Cold

by Max Monroe

  She rolled her eyes dramatically, and I laughed again. “Cliché, right? The harsh dickhead being scared?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed with a comical nod. “And I have to say, dickhead is an astute observation that I fully agree with.”

  I shrugged. “It’s all true. I was scared of love, scared of your sister, and scared of what the two of them would mean together.”

  Her head jerked back, and her smile melted.

  “You were an easy play at the party, and in hindsight, I understand just how cruel I was. But what happened between you and me beyond the party was not my motivation or intention.”

  “Oh great, that makes it all better.”

  I nodded. “I know. It was still shitty, I still deserve for the two of you to hate me, but the way I figure it, you’re going to get over it.”

  She guffawed. “I am, am I?”

  I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest. “I was an asshole. I treated you like shit and Ivy like shit, and I regret all of it. But we both know I couldn’t ever have felt something for you, as great as you are, because I was already gone for your sister.”

  Cam’s mouth opened and closed, momentarily stunned as I leaned back in for the kill. “Forgive me?” I whispered. “I’d really hate to have a problem with my sister-in-law.”

  Her words were stuttered and her breathing no more than pants. “Sister-in-law?”

  “I’ve got some work to do before then,” I admitted.

  Her nod was stiff and her face laughable, but the icy exterior she’d given me when we first came to the table was noticeably thawed.

  I inclined my head to the cup of coffee in her hand. “Now…is that how Ivy likes her coffee?”

  She nodded, analysis making her eyes turn a darker shade of green as she held it out to me.

  I shook my head and smiled. “No, thanks. I watched you make it. Two sugars and a little bit of milk.” She laughed—just one tiny lilt of disbelief. “I’ll make her a fresh cup.”

  “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Levi Fox.”

  “By all means,” I acquiesced. “If you think it’s necessary, I give you permission to keep watch with two.”

  Just before she left to walk away, she paused her steps and turned to meet my eyes. “You really care about her?”

  I nodded. “Without question.”

  She searched my eyes for a few long moments, assessing and scrutinizing my truth.

  Until she found whatever she was looking for.

  “You do something again to hurt her, I will murder you.”

  And that was that.

  Camilla walked away from the craft services table and, ironically, her words left me standing there with a giant smile on my face.

  If I did something to hurt Ivy again, I’d willingly hand Camilla the weapon.

  Boyce was still rambling on about Hugo’s notes in relation to being a little more clipped and rigid when I was doing my police work scenes—apparently, I’d been too fluid with my movement for his taste—but my eyes were on something else.

  Camilla and Levi were standing close at the craft table, and there was a light in both of their eyes. I’d tried to stop myself from counting his smiles, but he’d already curled his lips more times than he had in the entire few months I’d known him.

  And Cam wasn’t exactly taciturn.

  Fire raged inside my chest, licking and jumping from its origin at my heart and settling into the pit of my stomach. My jaw felt sore from the unconscious tight clench, and my hands grew clammier by the minute.

  With iron willpower and a professional pep talk, I did my best to keep my attention on Boyce.

  “I pushed for you to get this role, so I really need you to focus on…”

  Levi reached over and grabbed Cam’s elbow, and my whole body tightened.

  Goddammit.

  I didn’t want to be jealous.

  I didn’t want to think about how at ease he was with her and how agitated he got with me, comparing the two on an endless loop. I didn’t want to feel like my heart was shredding as I watched them chat and smile at one another, and I didn’t want to feel myself getting angry with Cam all over again.

  But she’d listened to me spill my heart about everything this morning—she’d cried with me as we’d rehashed weeks’ worth of torment and a whole lot of heartbreak.

  She’d understood. I’d thought she understood.

  Why the hell is she doing this to me?

  A sob threatened at the base of my throat, and I’d finally had enough. I cut Boyce off and jumped up from the makeup chair in a hurry. My makeup artist looked at me with sad eyes, painfully aware of how run-down I was on an intimate level.

  There wasn’t much you could hide from the person assigned to cover the dark circles under your eyes.

  “Excuse me,” I told Boyce, steadying my voice as much as I could manage. “I have to use the restroom.”

  I didn’t look back as I shoved past the still-droning producer and headed straight for the bathroom.

  Once inside, I locked the door and walked to the sink to look myself over in the mirror. Half made-up, contouring in place without being blended, I looked like a walking freak show. A startled laugh bubbled from my lips and turned into a hiccupping cry.

  Fucking hell, I desperately wanted to splash my face with water.

  But we were already behind schedule thanks to my late arrival, and having to start my makeup over from the beginning would take too much time.

  Spotting the paper towel dispenser two sinks down, I furiously grabbed a handful and ran it under the tap until the brown material soaked all the way through.

  I pressed it gently to the heat in my chest, hoping it would calm the fire at the source and spread to my face with time.

  It calmed the edges of the rage, but unfortunately, it didn’t make it all the way to the root. Frustrated, I threw the wet ball of paper into the garbage and grabbed another handful, cleaning up the sloppy mess my attempt had left behind.

  Steeling my nerves and looking myself in the eye, I made a promise. A promise to focus on myself for the rest of the day instead of my sister and Levi. A promise to give the best damn performance of my life.

  A promise to get the hell out of Cold as soon as this movie was done.

  Resolute in my newfound inner strength, I gathered myself and unlocked the door. When I swung it open, Cam was standing there waiting for me.

  “You okay?” she asked, and my acting experience kicked in.

  “Fine,” I advised, half in answer to her, half in a reminder to myself.

  “Okay, well, Brad is waiting to finish your makeup, and Mariah called about—”

  Immediately, my brain went into overload.

  “Can you just handle the Mariah thing, please?”

  Her eyes softened, and the corners of her mouth turned down at the grit in my voice.

  “Just…whatever it is…please?”

  She nodded immediately, dutiful and fully aware of my ricocheting emotions. I wasn’t angry with her—I knew my sister better than that—but I didn’t want her in my face either. If she left me alone and dealt with Mariah, it would serve two purposes.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure,” she murmured, lifting a hand and giving me a squeeze on my upper arm. Her touch felt steady and grounding, and I relaxed into it a little. I didn’t understand the science behind it, but Cam and I had a connection that superseded most others. No matter the rift, no matter if she was part of the reason for my chaos, she always calmed my disquiet.

  I settled as she moved away with her phone already up to her ear, and I headed back to the makeup chair.

  Brad, bless him, didn’t say anything about my abrupt departure, and instead, went right back to work on my face with tight lips as soon as I sat down. I pulled my script into my lap and intently studied the first scene we’d be working on.

  Carly Best’s and Victoria Carson’s bodies had been found on the same day, on the same property. We’d be moving to
location for the shoot just outside of the main drag through town, but the winter weather kept most of the prep work before shooting here in the old town hall building.

  I had both a trailer in the parking lot—for when the hours of shooting ran longer than the span of a normal day—and a small dressing room with nothing more than a table and a bar-height chair—where I could find a few minutes of solace in between scenes.

  A cup of coffee entered the space between my script and my face, and the powerful aroma was like an instant hit to my nervous system.

  God, I really needed this—

  “I thought you could use a cup,” Levi’s rough voice said softly, curling around the edges and touching notes I’d never heard him use before.

  Apparently, yelling used a different page of sheet music.

  My stomach turned.

  Levi’s eyes softened as I accepted the cup, and I held them purposefully. I forced myself to live in the pools of blue, swim there until they heated and flashed.

  And then, with a flick of my wrist, I moved the cup from my lap and dumped it directly into the trash beside my chair.

  Brad’s eyes widened as my gaze skirted past him on the way back to Levi.

  My throat constricted on the words as I forced them up, but the effect only added to the brittle break in my declaration. “No thanks.”

  I expected a flare of anger—Levi’s usual flash in the pan—but instead, his lips curved into a small smile. “Some other time, then.”

  A growl rattled in my throat as he walked away, and Brad’s eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline.

  “Don’t ask,” I insisted. “It’s complicated.”

  Brad’s smile was indulgent, but his voice was taunting. “Oh, honey. It must be.”

  I fought the urge for a full minute before turning to look for Levi again, but when I finally looked, my need was desperate.

  The room was full, but his back stood out like a beacon.

  Only then did the realization hit me.

  It really was complicated.

  It wasn’t a simple situation where I hated Levi and left him in the dust. I couldn’t just avoid him at all costs and concentrate on other things.

  It wasn’t over.

  Because for as done with Levi Fox as my head was, my body was still charging in the other direction.

  But for today, at least, I could make-believe.

  One day at a time, I would pretend. And then, at the end of production, I would leave.

  “Quiet on the set!”

  Silence hung in the air like that suspended moment before falling glass shattered on the ground. It felt heavy and thick against my ears as I waited for the word that instigated movement and momentum.

  “Okay…Action!”

  There it is.

  Before their rehearsed lines left their lips, the near-violent pounding of my heart and unsteady inhale and exhale of my lungs boomed inside my head at a hummingbird wing’s pace.

  I should’ve been used to this by now, but I’d learned pretty quickly the silence before the words was the most terrifying part for me. Like right before a bomb detonates. It was that silence that allowed for doubt and discomfort to grow suddenly until it became a physical reality inside my bones.

  “Talk to me, Grace,” Johnny Atkins whispered toward Ivy, his voice loud enough to reach my ears. His big hands moved into her hair, and his thumbs caressed the silky red strands with his thumbs.

  They were the only ones on set, in front of the camera’s lens, inside a replica of the Cold police station.

  Although the sharp, stinging pain inside my chest told me it had to be take number nine-hundred-and-two, it was only take number three for this particular scene.

  And it was a kissing scene. A Grace and Levi showing progression in their romantic relationship scene.

  If I’d eaten something today, I might’ve had the urge to vomit.

  “Cut!” Hugo called from his director’s chair, and Johnny and Ivy stopped, looking toward their director with slight confusion in their eyes.

  “Everything you guys were doing was perfect, I’m just not thrilled with the lighting,” Hugo explained. “Billy, we gotta adjust,” he instructed a man with jet-black hair who I’d quickly learned was the lighting director of this production. According to the perpetual scowl etched on his lips, it wasn’t the easiest of jobs.

  “I need it softened up a bit,” Hugo continued. “There are too many harsh lines and shadows falling over Ivy as she’s looking up at him. She needs to be almost ethereal in this scene. Like heaven itself dropped a damn angel from the sky just for him.”

  Billy nodded, and his team of three moved their asses and got to work on adjustments while everyone else watched on with patience.

  With production on Cold in full swing, the entire cast and crew had been putting in twelve, sometimes fourteen, hour days. Unless I had a patrol shift, I was on set nearly every day, watching in the background as Ivy and Johnny played their starring roles of Grace and me and waiting for my ride out of hell. It’d been three weeks since the clusterfuck at Ivy’s house, and the burn was still so hot, I was practically smoking.

  But the only chance at a reconciliation was to keep myself around. The more space I gave Ivy, the more she’d be able to build a fully fortified wall.

  Plus, I’d found the more I hung around, the more useful I became.

  I’d spent the better part of the morning chatting with Hugo Roman between takes, ensuring the dialogue and the way they’d laid out the events of the Cold-Hearted Killer in the script felt real to me.

  The man was a perfectionist to his core. Over the past three weeks, I’d had countless meetings with him where we’d scoured every detail of the script together.

  But he refused to let chance or lack of focus sully his reputation.

  Where most people would be okay with a simple double- or triple-check, Hugo Roman wanted ten checks, and sometimes fifteen or twenty, depending on his mood.

  I waited patiently, expecting him to call me toward his director’s chair with questions, but sighed a breath of relief when I realized he was very much engrossed in something on the camera monitor.

  It wasn’t easy, watching the movie-version scenes of the real-life experiences that had thrown my life into a downward spiral toward complete numbness, and it was even harder giving someone pointers about how to make it more realistic. As much as I liked having an actual role here rather than standing around, it was nice to have a breather from the grief.

  Before Grace had died, before Walter Gaskins wreaked havoc on our small community, I’d been a different man. Sure, I still had been rough around the edges but not so damn closed off. Back in the day, I had been a man who’d actually smiled freely and found real fucking joy in life.

  After Grace had died, I’d lost it all.

  I’d become a shell of myself, and I’d set my priorities on being numb—to myself, to life, to everyone and every-fucking-thing around me.

  I’d changed from someone who rarely drank to someone who’d savor the moments when a few glasses of whiskey could anesthetize my feelings and quell my racing thoughts.

  At least, that was how I had been.

  Ivy’s red hair fanned the room as she spun to talk to Johnny about something, and my heart kicked in my chest. Now, I was actually living.

  Thank God for her.

  Of course, living meant feeling, and as a whole, my body wasn’t used to it. My bones ached with exhaustion, and my mind felt weary from the emotional and mental fatigue. I would have been lucky if I’d slept twenty minutes last night. Hell, I would have been lucky if I’d slept eight hours all fucking week.

  Every night for the past three weeks, it’d been the same routine.

  As I tossed and turned, my brain raced with thoughts of her. Her smile, her scowl—every interaction we’d had since the day we’d met.

  My dreams were all Ivy, all the time, and none of them left a lot of room for actual rest.

  “All right
,” Billy announced as he walked back off set and toward Hugo. “I think we’re all set. Roll some film and see what you think.”

  While Hugo worked with camera angles, Ivy and Johnny stayed put on set, their bodies no longer entangled, but their eyes still focused on one another.

  He said something under his breath and a soft giggle spilled from her lips and hit me straight in the chest. I couldn’t not watch her as she quietly conversed with her costar.

  She was quite the talented little actress, and if I didn’t know her as well I did, I might’ve believed she actually enjoyed Johnny’s company.

  But her smile was too brittle. And her laugh was too forced.

  Ivy was the type of woman where you had to work for her smiles, her giggles, her bright eyes. She didn’t offer them up freely. No. Those reactions had to be earned.

  Stubborn to her core, she was strong and determined in everything she did, even when she was screaming at me. It was one of the things that drew me to her.

  As Johnny continued to talk quietly about who the fuck cares what, her emerald eyes roamed off set until they locked on to me.

  It only lasted a second or two, but I didn’t miss it.

  I relished it, actually. If anything, it gave me hope that she still cared.

  “Quiet on set!” Hugo called as he situated himself back in his director’s chair. “Johnny and Ivy, let’s take it from the top.”

  They both nodded, and my eyes were graced with the horrible view of them entangled together again, Johnny’s hands back in Ivy’s fucking hair, his gaze locked with hers.

  The set made it look later than it was, the lights mimicking night. A soft glow shone in through the only window in the frame of the camera, simulating a Montana moon, and a few gently lit lamps on the station’s desks provided the light for the room.

  “Rolling in three…two…one… Action!”

  “Talk to me, Grace,” Johnny repeated his line.

  Ivy looked up at him, and her petite hands slid up his arms and stopped only when they reached his shoulders. Her green gaze searched his, and she didn’t say anything until she found whatever it was she was looking for.