Broken Records by Bree Bennett

Chapter 16

Too dark too dark too dark too dark

Lucy thrust her hands out, reaching for some semblance of freedom, even though she knew that she’d only find the damp, tiled walls of the bathroom. She yanked at the doorknob, the cold brass stinging the half-moon cuts on her palms where her nails had bitten into the flesh. The door wiggled enough to give her hope of escape, but despite pulling it with all of her body weight, it held firm.

Blood blood blood blood blood

Her temple had been bleeding, but it was now at the tacky, gluey phase. Blood had congealed in her eyebrow, hardening it so that when she blinked, the skin resisted. She needed to wash it away, to hide it, but it was too dark to find a washcloth, and even if she did, she couldn’t get blood on their best towels. He’d find them. He always found them. Fumbling around, she found the faucet and splashed water on her face, rubbing at the split skin.

Footsteps footsteps footsteps footsteps

He shouldn’t have returned so soon. Lucy curled into a ball, rocking and rocking, her hands cupped around her ears, blocking all noise, all sounds. Now, she wished the door was stuck firm, but it wouldn’t be for long.

He opened the door again, yanking her into the harsh, bitter light with a clawed hand tight around her wrist.

She tried to fight. She kicked and shrieked, but no one heard her. Not there.

Please please please I’ll be good so good

She wrenched her wrist free, beating at his chest. Her palms left bloody prints on his best shirt, and each time she pounded and hit his chest, it echoed louder and louder until her ears buzzed like a broken radio.

He caught her fist before she could hit him again, dragging her across the carpet, and she went limp as a rag doll to prevent further injury. His hands were reaching, pulling, tugging, twisting, but then—

A crash. Distant, and yet not.

Stop stop stop stop stop

“Lucy!”

A silhouette hovered over her, and she shrieked. Her arms were mercifully free again, and she launched them forward, slapping, hitting, scratching until someone grabbed her wrists, lifting them above her head. The taste of warm copper stung her mouth, and she twisted against his manacle-like grip.

Still holding her thrashing hands away from his body, he flipped her arms around in a pretzel-like hold as if she were hugging herself, but with his solid chest rising and falling against her back.

“Lucy, wake up. Now.” It was a demand, an order, a plea. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Stiffening, Lucy blinked her eyes open, hesitating. It was still so dark, darker than when she had gone to bed.

What happened to the light?

“Stop it.” The command was low and soft against her ear, but she couldn’t obey. She needed to find the light.

Lucy ripped her left hand free, stretching toward the lamp, but the light didn’t turn on. As she clicked the switch back and forth, a keening wail rose in the room, and it took a moment before she recognized it as her own.

The arms around her loosened so hastily that she nearly lost her balance. Rapid footsteps filled the room just before a pane of light shone in from the adjoining bathroom—and then it was over. The light acted as an instant relaxant, a shot of reality, and she fell back onto her tear-dampened pillow.

She was safe.

She was in her bedroom.

And so was Jack.

Their eyes locked, both panting from the dream-induced battle. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and in the dim light, red streaks across his chest from her nails stood out, raw and painful.

“You don’t like the dark.”

She hung her head, full of shame. He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a wet washcloth. His steps were deliberate and unhurried, as if he were approaching an unbroken horse, and her humiliation rocketed from shame to self-loathing.

When he wiped at the blood on her lip, where she’d bitten it while struggling, she squeezed her eyes against stubborn tears, and her muscles slumped in surrender.

“There you are.” His earlier commanding tone melted away as he brushed sweat-sticky hair from her temple. “There’s my Cottontail. There’s my Luciana. Your bulb burned out, honey. That’s all, just a burned-out bulb. We’ll get you a new one tomorrow.” There was a weighted, awkward pause. “And a new door.”

The last vestiges of sleep vanished as she glanced at her entryway. The door frame was splintered on one side, and the lock hung loosely from its screws.

“Oh,” she said. “That door sticks.”

“You don’t say.” His fingers reached for hers in the dark, a brush of warm skin against her shivering hand. “You were screaming.”

“Oh?”

“I thought you were in trouble.” He tapped her forehead gently. “You were, weren’t you.”

She nodded, burrowing her cheek into the pillow.

“Well, then.” He tugged at his bottom lip, then crawled across the bed, laying down next to her, flat on his back. Only their fingers were touching, yet his body so near to hers felt like an embrace.

“I’m okay now,” Lucy said. “There’s a light. You don’t have to stay.”

“We’re friends,” he said through a leonine yawn. “Call it a slumber party.”

She had no time to protest before he hauled her heavy duvet up around both of them and snuggled himself into its flannel folds.

“Fuck, this is fantastic.” He buried his face into the duvet like a sleepy kitten. “Pick me up one of these, will ya?”

“I’ll add it to the to-do list.” He was right—they were friends, they were adults, and this wasn’t the first time they’d shared a bed. If he felt like he was helping her by staying, she wouldn’t deny him that. And if she took extra comfort because he was the person she wanted most in the world just then, she wouldn’t deny herself that either.

She closed her eyes in hopes that her adrenaline-spiked body would stand down from its battle response. Jack slid his thumb over her knuckles, over and over, until the rhythm nearly lulled her back to sleep.

“Lucy?” His voice was weary, and rough as gravel.

“Yeah?”

“What was it?”

She froze, eyes snapping open. “It’s late. And we have a busy day tomorrow. We have to catch a flight, and you have to fix a door.”

“Well.” A pause. “I’ll call someone to fix a door. I don’t know how to fix a door.”

“They didn’t cover that in Rock Star 101?”

She could practically feel his dramatic eye roll. He lifted a hand as if to poke her in teasing retaliation, then halted. His fingers hovered above her for a moment, tense with indecision, before he lowered them and curved them around the flat plane of her belly. They lay like that for a moment, spooning with distance, with only the whisper of an occasional car outside as background.

“He hit you,” Jack said slowly. The words hung above them like thunderclouds, dark and brooding. Words that had never been spoken aloud.

“Yes,” she said, and even now, even though she knew better, she was compelled to add, “Only sometimes.”

“Sometimes, all the time, it makes no difference.” The hand around her waist tightened.

“Brock liked things a certain way.” Her lips curved with dark humor. “I am not that certain way.”

“What did he do?” asked Jack, and his breath caught in anticipatory apprehension.

I told you to stop that tapping, but you never fucking listen, do you?

This is all your fault.

You’re a freak. No one will ever love you the way I do.

She bit the side of her cheek until pain supplanted the voice in her head. “Does it matter?”

He exhaled. “No,” he said, sounding surprised at his own answer. “Only that he won’t be doing it anymore.” The words were final and substantial and believable, so believable that Lucy felt relief in every bone in her body. The hand splayed across her waist tugged her closer, the curve of her back fitting perfectly against his chest.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked, her voice unsteady. A disgruntled hum vibrated near her ear. “You’ll be fine, you know. My family isn’t a pack of serial killers or anything.”

“I’ve never met a girl’s parents before,” he mused. “I barely dated in high school, and by eighteen, I was on tour, so it wasn’t going to happen then. I’m not sure I know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Well, you play guitar, so you can bond with my dad over that.” She pinched the skin on his wrist. “My mom will say you’re too skinny and try to feed you, but she does that to eighty percent of the people she meets. Dante and I are her beanpole kids—skinny and tall—and it makes her crazy.”

“Is she at least a good cook, or am I going to have to fake enjoyment as she force-feeds me?”

Lucy smiled at the thought of the plates and plates of food that would fill the table the following day, the scent of basil and garlic hovering over the room in a savory fog. “She’s amazing. It’s not a stereotypical Italian mom thing, either. I sometimes wonder if she hadn’t had so many of us if she would have gone into the food industry.”

He hummed again. “Am I supposed to bring her flowers or chocolates or three goats and a mule or something like that?”

“Well, actually,” Lucy bit her lip. “About that. I mean, you could, but it’s already going to be a lot. Handing her a bunch of daisies might add fuel to the fire.”

“A lot?”

“Yeah, I uh, haven’t told them you’re coming.”

His hand stiffened. “Um—what?”

She sighed and flipped over so that they were face to face, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Spooning had been comforting, a cuddle puddle of warmth, a reminder that neither of them was alone. Now, they were chest to chest, nose to nose, Jack’s hand now cupping her hip instead of her waist. She could count every one of his sable lashes, follow the slope of the indent above his mouth, study his stubble as it faded into smooth skin and hard cheekbones.

“They don’t know you’re coming,” she said, distracted by the way his nose crooked slightly to the left. She liked it.

“You’re telling me that I’m showing up to turkey dinner uninvited?”

“Well, actually, it’s spaghetti, not a turkey,” she said. Jack’s mouth opened as if to protest, and she tucked a finger under his chin, closing it again. “That’s a completely different discussion. And, secondly, we’re a huge family—unexpected guests show up all the time. Ari’s best friend and his husband have crashed every major holiday at least once. We’ll just pull up another seat.”

“The issue isn’t whether there’s a place for me to sit,” he said. “The issue is that your half-insane rock star fiancé is showing up without warning.”

“Well, actually—” she began, but he cupped her chin between his fingers with a firm look.

“I’m beginning to think that ‘well, actually’ is a dangerous phrase coming from your mouth,” he said, brushing his thumb against her bottom lip. “But go on.”

“Well—” She paused. “Incidentally, they don’t really know about you. At all.”

He blinked at her. “Luciana.”

“I mean, I told you I wanted you to meet them before we went live with everything—”

“—I thought that meant I just had to meet them, not that I’d be jumping into their lives cold turkey!”

“Well, actually—” She swallowed a laugh when he groaned. “I believe in this case it would be cold spaghetti, not cold turkey.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said with an exasperated huff. “Do they even know you’re in New York?”

Her smile drooped a little. “Yes, but they don’t know why.”

“I’m not sure I know why either.”

The words jumbled in her mouth, a traffic jam of panicked verbs and nouns. She dipped her head from his gaze to a scar across his collarbone, intersecting with the red scratches she had inadvertently inflicted. She closed her eyes and traced the raised ridge with her index finger, back and forth.

“Bike accident when I was thirteen,” he murmured. “They had to reset the bone.”

She exhaled. “I told you Brock didn’t like me seeing my family,” she said, still running the tip of her finger over his scar. “When Gianna was born, I wanted to go see her, but he was in the middle of a case —he’s a lawyer—and he didn’t want me to go by myself. But I went, I met my niece for the first time, and I went back home to him. Unsurprisingly, he was not happy.”

Jack’s head tipped forward, just enough that their foreheads met.

“The next day, I packed a bag and picked the first flight I could get on out of Indy.”

Jack’s eyes glittered, dark as obsidian in the faint light. “And then?”

She shrugged as best as she could manage in their position. “I stayed in the rental. Let the bruises heal. Made a plan.” Her eyes darted to his. “And then I punched a guy in a record store.”

Jack lifted his chin up just enough to brush a light kiss on her forehead and mumble something into her skin.

“What was that?” she breathed.

“I said, a completely innocent guy in a record store.”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled drowsily. “So innocent. An angel, really.” She rubbed her cheek against the crisp cotton pillowcase. “So my family knows that I broke up with Brock, I’m working on a contract in New York, and I live somewhere with a roommate. It’s all technically true.”

“Technically,” he whispered, but Lucy scarcely heard. Half of her mind wanted to drift away to sleep, feeling steady and safe and secure for the first time in years, and the other half wanted to sit there and analyze exactly why that was. But as Jack drew her closer, tucking her head under his chin, that formerly unattainable sense of shelter took her by the hand and shepherded her into the land of dreams—quiet, quiet dreams.