Cuff Me (22 page)

V
incent felt like a chump. An utter, foolish ass.

He took a step back and surveyed the table. It looked…

Ridiculous.

It might be better with a tablecloth, or whatever, to cover up the dented wood table he’d gotten at a garage sale a decade ago.

But the day Vincent bought a fucking tablecloth would also be the day he died, so that was out.

Maybe she wouldn’t notice with the candles. They weren’t fancy—just white stubby things he’d picked up for the odd windstorm that knocked the power out.

But combined with the flowers. Yeah. He felt like a chump.

He thought about putting them away, but she’d texted saying she was on her way over. If he got caught in the act of
un
-setting the table, he’d look even more foolish.

He’d just have to ride it out and hope that she didn’t:

(a) laugh

(b) get the wrong idea that this was the type of guy he was going to be.

He wasn’t the hearts and flowers guy.

And yet… Vincent sipped his wine and considered the table. Apparently he
was
that kind of guy.

Correction:

Jill Henley made him want to be that kind of guy.

At least dinner he could pull off without feeling like a complete ass.

Vincent seasoned the steaks, poked at the potato baking in the oven for doneness, and then refilled his wine.

There was a knock at the door, and Vin glanced at the table in panic. Did he light the candles
now
? That seemed cheesy. But if he didn’t light them, it seemed too random… just two unlit candles chilling on his table with those Goddamn flowers.

In the end, it was decided for him.

Jill let herself in and was in the kitchen before he even had a chance to think about where he might have stashed his matches.

He waited with trepidation to see if she’d laugh in his face at the table, but she was glancing down at her phone and didn’t seem to even see the flowers.

Vincent told himself it was just as well that she wasn’t into that kind of thing. It’s not like there’d be a repeat.

And yet, he felt…

Deflated.

Then she glanced up, met his eyes, and smiled—one of those happy smiles that lit up her whole face, and Vincent was gone.

It didn’t matter if she saw the flowers or laughed at the candles, because she saw him.

And that was what mattered. All that had ever mattered.

“Wine?” he asked.

“Later,” she said, moving toward him and winding her arms around his neck before pulling his head down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.

“I was thinking…” she said, when she pulled back and gave him a sexy look.

He kissed the tip of her nose, refusing to feel embarrassed by the dopey gesture. “Yes?”

She kissed him again, briefly. “Take me out.”

He pulled back. “Huh?”

“I know, I know, you hate that stuff, but hear me out. We could get all dressed up, I could put on lipstick, high heels. Go into the city, somewhere fancy, a little overpriced…”

“I was thinking we could eat in,” he said slowly.

Jill pushed back. Her smile was still in place but she looked… disappointed. “We
always
eat in, Vin.”

“I know, but—”

“No, I mean literally
always
. We’ve been seeing each other for two weeks now, and we haven’t gone out once other than crappy diner lunches.”

It stung. Just a little.

“Wine?” he asked, pushing the unexpected disappointment aside.

“Um, sure,” she said, sounding bored.

“So how was—”

“Are you ever going to take me out?” she interrupted. “I mean, I don’t need it all the time. I know it’s expensive,
and not your thing, but Vin… I don’t want Chinese food and crappy pizza for the rest of my life.”

Just tell her.
Tell her that you’re trying. That you spent an obscene amount of money on the best steaks you could afford, and somehow draw her attention to her flowers…

But it felt wrong now. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

He felt a little lost and a lot defensive.

“I thought you knew what you were getting into. Fancy restaurants and romantic gestures have never been part of the equation.”

“So what, we just put on our sweatpants and call it a night, every night?”

He started to lift his hand to the table, but he let it drop to his side. “You know what, Henley? If you wanted oysters and Dom and red roses, maybe you should have stuck with Tom and his arsenal of tuxedos and his yacht that’s always on fucking standby.”

He waited for her to deny it. Waited for her to tell Vin that it was him that she wanted.

Instead she looked miserable.

As miserable as he felt.

“What is it that we’re doing here, Vin? Are we just partners with benefits?”

He opened his mouth, but she wasn’t done.

“I know, you don’t like labels, you don’t think you’re a romantic guy, you’re skittish, I get that. I’ve been patient. I’m dealing with it. I don’t need promises of forever, but I just… I need more.”

Her voice was a little wobbly and he swallowed, his mouth dry.

He racked his brain for the right thing to say. Words
had never been easy for him, but they’d never been this hard.

Nor this important.

And yet, he still didn’t know what to tell her.

He stayed silent, and in true Jill fashion she just kept talking. “I’ve been thinking that this relationship… that this relationship has been a long time coming. Fate, or whatever, but what we have is nothing more than you deciding you wanted something you couldn’t have but aren’t at all sure you want to keep it.”

He stepped closer. “That’s bullshit. This is more than that, and you know it.”

She looked away, and he cupped her jaw. “I’m not going to apologize for fighting for you, Jill.”

She put both hands on his shoulders, shoving him away, and his heart cracked just a little.

“I want more, Vin.”

He shook his head to indicate he didn’t understand.

She pressed her hands together. “Tom wasn’t the one that I wanted, but he was offering me what I wanted. Marriage. A future.”

Vin’s head tilted back, realizing he wasn’t going to like where this was going.

“And you,” she continued. “You
are
the one that I want, Vin. I think you’re maybe
the
one, but—”

“No buts,” he said, moving toward her again, caging her in. “Let that just be enough.”

She lifted her hands, set them against his chest, gently. Regretfully. “I don’t think it
is
enough.” She lifted her eyes to his. “Not for me. I want more. I want it all.”

They stared at each other miserably for several seconds, and she licked her lips nervously.

“Vin, can you tell me—do you just need time? Is it just taking things slow? Because I can do that. But you put up warning signs on almost a daily basis. Like there’s a bunch of yellow caution tape around your heart, and I just need to know if it will always be like that.”

“Jill—”

“I need to know if you think you could ever love me,” she said, her voice a little bit urgent now.

He’d never felt so miserable. He wanted to tell her yes. He wanted to say whatever would bring her smile back and take them back to where they were before.

But he wouldn’t lie to her. She’d been right before when she’d said that trust was the one thing they’d always been able to count on in each other.

So he told her the truth. Knowing it meant losing her.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what that feels like.”

I don’t know that I can take that kind of risk.

She nodded, not looking the least bit surprised, and that somehow made it worse.

He lifted a hand to her cheek. “Can’t we just stay as we are? That’s been pretty good, right?”

She slipped away from him. “I need a little time to think about things.”

He swallowed. “How much time?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that I’ve gone from being engaged, to being single, to jumping into
this
, whatever this is, and it’s been great, it’s just…”

She rubbed her eyes. “I think I need a minute.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Do you want a glass of wine? I can put on music, or—”

“I think I’m going to head home.”

It hurt. He was prepared for it, but it still hurt.

He nodded slowly. “I’ll be around when you need me.”

“I know,” she said, not looking at him.

“Jill—”

She turned away, giving him her back, and he sucked in a quick breath.

In that moment, Vincent knew precisely the reason he avoided falling in love.

Because it meant feeling like this. It meant feeling half-alive.

“I’ll be here,” he said again. Quietly. Weakly.

She turned then, walked slowly toward his front door, and he willed himself to call out to her.

But he was also mad. Mad that she was so wrapped up in her little dream bubble of what romance looked like that she couldn’t even see that he was
trying
.

He waited for her to turn back around. To come back and tell him that she wanted him, flaws and all. That staying
in
with him was better than going
out
with someone else.

She didn’t.

L
ying about being sick did not exactly rank in Jill’s Top Moments to be Proud Of.

But since facing Vin was so not an option just yet, Jill was on day four of “the flu.”

Vincent, of course, would know better.

But her bosses wouldn’t.

Still, Jill had found a way to assuage her guilt, slightly: by working.

Granted, she wasn’t working on a case she was supposed to be working on.

But in a desperate move to stop the ache that happened every time she thought about Vincent, she’d thrown herself into the Lenora Birch case.

Sure, she had explicit orders to let that one go—but she was willing to bet that if the higher-ups had their choice between her sitting and watching soaps while eating Ben
& Jerry’s, or her going through decades-old news articles in an attempt to find something they’d missed, they’d choose the latter.

Still, the task was daunting. Lenora Birch had been famous and old. The result? Hundreds of articles mentioning her name.

There were casting announcements, casting rumors, film reviews, film screenings. And that’s before you even got to the gossip rags, where there were feuds and catfights and tantrums and divorce.

Jill’s cell phone buzzed as she was reading a particularly juicy account of Lenora’s on-screen chemistry with James Killroy.

A quick glance showed it was Elena for, oh, the millionth time.

Jill put the phone back down without answering. Was she avoiding her best friend? Yes. Was she proud of it? Certainly not.

She wasn’t mad at Elena. Not at all.

But Elena had the misfortune of being related to the one person Jill couldn’t even
think
about right now.

Her phone buzzed once more. Elena again.

Jill was just about to put the dang thing on silent when there was a knock at her door, timed in perfect rhythm to the phone. Almost as though the person knocking was also listening to the phone ring.

Jill gave a rueful smile as she pushed herself off the floor where she’d been sitting cross-legged in a pile of paper and went to the door.

Unsurprisingly, it was Elena.

Her best friend was dressed in a knee-length sweater dress and killer boots, and was holding a grocery bag.

Elena held out the bag. “I would have brought chicken soup, but I hazarded a guess that chips and wine were a better remedy.”

For a moment, Jill had an odd flashback to that first night back from Florida when Vin had held out that smashed doughnut for her.

She pushed the thought aside.

Jill smiled as she took the bag. “You’d be right. I’m not sick so much as—”

“Being a bit of an idiot?” Elena asked, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head.

Jill set the grocery bag on the floor with a thump and threw her arms around Elena and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for avoiding you.”

Elena wasted no time hugging Jill back. They were both huggers by nature. Always had been. “I don’t blame you. Not one little bit. Vin can be an utter monster—”

Jill pulled back. “Wait. For God’s sake, let’s do this while sitting down, preferably with junk food and an adult beverage.”

Elena’s eyebrow lifted. “It’s three o’clock on a weekday.”

Jill shrugged. “That’s cool. We can talk about the dirty handcuff sex I had with your brother
sober
if you want…”

Elena groaned and grabbed at the grocery bag as she headed toward the kitchen. “On second thought, do you have any really long straws? I’m thinking of just going straight from the bottle.”

Five minutes later, they were seated on Jill’s couch, armed with a glass of pinot grigio and a bowl of salt and vinegar chips.

“You making a creepy scrapbook?” Elena asked, gesturing toward the papers strewn about their feet.

Jill pulled her knees toward her chest. “I’ve been trying to distract myself.”

Elena nodded. “I suppose that’s one of the perks of your job. Homicide’s about as good of a distraction from relationship issues as any.”

“Right?” Jill said. “Although it all feels like a waste of time. Vincent and I had weeks to turn up a suspect, and nothing stuck. Nothing clicked. I’m missing something, but I just don’t know where to look.”

Elena gave her a steady look. “Perhaps the problem is all the ‘I’ in that past statement. Isn’t the entire point of having a partner, to well, partner on these things?”

Jill dug her hand into the chip bowl and stayed silent.

Elena put an elbow on the back of the couch and rested her face on her hand. “Talk.”

“Nothing to talk about,” Jill said around a mouthful of chips.

“But you guys
did
cross the sexy-line, did you not?”

Jill gave her a look. “It’s your brother. You really want to be having this conversation?”

“I’ll confess it’s not my favorite. But when it comes to choosing between you and Vin… well let’s just say he’s not even my favorite brother.”

Elena’s voice was teasing—Jill knew her friend was only referring to the fact that Elena and Vincent were prone to squabbling. But the offhand comment squeezed her heart a little bit.

It made her wonder if Vincent wasn’t always slightly aware of his status as the family loner. If it wasn’t part of the reason he held himself back from everyone.

The reason he held himself back from her.

He wasn’t accustomed to being anyone’s favorite. Wasn’t used to being first in anyone’s life.

“We had a thing,” Jill said quietly.

“A thing.”

“Yeah, like a… fling.”

“A fling is something you have with a guy you meet in a bar, not the guy who’s been your other half for
years
.”

“Well, it was. Um. It was…” Jill took a sip of wine.

“C’mon. Spill. You guys sexed it up, and then…?”

“And then…” Jill waved her hand. “Nothing.”

“It was bad?”

“No! It was—” Jill paused, remembering she was talking to Vincent’s sister. “The physical part wasn’t the problem.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” Jill said, relieved that Elena got it. “Ah.”

“Let me guess, the dude won’t open up. Won’t talk to you. Won’t let you in?”

“All of the above.”

Elena took a sip of wine. “But you love him anyway.”

Love
.

A tricky word, that.

Jill had never been one of those people who’d had trouble saying it. She’d always given and received love fairly easily.

But loving Vincent…

Loving Vincent was scary. Risky.

Horribly, alarmingly
big
.

Loving Vin wasn’t easy. He was stubborn and prickly and difficult.

And loving him was also… inevitable.

As though it were inconceivable for anyone but him to hold her heart.

“Crap,” she muttered.

Elena made a sympathetic noise and reached to tug a piece of Jill’s hair.

“What happened?”

“I don’t even know. It’s like one second I asked him to take me out to dinner. Just once. And the next we were, like, breaking up.”

Elena’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What day was this.
Exactly
.”

Jill thought back. “Um… Friday?”

Elena closed her eyes. “Oh no.”

Jill stilled. “Oh no what?”

Elena bit her lip. “When you went over there, was there anything… different?”

“Different?” Jill thought back. “No, it seemed exactly the same. That was sort of the problem.”

“So you didn’t look around?”

“I guess not.” Jill said, totally confused.

Her friend blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m going to show you something, but promise not to freak out, okay?”

“Okay…”

Elena pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photos before holding out the iPhone to Jill. “This is what he sent me on Friday.”

Jill glanced down. “Um, a couple of utilitarian candles and some ugly flowers?”

“Look closer.”

She did. It took her a half second to recognize it. “That’s Vin’s table.”

Elena nodded slowly.

Jill’s heart seemed to stop. “No. He did this? He got… flowers?”

“He sent me this, wanting to know if it worked without a tablecloth.”

Her heart started beating again, but this time it squeezed. Hard. “Oh my God.”

“He was trying to do, like, a thing,” Elena said miserably. “He had steaks and…”

“Oh my God,” Jill repeated. “Crap. And then I come in there, all, I want to go out…”

She tossed the phone back at Elena before throwing her hands over her face, her eyes watering. “I want to die.”

“You didn’t know,” Elena said smoothly, rubbing her back.

Jill dropped her hands. “But I should have. I’m a cop. I should have looked around, I should have…”

I should have read him.

“Oh my God. This is the worst. What do I do? Apologize? Grovel?”

“What do you want to do?” her friend asked carefully.

She met her friend’s eyes steadily. “I want him back. But… we had this fight, and I couldn’t even get him to admit…
anything
.”

“He cares about you. You know that. Everyone knows that.”

“I know.” Jill stared at her wineglass. “And for the longest time, that’s been enough. But I want
big
love, Elena. I want the fairy tale. There’s a reason I said yes, and it wasn’t the right reason, but it’s still there. I want the big wedding. I want the giddy anticipation of Valentine’s Day. I want date nights, and a big, messy family—”

Jill blew out a long breath.

“And you know, even as much as I want that—I’d give it up… all of it… if he loved me, you know? It would be enough to be loved by him.”

“And you don’t think he does?”

Jill grabbed a handful of chips and crunched irritably. “I flat-out asked if he thought he might, some day. He looked ready to puke and didn’t say a word.”

“Oh, Vin,” Elena said quietly.

“The worst part is, I
miss
him. It’s been only a few days, but I miss everything about him. About us.”

“We need more wine,” Elena muttered. “And a plan.”

Elena came to sit beside her and grabbed her hands. “Jill, Vin may not know how to tell you with words, but take it from someone who grew up with the big oaf…
this
is Vincent in love.”

Jill drew in a sharp breath, and Elena squeezed her hand harder. “He may not even know it yet. He has no idea what he’s doing. I’m guessing he’s terrified. But he’s trying, Jill. His ugly flowers… that was him trying. That was him
loving you
.”

Jill squeezed her eyes shut.

“Oh God,” she said quietly. Her chest felt tight. Swallowing was suddenly difficult. “He must have felt so… rejected.”

Elena’s face was sympathetic. “If it’s any consolation, I’m sure he didn’t handle it well. And I’m not trying to tell you how to feel, or what to do. I’m just asking—well, okay, begging actually—give him a chance, Jilly. You matter to him. And I know it’s hard, because you and Vin have been soul mates for like half a decade, but don’t forget that this element of your relationship is new.”

Jill groaned and dipped her forehead toward her knees. “Oh jeez. I basically asked him to propose after two weeks of dating.”

Elena laughed and patted her head. “Well, yours is an unconventional love story, sweetie.”

Jill sat back up. “So what do I do?”

Elena stood and took both of their wineglasses to the kitchen. “Call him. Tell him to come over. And then be naked. But for the love of God, wait until I leave.”

Jill stood, dodging the newspaper articles scattered around her floor as she went to join Elena in the kitchen. “You’re not staying?”

“Got things to do, places to be, love. And none of them involve being around while my best friend and brother hook up.”

Jill walked Elena to the door.

“We’re good, right?” Elena asked, shrugging on her jacket.

Jill smiled. “We’re great. Way too good of friends to let something as silly as your dumb brother come between us.”

Elena smiled. “So you’ll implement the naked plan we talked about?”

Jill rested her cheek against the open door. “I’ve got to figure out what to say first.”

“Don’t overthink it. And
definitely
consider the naked plan I laid out for you.”

Jill rolled her eyes and hugged her friend good-bye.

She stood still for several moments after shutting the door.

“I’m such an idiot,” she muttered.

Jill headed toward her cell phone, but the paper all over her floor caught her eye.

The mess seemed to have grown since last time she looked, and since Jill knew herself well enough to know
that the longer she waited the more burdensome the task would become, she forced herself to clean it up now.

She wasn’t particularly organized by nature, but when it came to work, she
had
to be, so she carefully sorted the mess of papers by order of date, in case she’d need to quickly find something later.

Not that it would likely make much of a difference for Lenora Birch. This case seemed determined to stay cold—ice cold.

Finally Jill got to the last scanned article. It was over fifty years old, and the original must have been so faded that the scanned image was barely legible.

In fact, it was so hard to read, and so old, that Jill had barely glanced at it the first time. It was a local story from Lenora’s hometown of Lorrence, a tiny town in Ohio barely big enough to be on most maps. Understandably, a local girl getting cast as the lead in a major Hollywood film was a big deal.

A Love Song for Cora
went on to garner an Academy Award nomination and was the movie that launched Lenora’s career.

Jill placed the article on top of the pile and sat back on her heels. She couldn’t help the wistful smile as she glanced down at the article. She wondered if its columnist—a Bill Shapiro—had had any idea that his little article would be the first of hundreds on a Hollywood legend.

Her eyes skimmed the hard-to-read print. Bill Shapiro’s writing was amateurish, at best, and his irritation at being unable to get a statement from the producer, the director, or Lenora herself was thinly veiled.

Ultimately the only “insider” willing to speak with
Bill had been an assistant casting director, Miles Kennedy, and Bill had obviously done his best to add a bit of drama, despite the lack of big-name references.