Disorderly Conduct (The Academy #1)

“Is that a sign you’re ready to talk, dear?” My mother nibbles at her Danish. “I could be doing something productive, you know. Like watching this exact same program in the break room at work.”

My mom makes jokes now. Bad timing, though, because I don’t feel much like laughing. However, she did make the effort to leave her job and come see me, an effort that would have shocked me a month ago, so I attempt wordage. “Charlie . . . pulled the fire alarm while I was on a date.” My tone is bemused because it’s one of the four emotions inside my bubble. Anger, humiliation, sadness and bemusement. “Like, he’s going to be a police officer and he pulled an illegal stunt, soaked at least a hundred people . . . and then he called me on my phone to go meet up.” I shove a bite of Danish into my mouth. “I’m trying to decide if that makes him deranged or—”

“Desperately in love?”

I’m left sputtering over my mother’s comment, which gives Nina the unfortunate opportunity to jump in. “You should see the way he looks at her. All big, blue puppy dog eyes. Like he just wants to flop down in front of Ever and have his belly scratched.”

My mother turns to me. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

It’s meant as a reproof, but I can hear the hurt in her tone and it makes me feel guilty. “He didn’t want anything serious. It’s why we started . . . hanging out—”

“Fucking? You can say the word in front of me, Ever, I’m an ex-mistress.”

Nina buries her face in a pillow, her sides shaking with laughter.

“Okay, yeah. What you said. The F-word.” I’m not ready to drop bad language in front of my mother yet. Maybe someday. “You asked me to try dating seriously, so I broke it off with Charlie.”

My mother frowns. “Did you want to break it off?”

“No,” I say honestly, remembering how hard it had been to watch him go. How I’d lived in a black cloud until I’d seen him again. “We’d been seeing each other for thirty-one days when I ended things.”

Nina doesn’t pick up on the importance of the number, because she doesn’t know the rules my mother and I lived by for so long. My mother, however, knows what it means. I broke the rules for Charlie. In our world, it might as well be an admission of love. Nina seems to sense the need for the two of us to be alone, because she hops up from the couch, snagging her keys off the coffee table. “I’m going to go grab the mail. Be back in a while.”

As soon as the door closes behind my roommate, my mother gracefully turns, pointing her pressed-together knees in my direction. “Ever, I wanted you to find someone so you could be happy.” She wets her lips. “It sounds like you were doing it for me.”

“I was.” My voice cracks, but I don’t feel like I need to appear strong in front of my mother anymore, when I’m on shaky ground. I can just be honest. “I was, and it worked and you’re here now. I’ve seen you more in the last couple weeks than I have in years. The dating gave us something to . . .”

“Have in common?” Her eyes are troubled. “I think what we have in common is the desire to see you happy. And if this Charlie made you happy, I’m sorry I steered you away from him.”

“Don’t be. Things between us weren’t right back then.” An image of him dancing at Webster Hall flies through my head. Followed by him kneeling at the police memorial, hugging me in the bar, guarding my door from Nina’s ex-boyfriend. “I didn’t even know him until I broke it off,” I murmur. “Until we became friends.”

“And you are friends, aren’t you?”

I nod, because I’m finding it hard to speak around the lump in my throat. Whatever ill-conceived notions were behind Charlie becoming my friend in the first place, the truth is, we got there. We got there and it was glorious. Would he go to such extremes to be around me if he only wanted sex? No. No, that’s not Charlie. He might have made some huge mistakes, but he’s gold on the inside. I think of him watching my cab drive away after our talk at the memorial and it hits me, it hits me so hard that he was dying in that moment. He was considering chasing the cab, wasn’t he?

“Yeah.” I swallow hard. “We’re friends.”

Will we end up more, though?

Nina walks back into the apartment, and I do a double take when I see the stack of identical envelopes she’s holding. “Uh.” She drops them beside me on the couch. “You’ve got mail.”

There are at least a dozen letters . . . and they’re all from Charlie.

Trading a surprised glance with my mother—who is literally bouncing with excitement—I open the letter marked “READ ME FIRST” in all caps.

Reve = Ever spelled backward

Reve S. Guy = Ever’s Guy

Always have been. Always will be.

I love you so much. I’m sorry. Take me back.



With tears in my eyes, I do some quick math. He called himself my guy right at the beginning of our friendship. That had to mean he felt more for me than attraction, even then. Didn’t it? Swiping at the moisture on my cheeks, I open the next letter. And the next . . . and the next . . .





Chapter 27





Charlie


Sleep is for the weak. Or for better men than me. Men who don’t make the love of their life cry. Men who don’t dig themselves into such an awful, disgusting hole that experts haven’t even invented a tool yet for digging them out.

You can bet your ass I’m going to try, though. I’m going to claw my way toward the sunlight, because I’ve felt it on my face. And I don’t know how to live any other way now. Give me Ever, or give me death.

Death, coincidentally, is pretty much synonymous with my condition.

When it became obvious I wouldn’t be reaching Ever with modern technology or face-to-face, I started writing the letters. A week ago. I haven’t seen or touched or smelled my girl in a fucking week. After what happened with my father, the academy gave me time off and it’s a good thing, too, because maintaining my usual sparkling hygiene has been a challenge. Also eating. I don’t eat anymore. Flat out cut it from my daily schedule, and apart from visiting my father in the hospital, I’ve been doing nothing but writing letters. And mailing them to Ever.

My hand gets stiff, I shake it out and dive back in. I’m documenting every single moment I’ve spent with Ever—this requires a good deal of math, a calendar and some estimating—and there isn’t anyone or anything that can stop me. Except for a straitjacket.