Broken Records by Bree Bennett

Chapter 15

Jack sauntered through the door of Kim’s favorite restaurant, ready to eat his weight in scrambled eggs and toast. He had barely eaten dinner the previous night, spending the time in his studio writing like a frantic college student with an overdue thesis paper. The result was a quarter of a composition notebook filled with ideas—some good, some bad, but at least they existed.

Kim sat at a secluded table in the back, sipping her standard black coffee, no cream, no sugar. Her braids were in a perfectly coiffed bun, her suit without a single wrinkle, and even if there had been, it would have smoothed itself at her stern look. She was usually an unflappable model of organization, but her eyes widened when Jack sank down into his chair.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Jack patted himself down from head to ass, stopping only to swipe at his jaw to check for leftover shaving cream. All his clothes were in the right places, and his fly was closed.

“Nothing?”

“You’re smiling. It’s creepy.” She reached across the table and pinched his chin, yanking his head back and forth as if he were a champion horse she wanted to buy.

“Knock it off. I’m fine.”

“Hmmm.” She leaned back in her chair. “I printed out the resumes for your new backing musicians. I assume you read the files when I sent them over last week?”

Jack peered around the restaurant for a distraction. “Oh, look! Isn’t that Kristen Bell over there?”

“Nice try, Jack. Too bad you weren’t at the auditions. You’d already be acquainted.”

The day they held auditions earlier in the fall, searching for musicians that would work in both a studio and tour setting, Jack had spent the afternoon on his couch sampling a bottle of whiskey and two nameless blondes. Pre-Lucy, of course.

Kim fanned the resumes across the table. “Lainey Mills is your new lead guitarist. She’s already played some prolific tours, and before that, she was a concert tech for two years.” Jack read over her background but stopped when the waiter appeared.

“Mike,” Jack said, checking his name tag. “I’m going to need a mountain of scrambled eggs. Not a spoonful, not a dollop, but a mountain. Is that something you can do for me?”

The waiter flashed a conspiratorial grin and dashed off to the kitchen. Kim stared at him, and her features fell with sheer disappointment.

“Jack…” She covered his hand with hers, patting it gently. “Are you doing coke again?”

He sputtered and dribbled hot coffee onto Lainey’s resume. “What? No! Jesus. I’m fine, I swear.” He mopped up the coffee drips with a cloth napkin and went on to the next resume.

“That’s Maya Rodriguez,” Kim said. “She really impressed me. She’s young and doesn’t have tons of experience, but she’ll make a good utility player. Guitar, keyboards, bass, you name it, she knows it. Even trombone, which I’d like to see because she barely clears five feet. And this last one is Hasan Desai. Percussion. Mostly a session musician, but he has a tour or two under his belt.”

“All the contracts are signed?”

“Of course. They’ll work well with you. As long as you work well with them.” She tipped her head, a subtle warning. Jack tried to ignore her jab, but he really didn’t have the best track record in the studio or on tour.

“I’ll be good,” he said, gratefully diverted as his plate of eggs arrived. As he scooped them into his mouth, Kim examined him like a newly-discovered mythical creature.

“What?” Jack said through a mouthful of eggs. “They’re delicious. Try some. You can’t subside on whole-wheat toast alone.” He held out a forkful to her mouth, tapping her closed, thinned lips. “Here comes the airplane, Kim. Open up.” She pushed the fork aside with as much dignity as she could muster while he made buzzing engine noises.

“Is it pills?” she asked. “Speed?”

“No.” The airplane fork returned to its hangar for another bite of fluffy, eggy goodness. His phone chimed with a text and a picture from Lucy.

LUCY: The hell is this?

The picture was a crooked crop of a receipt she must have found in his “office”—a room where he threw important paperwork to die—for sixty pounds of exotic bird food. Jack chuckled and texted her back.

JACK: Ask Josh Groban.

When he lifted my eyes, Kim no longer looked disappointed. Instead, her eyes were lit with something like gleeful insanity.

“Holy shit.” She let out a maniacal laughing noise that he’d never heard from her or most rational human beings. “It’s her.”

“Her what?” he asked, slathering a piece of toast with strawberry jam and licking the knife clean while Kim cackled.

“Holy shit.” She clapped, her immaculate nails clicking together like crustacean claws. “Holy shit.”

“I’m confused.” And worried for your mental health.

She swung her head like an eager, wet puppy. “I haven’t seen you this relaxed in years. It’s Lucy, isn’t it?”

Jack felt a flush of heat travel over his cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s entertaining. That’s all.”

Another text pinged through, this time with a photo of a receipt for a crate of instant lemonade powder and a latex scuba suit.

LUCY: Do I want to know about this?

JACK: What Groban wants, Groban gets.

“Your cheeks are actually pink!” Kim’s cackle wound up again, like a flawed science class model of the Doppler effect.

“Stop. It’s all pretend.” He took another sip of coffee and ignored the flipping sensation in his chest.

“Mmm-hmm.” His distinguished, no-nonsense manager was actually bouncing in her chair.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I’d normally ask when the wedding is, but as I’m planning it, that won’t work here.” She tapped her lips thoughtfully. “How many children do you want?”

He cleared his throat. “Kimberly.”

“Ooooh, maybe one grumpy, all scowls and shit, and one sunshine. Just like you two.”

“If you think Lucy is all sunshine, you clearly don’t know her well.”

Although, she was her own brand of sunshine, wasn’t she? Sometimes soft and beautiful, sometimes hiding behind her own cloud cover. Sometimes too bright just when you think you need to hide in the darkness, but once she draws you out, you realize it might be for the better.

“We’re going to be late,” he said, changing the subject.

“Do we need to go over how you need to act today?” she asked, flagging Mike, the waiter, for the check.

“I’m sober today, and that’s half the battle usually.”

“All you need to do is be patient and hold back your temper. No prostitutes, preferably.”

“That was one time.”

“One very expensive time.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. No alcohol, no tantrums, no sex workers.” He held his hands out in his best mea culpa gesture. “And everything will go well, right?”

* * *

Everything did not go well.

Jack’s reputation naturally preceded him, like a town crier in front of a naked emperor. Lainey, Hasan, and Maya were professional, but a cool wariness between the four of them made Jack second guess every one of his words and actions, and then every one of their words and actions. His scrambled egg-sponsored good mood dissolved within the first hour.

As they spent the morning fleshing out his songwriting scribbles, the tension ratcheted so tight that they sounded like a squeaky middle school band. The day was woven with missed notes, wrong entrances, and mistaken chords, and by afternoon, the atmosphere was a powder keg just waiting for a welcome spark.

Hasan, a dark-eyed man with muscled arms toned by years at the drums, descended from neutrally impartial to sullen as a schoolkid. For the gazillionth time, he played his drum solo too fast on “Ruby Road,” and by the way his jaw jutted forward, Jack knew it was on purpose.

“For fuck’s sake.” He raised his voice to a hair’s breadth below a yell. “I’ve told you three times to slow it down.”

Hasan’s eyes flared, and he attacked the drums with the ferocity of a Viking guard warning his village against pillagers.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Jack asked after he banged into the cymbals an absurd amount of times.

“Why do you have to be such a diva?” The drummer stood, squaring his shoulders. “This is our first day. Of course, it’s going to suck.”

“Maybe you need to spend more time practicing and less time showboating.”

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs practice.” He crossed his arms smugly, having landed a perfect blow.

The voices of a dozen journalists hypothesizing Has Jack Hunter lost his touch? wormed their way into Jack’s brain, and suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he even knew how to hold a guitar correctly anymore.

Jack snarled and kicked a nearby folding chair with a ferocity born of humiliation and a third grader’s temper. It startled Maya, who tripped backward and knocked over her amplifier. Banshee-like feedback squealed throughout the room, and she knelt on the floor, frantically resetting it.

A welcome but tense silence followed. Jack whipped his head back to Hasan, unsure if he would yell or apologize, but Hasan’s angry expression had been replaced with puzzlement. He peered at the doorway to the room, and Jack whirled around, ready to unleash his frustrations on whoever had disturbed them.

Lucy stood there, her face ashen and her hands cupped over her ears.

“Take five, everyone,” Jack said with a deflated tone. He took a careful step toward her, and she flicked her calf’s eyes toward him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“That was loud.” She leered at the amplifier as if it had threatened her first-born child. Her hand twitched, fingers flexing at hummingbird speed.

“Yes. Maya fixed it. It’s okay now.”

She tore her gaze from the amplifier to Jack. “You were yelling.” Her head tilted to the side, and she frowned.

Three words said so matter-of-factly, and yet Jack was overcome with shame. Anyone else would have tried to butter him up or downplay his behavior, all in the spirit of celebrity coddling. But Lucy, as always, was just stating the facts: Jack had been yelling.

“Yes,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “I probably shouldn’t have.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” She reached for her tote bag. “I brought cookies from Batter Up. Adrian says hi.”

“You went to the diner?” He attempted a meek smile, hoping to win back a smidgeon of her favor.

“Yes. I brought some for everyone.” She rummaged around and extracted a cellophane-wrapped cookie. “He said peanut butter is your favorite.”

This was true. Peanut butter cookies were the world’s equivalent to the nectar of the gods.

“Thanks,” said Jack, already tearing into the cookie. She gave a curt nod, her narrow gaze darting around the room, cataloging and calculating. The others returned from their break and eyed Jack, waiting for his next dictatorial decree.

“They don’t look happy,” Lucy whispered.

“They aren’t,” he whispered back.

“Because of you?”

“Most likely, yes.”

Jack called the others over. “This is my fiancée, Lucy.”

She flashed a bright, hopeful smile.

Lainey whipped her head from Jack to Lucy and back again. “You’re marrying him?” she blurted out.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I am.” The corner of Lucy’s eyes crinkled, and she leaned toward the others with a conspiratorial air. “He made you mad, didn’t he? He does that.”

Jack couldn’t hold back an irritated groan, but Lainey surprised him by bursting into laughter. Hasan and Maya followed suit, and Lucy looked genuinely pleased.

“I brought cookies.” She shook the tote bag. “Let’s sit.”

Jack sputtered in protest—they obviously needed more practice—but Hasan grabbed some folding chairs and set them in a semi-circle. Jack flopped down in a chair while Lucy passed out treats like a mall Easter Bunny. Somehow, she had usurped the entire rehearsal through the power of baked goods.

“I got you an extra one.” Her eyes sparkled when she gave Jack his second cookie.

Jesus. This woman. Jack would have married her for her cookie management skills alone.

“How has today been?” Lucy asked the other musicians.

“It’s been…good.” Maya sent a wary sidelong glance Jack’s way.

“I’m so glad to hear,” Lucy nibbled at her own cookie, wrapped carefully in a napkin. “I’m sure it’s been nerve-racking meeting new bandmates. Like going on a blind date.” Her gaze slid to him. “I know Jack was so nervous this morning about meeting you guys.”

Jack choked on his cookie. “I was what now?”

“Oh, really?” Hasan smirked. “That’s very interesting.”

“Oh, yes.” Lucy’s head bobbed as she retrieved another napkin. “You know how it is with celebrities. Everyone already has an opinion on you just by what’s reported in the press, and you don’t get a chance to defend yourself. It gets depressing sometimes.”

Jack inhaled and counted to ten. And then to twenty, for good measure.

“Lucy, I—” He stopped, unsure of what to even say. Stop making me sound…human?

“It’s crazy sometimes,” she continued, ignoring him. “You should ask Jack about some of the stories that are out there. I’m not saying there aren’t some that are true, but there are definitely some creative falsehoods out there.” She picked at some crumbs on her lap, utterly indifferent toward the rest of the room.

There was a prolonged, uncomfortable pause. Then Lainey leaned back, her cream and ebony locs falling over the back of her chair. “The concert in Aruba. Is that all true?”

Jack winced and shifted in his chair. “Well, mostly. I’ve heard a few different versions, but yeah. Not my proudest moment.”

“What about the drummer you punched?” Hasan asked, leaning forward, more relaxed than he’d seen him all day.

“True. He was sleeping with the guitarist.” His brow wrinkled before Jack added, “And so was I. Also, he couldn’t keep time worth shit.”

“Oh. Well, fuck that.” He looked satisfied as he stuffed the last of his cookie in his mouth.

“Um.” Maya coughed, a flush creeping up her heart-shaped face. “The sweet potato?”

“The what?” Jack racked his brain, trying to remember any rumors about vegetables. Lucy leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“Oh, God! Not true, not true!” He barked out a humiliated laugh and covered his face. “I can never look at any of you ever again.”

When he dropped his hands, his face still burning about his alleged abuse of root vegetables, the atmosphere had changed entirely. The other musicians started hammering him with questions, and Jack answered them all with humble modesty. There were the true legends—that summer in Japan, the Skype incident, the cruise ship debacle—and the fun but false ones—the rodeo, the harmonica, and the sword fight with the ambassador to Burundi.

Seething looks became snorting laughter, and snapped remarks became inside jokes. When they moved from the past to the present, they threw ideas back and forth on musical arrangements, giving genuine, honest criticism. And when they all packed up to go home, they weren’t best friends forever yet, but there was the beginning of a new camaraderie.

As they collected their gear, Hasan sent Jack a questioning glance. “We’re good?”

“We’re good.” Jack held out his hand, a peace offering, and Hasan shook it with a few enthusiastic pumps before calling out, “Nice meeting you, Lucy!”

“Oh, fuck me! Lucy!” Jack had completely forgotten she was there. He turned to where she was perched cross-legged in a chair, a book in her lap.

“Probably not the best use of this room,” she said, closing her book with a snap and brushing her unruly hair behind her ears.

“No, I mean—not fuck me, but you know, fuck me!” Why was he stammering?

Her rosy lips tipped up in a bewitching grin. “I get it, Jack.”

“You could have gone home. Sorry, I should’ve offered to call a car.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I liked listening.”

Somewhere between telling her to fuck-him-but-not-fuck-him and that, Jack had made his way in front of her chair. “I don’t know if Adrian put something in the cookies, or if you’re just magic, but that was the best time I’ve had in a recording studio in years.” He lifted her chin and rubbed his thumb against her velvety cheek. “Thanks, Cottontail.”

“Not my name.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and Jack became dizzy, like a syringe of pride and something entirely unfamiliar had been shot into his veins.

“Do you really not like the nickname?” he asked.

“I didn’t at first. I thought it was just you being crazy.” The corners of her eyes softened, and her hand slid into his, warm and snug. “But now it’s mine.”

His voice roughened. “Always.”

“Kinda like ‘Mad Jack.’ To heck with the stupid press. It belongs to you now.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. He stumbled back, dropping her hand and clapping both of his to his skull with a resounding gasp. “Cottontail, you genius, you!” He lunged forward and pressed an enthusiastic, smacking kiss to her forehead.

She furrowed her brow in bewilderment. “What did I do?”

“Everything,” he said, taking her hand again and near-sprinting to the car waiting for them in the street outside. He had to go home and get to work. After all, shenanigans didn’t plan themselves.