apologize for her heart.

  She’d felt something real, and she’d never regret that. Love was stronger than she’d thought. She was stronger than she’d thought. Giselle the character died of heartbreak. Talia could understand that passion, that pain. It gave her something to relate to, a way to bring the character to life with a depth she’d never felt before.

  But to love was not a tragedy.

  And she wasn’t going to feel bad about it.

  By the time the performance ended, she felt like she was dancing on clouds. Exhausted, but in a good way. In a way that let her know she’d held nothing back. No one could say she hadn’t given it her all.

  As she came back on stage for the second curtain call, she could see her friends and family in the front as promised. Everyone was on their feet and clapping like mad. She was beaming, ecstatic. And so relieved.

  Then she saw the empty seat next to Jessie, and her heart sank.

  That must have been Reed’s ticket. But he hadn’t come. He hadn’t wanted to see her. He didn’t even care.

  She tried not to let that empty space ruin her evening. She tried to remember everything she’d accomplished on her own.

  But it was hard, stepping off the stage, to pretend she didn’t need him. It was hard not to feel the hollowness and the ache take over again as she made her way to her dressing room, every muscle screaming in pain.

  Fuck it, she just wanted to take off her pointe shoes and collapse. Rose had a gorgeous bathtub, maybe she could—

  She stopped dead in her tracks. There was someone standing outside her dressing room. Someone who shouldn’t have been there. It took everything left in her legs to keep standing when he looked up, caught her stunned look, and gave something that almost resembled a smile.

  “Reed?” she asked, her throat dry. She must have been seeing things. The performance must have taken so much out of her, she’d finally snapped.

  He was wearing a suit. Navy blue, white button-down, no tie. Brown loafers, the same ones he’d worn to the party. His head was freshly shaved, his scruffy jaw trimmed—but not too much. She could just make out a hint of the ocean waves around his wrist, under his sleeve, and the sight of that blue made her heart swim. The thought of it running all the way up his biceps made her drown.

  He was carrying a large paper grocery bag, and whatever was in it must have been heavy because he kept one hand supporting it from the bottom, the other hand folding down the top.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  Talia had never felt so ridiculous in her life. There she was with her cheeks slathered in stage makeup, her hair slicked with so much hair sp
ray that not a single strand had moved the entire performance. She was dressed as a ghost from Giselle’s last scene, all lace and white, and sweating like she’d just run six marathons back to back.

  Then there was Reed, looking so perfect, so everything she wanted. So everything she couldn’t have.

  Except for the paper grocery bag. Which, admittedly, was a little strange.

  She thought he was about to thrust it at her—what the hell? But he paused, like maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe it had just dawned on him that it was a little unexpected for him to be there. That she had no idea what was going on.

  “What are you doing?” she stammered.

  “I know this isn’t exactly protocol,” he said.

  She pinched her eyes shut. This wasn’t making sense.

  “You already broke up with me once, Reed. You don’t need to do it again.” Couldn’t she enjoy her night without more heartache? Couldn’t he leave well enough alone?

  “Baby—” he started, and his voice broke.

  Her eyes flew open, staring at him.

  He had no right to call her that. No right to be here at all. But in that one word, she could hear everything he wanted to say, and everything he hadn’t been able to. In the word, in the silence that followed, in the way he looked at her like he’d never be able to stop looking again.

  That was when she realized. That empty seat in the audience—it wasn’t because he’d missed the whole performance. It was because he’d rushed out to find her backstage.

  “I thought you didn’t want this,” she said quietly, still feeling so confused. So afraid to let her heart hope.

  “I was an idiot, Talia. And I was wrong.”

  “Fuck, Reed,” she said.

  “Please don’t tell me it’s too late. I don’t think I can stand to hear it.”

  “No, I mean—fuck, you can’t make me cry before I get all this mascara off.”