Broken Records by Bree Bennett

Chapter 21

The whine of the suitcase zipper woke Lucy the next day. Jack was pulling his clothes on in that awkward, tiptoeing fashion people did when they were trying to be quiet and ended up being louder than if they just got dressed normally. His back was to her, and he was still shirtless, and though she should probably cough or say hello to alert her wakefulness, she kept silent, burrowed in her pillows.

It was funny how attraction worked. Millions of fans swooned over Jack’s face, the product of the perfect genetics of the film and music worlds, and yet Lucy’s heartbeat was ramping up over his back. The symmetry of the reversed L’s of his shoulder blades. The smattering of birthmarks just to the right of his lower spine, a miniature constellation of melanin. The trail of his backbone, leading to—

“I can hear you thinking,” whispered Jack. He turned and winked at her, and her face burned. She nestled her face into the pillow. “What’s going on inside that head? No editing.”

“I like your shoulder blades,” she mumbled against the flannel pillowcase.

The bed dipped as he sat next to her, his hand outlining her own shoulders. “Huh. I like yours too.”

“You’re up early again,” she said, moving on before she blurted out more of his body parts that she admired. “This is two days in a row. It’s a miracle.”

Jack’s laugh was barely above a breath. “It’s so quiet here that it’s almost too loud. Keeps me awake.” He patted her shoulders once more and stood again. “I’m going into Indianapolis with your brothers to pick some stuff up. We’ll be back this afternoon.”

“You’re going with them?” Lucy lifted her head, eyebrows raised.

“This is my chance to ride in a pickup truck. A pickup truck.”

“My God,” she whispered, pursing her lips against a smile. “You’re a real Hoosier now.”

He waggled his eyebrows, and then his expression softened, little lines creasing perpendicular to his dense lashes. “Hey.”

“Hey?”

He smoothed his thumb over her cheekbone. “You know I’m gonna take care of you, right?” His tone was suspiciously neutral.

“Yes,” she said, because she did know that. She wasn’t sure why he was bringing it up while wearing that peculiar expression though. “Because we’re friends, or something.”

“Or something,” he repeated, and then he kissed her on the forehead. It was a display of affection he did more and more, because that’s what friends did.

Or something.

* * *

It wasn’t until darkness had blanketed the farm, the barren fields fading from existence into the velvet night, that the front door opened and Jack came in, stomping off powdery snow onto the rug. Lucy’s heart clenched as he flashed her a smile full of sunshine, his face more relaxed than she had ever seen. She searched his eyes and flushed at the sheer joy reflected back at her. She wanted to question him, to ask him what had happened to give his eyes that extra glitter of happiness, but instead, her awkward mouth stuttered out, “What are you wearing?”

“Huh? Oh, this.” He tapped at the threadbare navy and gold Notre Dame ball cap. “It’s Matteo’s. Just so I didn’t get recognized.”

“You look very Indianan.”

He crinkled his nose, and she pecked a kiss to his cheek—and then squawked like a peacock in his ear as Matteo strode into the room, sporting a very nasty black eye.

“What did you do?” she hissed as Jack scrambled back, rubbing at his ear. Nico came in, cradling his right hand like a newborn kitten. Her eyes nearly popped from her head as she saw his bruised, bloody knuckles.

“What did you do?” she repeated, enunciating each word.

“So, uh, well,” said Matteo, scratching behind his ear. “So don’t get mad.”

“Matty.” She turned to Jack with a pointed look. “What happened?”

Jack opened his mouth, closed it, and then the three men exploded into a typhoon of explanations.

“They wouldn’t let me do anything,” complained Jack, throwing his hands into the air. “I had to sit back and watch with a hat and sunglasses on!”

“You’re getting married in a week!” protested Matteo. “And you can’t fuck up your guitar hand!”

“Matteo Michael!” snapped Rose. Her son held up a culpable hand and ducked from her anti-profanity glare.

“Yeah, but all I got to do was trip him,” Jack grumbled, kicking at the carpet. “You guys got to have all the fun.”

“Fun?” Matteo pointed to his swollen eye, looking like a knock-off Popeye. “Does this look like fun?”

“What—”

“I mean, it was pretty fun,” grinned Nico, sucking on the distended knuckle of his index finger.

“Did—”

“Yeah, watching Dante was probably the best part,” admitted Jack. “Has he always known how to kick that high?” He attempted his own karate kick and nearly fell backward, saved only by Nico’s grip on his shoulder.

“You—”

“Who knows with that dude. I know he spent some time with the Rockettes before he—”

“Do?” Lucy finally finished, but as she did, the room fell into a hush. Dante entered the room with the solemnity of a warrior priest, bereft of a single scratch. He smiled down at his sister, and without a word, handed her the square object in his hands.

Her throat tightened as she drew her fingers over the fine edge of the record sleeve, finding the tiny tear in the corner she had accidentally made when she was nine. Her heart filled with bursts of safe and secure and home and love as she traced the solitary figure howling his heart out in front of dozens of brilliant red lights, each one contributing to a letter in his name.

E-L-V-I-S.

* * *

“Ah-ah-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-AH!”

Lucy snuggled into a layer of comforters on Matteo’s futon and watched as four of the most precious men in her life shriek-sang Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” from the carpeted floor of her brother’s living room.

She had ridden in the truck with her three brothers, Jack, and her recovered records and record player to Matteo’s house, where he was going to store her belongings until they arranged for shipping. As they unloaded the albums into the safety of Matteo’s house, she managed to squeeze the story from the others.

The men had ridden to her former house in the city, and when Brock answered the door, they walked right in and started packing up her albums. Brock had gotten angry, and then he hit Matteo, which started a chain of events: Nico punched Brock. Brock went for Nico, and Jack tripped him. Then Dante took Brock into another room and did, well, elusive Dante things while the others packed up the rest of the albums.

“Suffice it to say, he will not be bothering you anymore,” Dante had said.

“Did you—did you kill him?” Lucy had almost been afraid to ask.

Dante only raised a dark eyebrow in response, until Matteo shoved him and told him to stop being creepy.

“He’s fine,” Nico had corrected. “A little bruised, but he knows what’s up now.”

Before Lucy could get any further clarification, Matteo pulled a joint out from his shirt pocket, and the rest of the story was lost in a haze of smoke and giggles and Robert Plant’s voice.

Now she perched on the futon, a sober mama eagle observing her four extremely high eaglets with both amusement and tenderness as they lay haphazardly across the floor. Having her albums back had realigned her crooked world a little bit, and she owed that extra sense of rightness to her brothers and Jack.

“You know, Jack, for being a big ol’ celebrity, you are pretty down-to-earth,” said Matteo, rubbing at his red-rimmed eyes. “A real man of the people.”

“Me?” sputtered Jack, a Cheshire Cat grin stretching across his face. “Dude. Dude. You are so wrong. My piano cost a half-million dollars. I once flew to Greenland just to pet a prize-winning sheep. I have an actual skeleton in my closet.” He puffed on the end of the joint and delivered it to Dante.

“I’m sorry, what?” asked Lucy, her brows skirting her hairline.

“Don’t worry, Cottontail.” He patted her calf, and then left his hand there, curled around her ankle. “It’s just a monkey skeleton.”

“Why do you have a monkey skeleton?” snorted Nico, tucking a couch cushion under his head.

“I could tell he had a good soul,” Jack said with soft-spoken reverence. Lucy made a mental note to have the monkey’s remains taken care of once they returned to New York.

“See, you say all this, but we know you, Jack. We know you. You’re one of us.” Matteo ruffled Jack’s hair. “You have a good soul. Like your monkey, man. You have a goddamned monkey’s soul. And really good cheekbones.”

“Shit, Matty, you think so?” Jack’s gaze was filled with awe.

“I know so.” Matteo waved a hand at Lucy. “Lu, tell your man that he has beautiful cheekbones.”

She couldn’t help her budding smile. “You have beautiful cheekbones.”

“See?” Matteo swatted at Jack’s shoulder. “Beautiful cheekbones, and a beautiful soul.”

“You know,” Nico mused, tapping his index finger against the side of his nose, “Plato once said that thinking is the talking of the soul within itself.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Jack’s eyes grew wide. “For a cartoon, Mickey’s dog sure was wise.”

Lucy shut her eyes for a moment, attempting to quell her imminent laughter. “Oh, sweetheart.” The epithet rolled off her tongue before she could prevent it. “That was Pluto. He’s talking about Plato.”

Jack’s carefree laugh in return was worth a hundred accidental “sweethearts.” He gasped and turned to Matteo, shaking her brother. “I need your guitar.” He dashed off at roadrunner speed in the direction Matteo pointed.

Nico glanced up at her from his makeshift pallet on the floor. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Just—” She blinked back a sudden sting of tears, surprised at their belated appearance. “I love you guys. And I’m sorry I haven’t been around. But now you know why.”

All three brothers smiled up at her, and she didn’t have to struggle for any more words. They already knew anything she could have said.

“Love you too, Lu,” murmured Nico. Then they all jumped as the room exploded into mariachi-style guitar chords.

“Cheekbooooones,” crooned Jack, strumming the guitar and sashaying toward Matteo, who had the expression of a teenage girl at a Backstreet Boys concert.

“Oh my God,” Matteo exhaled. “Jack Hunter is singing to me.” Jack knelt down next to him, somehow balancing the guitar as he rested on his heels.

“Matteo’s cheekbones have never been better,” Jack sang. “Matteo’s cheekbones are sharper than cheddar…” He placed a hand on Matteo’s forehead as if he were a revivalist preacher, and her brother squealed.

“Okay, Jack.” Lucy tugged on his shirt, putting an end to the madness. “Time to come up here.” Jack sent her a fool’s grin and laid the guitar down, crawling next to her on the futon.

“You okay?” he whispered. “I want you always to be okay, you know.”

“I’m okay. Thank you for today.” She hesitated. “You know this won’t change everything, right? The nightmares, the flashbacks, they won’t magically go away. And even with that, I’m still me. I’m still a weirdo.”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” hushed Jack, stretching the sound out for far longer than necessary as he snuggled against her shoulder. “But you’re my weirdo.”

“Yes,” she said. “Your weirdo.”

Jack reached for her hand, plopping it down on top of his head, nodding in approval when she started working her fingers through his hair. “And I’m your asshole,” he declared. They both paused for a moment, and he shot her a puzzled look as he thought through his words. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist like an octopus, planted his face on her chest, and placed her hand back on top of his head.

Okay, then.High Jack was apparently very into physical affection.

“You know,” said Nico, crinkling his nose at them. “It has also been said that love is a serious mental disease.”

“Who said that?” slurred Jack, nuzzling further into her like a baby koala. “Goofy?”

“No, that was Plato too.”

“Man.” Jack sighed, a sound saturated with utter contentment. “I bet he had a beautiful monkey’s soul too.”

“Cheekbooooones,” sang Dante at last, and for once, all was right in the world.