No Interest in Love (16 page)

I raise an eyebrow, then realize what she's doing. I grab at her wrist and whirl her around.

“You're not calling your agency.”

Her gaze drops to my hand, her chest rising and falling with suddenly labored breathing. I let her go slowly, the fear of touching her far outweighing the fear of her taking off.

She meets my stare for half a second and then hikes up the large pants and bolts to the train station.

Damn it, I should've kept ahold of her.

11:00
P.M.

“Shit.”

“What?”

She looks at the train station, the inside dim and very vacant.

“Do train stations
close
?”

A bomb crashes in my stomach, and I follow her up to the doors and give the handle a giant pull.

“Apparently this one does.”

The clock above the train station rings eleven times. Shay shakes the door again.

“It's locked,” I say, plucking a leaf from the tree out in front and tearing it up slowly at the veins.

Shay slumps against the glass, sliding down until her knees hit the cement. “You've solved the mystery again, Scooby.”

“I always pictured myself more of the Shaggy type.”

“Long arms, hollow head…”

“The comedic relief.”

“Alert me when you're being funny.”

I blow out a breath, searching for any train personnel in the dimly lit station. “I believe you were the one who said I can do comedy.”

Silence greets me instead of a witty comeback. I rip my gaze from the deserted platform to Shay and then suck in a breath.

“Whoa…are you ok—”

“I'm fine,” she says. But she's not. She pinches the bridge of her nose, slamming her eyelids shut. She lands on her butt, wrapping one arm around her knees. Her voice sounds wet, and her back shakes and shakes and my chest starts to tighten around my suddenly thumping heart.

“Are you crying?” I ask, mostly out of shock. Shay doesn't handle stress with tears. She handles it with anger, humor, and occasional abuse. Aside from the almost-cry in the car the other day, I've never seen her lose it like this.

“No,” she says.

But she is.

(Sort of.)

She blinks up to the sky, like titling her head back will force her tears to waterfall behind her eyes instead of out of them. Her voice has a slight croak to it when she says, “Jace…?”

“Huh?”

“I'm going to use the F
-
word.”

I raise an eyebrow, and when I don't say anything she lets her gaze drift to me.

“Failure.” She shakes her head. “I. Am. A. Failure. I can get something about ninety percent of the way finished…and then…” Her lips rumble as she makes a horrible sound effect of something exploding…or shitting…I'm not sure.

“Hey,” I say, taking a step closer to her, “we still got time.”

“We're in
Missouri
. The train is out, and unless I sprout wings from my spine, we aren't flying either.”

“We'll think of something. Two days ago we were stranded on the side of the road in California.” I try to grin, but I can tell already it won't cheer her up. “Now we're here.”

She rolls her eyes up to mine. “Okay, say I do get you there. I'll still lose something.”

I jerk back. “What?”

Her bottom lip quivers a tiny bit, like she didn't mean to blurt it out. Then she sighs and says, “You don't need me, Jace. And when you get this job, I'm afraid you're going to figure that out.”

“Uh, come again?” My brow furrows, and I can feel something stirring up under my skin. It pushes at my heart and sends messages to my lungs to put a pause on the breathing for a minute. Is she saying that she'll lose
me
? And why do I suddenly hope that
is
what she's saying?

“I'm a shit agent. What in the world have I done for you?”

“You got me an exclusive screen test for a giant movie. I'd say that's pretty badass.”

“And look how well that's turned out.” She waves her hand at the darkened station behind her. “And I didn't get the audition…You did.”

“Pretty sure I knew nothing of it.”

“You don't
need
me. Your acting speaks for itself.”

“But someone has to send in the tape.”

“Any good agent would've done that once they heard the news. I'm sure I'm not the only one who did.” She shakes her head at her knees, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what's going on because normally we fight with sarcastic insults, not compliments. I don't know how to handle them. But she's crazy to think that I don't need her.

And that thought kicks me unexpectedly in the ribs.

“You're a brilliant actor, Jace,” she all but whispers at her feet. “And you may talk big, but I honestly know that if
you
knew how good you really are, you wouldn't waste your time with a failure like me.”

I blink at her, rub the back of my neck, and ease toward her. I'm not good in situations like this. I don't know how to respond except with a sarcastic comment.

“Is this how you get when you're hungry?” I blurt stupidly, but I get the tiniest of laughs out of her.

“Honest? Yeah…we can chalk it up to lack of food.”

And then those tears that I thought had waterfalled back inside of her start to form in the corners of her eyes. She swallows hard. I swallow hard. She licks her lips, and I can't help but watch the motion like an alcoholic who's spotted the last bottle of wine. I want to take those lips, drink them up…and hope that it heals the painful words that tumble out of them next.

“I'll always be the Elmo Girl,” she says, sniffing and turning away from me. “It's been seven years, and everyone still only sees me as that. My parents…my parents still see me as that.”

She buries her face, hiding the vulnerability I know Shay doesn't like feeling. I know because
I
don't like feeling it. I hide behind sarcasm and jokes when really I get everything she's saying. Every damn day I wish I wasn't a failure. That I wasn't some nobody hoping to make something of himself. I wish I could read without messing up. I wish I could say all of this out loud, but at the same time I don't know if I can. Because the paths leading to what I want are starting to get blurry.

No…my vision is
actually
getting blurry.

I've never wiped a girl's tears away. I never felt like I could. That always felt like something a boyfriend would do. Or a brother. Or someone who meant something or more than what I could offer. I never empathized with a girl before. Never wanted to drown in her sorrow
with
her. I always wondered who would do that to themselves.

But a tear rolls down Shay's cheek, and it feels like it's rolling down mine. Her breath hitches, and I suddenly feel like I can't breathe. My heart is slowly ripping in my chest, and it catches me so off guard that I stumble a bit. I have to grasp onto the glass door and guide myself down next to her.

I meet her eyes.

I wipe her tears.

I erase them one by one with the pads of my thumbs.

I say, “You're not a failure,” meaning every single word and knowing that it probably won't be enough. Because I get it. For the first time, I know
exactly
how a girl feels when she breaks.

Shay nods, and I grin at her silent argument. My arm slides around her shoulders, and I tuck her into the warmth of my neck. Her hand slithers up my shirt, fisting it near the collar. I've been with several women in positions I never thought possible, but this…this is the most intimate position I've ever been in.

I like it.

It scares me that I like it.

Shay doesn't cry for long. Her breathing evens out rather quickly, and I find my hand running up and down her back of its own accord. She
is
softer than I expected. Honestly, for a while I thought she was made of tough-as-hell shell.

She shifts, bumping her head slightly on my chin, then settles back up against me. I edge closer in case she's uncomfortable.

Her hand lets go of my shirt and she pulls at her own, bumping and wiggling next to me, ruining the back-rubbing rhythm I got going on.

“Am I hurting you?”

She shakes her head. “Just another article of clothing biting the dust.”

My mouth quirks up. “Huh?”

“The wire snapped on my bra.”

“Take it off,” I tell her.

“I'm not one of those women who can walk around with no bra. It's pretty noticeable.”

“I'm not complaining.”

She shoves my side and sits up, taking the warm and buzzed air with her. “Jace, I'm really not in the mood to be faux hit on.”

I shake my head and stick my hand out. “I'll fix it for you.”

Her eyes drift to my open hand, eyeing it with uncertainty before she looks back at me. “You've done this before?” she asks with an attempted smirk that looks amazingly cute, even with the glossy effect in her eyes. She snakes her arms through the sleeves, stretching the material enough for me to see the bra loosen as she unsnaps the hooks. I swallow hard, ignoring the pounding rhythm in my chest, and echo her attempted smirk.

“Darcy VanCamp,” I say with nostalgia. “Eighth-grade play.”

“Really?” She raises an eyebrow, wiggling her arm back out, red bra settled in the palm of her hand. “I was kidding.”

“I know.” I grin. And yeah, I try to see if I can tell she's braless. I can't. But she crosses her arms pretty tight after handing the bra over.

I clear my throat and find the irritating wire. “My first time getting a bra off didn't go very well.”

“Darcy VanCamp. The first girl you traumatized for life,” she says in the same nostalgic tone I used.

“Hey, hey…I was just following her lead when she took me back to wardrobe. I was a gentleman…but maybe a little too anxious with the brassiere.”

She snorts, and my fingers get a good grip on the loose wire and I pull it from the fabric. Shay leans over me, watching my awkward hands maneuver around this thing. Her warm breath washes over my neck, forcing my pulse to increase its chaotic rhythm.

“How long did it take you to get it off?” she asks in a low whisper. I can feel her eyes on my face, on my neck, down my arms and to my hands.

“That's not important.”

“Half an hour,” she teases.

“Less than that.”

“Five minutes.”

I shake my head, wanting to look at her but afraid of what I might do if I make eye contact. “More than that.”

She grins and scoots on the cement, resting her leg against mine. I move to the other cup, my rough hands pushing on the soft and pliant fabric, trying to make a tiny hole so I can even the cups up. She watches me, breathing against my neck, not saying anything, and so I keep going with my story.

“Well,” I say, voice shaking, and I wish to damn hell that I wasn't losing my skull. “I-I ended up snapping one of these things.” I wave the underwire at her. “I didn't even know bras had braces.”

“They're more like structural beams.”

She gets a legitimate laugh out of me. The kind that comes from the gut, that you don't expect. And I'm liking it.

I'm liking it more than I should. More than I want to.

“There you go,” I say, handing her bra back, beam free. “You want to keep these?”

I'm teasing, but she tilts her head at the wires and says, “Sure.” So I put them in my carry-on for her while she snaps her bra back on. She tugs at her breasts, and I try really hard not to watch but can't help it. And when she catches me, I blink away with a laugh.

“Yeah, I was staring.”

She's quiet for a second. “Did you enjoy the show?”

“Encore?”

She rolls her eyes, sniffles, and pushes on my shoulder. It's a touch she's done before, but it feels like it's the first time, and my body responds like I'm sitting on a fault line.

After a couple of beats where we just watch a few cars pass, neither of us in the mood to try to hitchhike, she wraps her arms around her knees and says, “Was that a first?”

“Huh?”

“Touching a bra without touching the boobs?” Her lips are pushed hard together, suppressing her amusement.

It's adorable.

It's terrifying.

“Congratulations. You are a first.” I try to subtly put space between us, but the more I scoot away, the more I want to close the distance back up. “So…you gonna tell me what happened in that truck-stop bathroom?”

She rolls her eyes and puts them back on the road. Mine glue to her mouth, which has tilted up in an unbelievably gorgeous smile. I'm trying not to stare. Really, I am. I've seen Shay's mouth thousands of times. It's usually moving with some kind of order for me or sarcastic comment. But even though my brain's saying, “Stop looking,” my eyes want to memorize that mouth. She leans back, hair covering her face as she runs her thumb under her eyes, wiping away the last remnants of her breakdown. Even her crying is adorable. I might even admit that it's more than adorable. Everything about her suddenly seems different than what I thought before. When I looked at her, I saw a friend. (Sometimes an enemy.) But mostly…a friend I wanted to make laugh. I never realized that once I got the laugh it would mean so much to me. I didn't realize that putting a grin on a stubborn face would hit me in the deepest parts of myself I didn't even know I had. I didn't see myself looking at her in any capacity and
wanting
her because of it. But that's what is happening…and not just because my body wants it, but because my mind, my gut, and perhaps my heart does too.

Right then, my heart starts beating loud and heavy, and I realize that the screenwriter has jotted a footnote next to Shay's character.

Miss Unlikely…will at some point feel like Miss Most Likely, and Mr. Kick-ass Lead won't know it until it happens.