Broken Records by Bree Bennett
Chapter 24
Jack dashed through the automatic doors at the Brooklyn City emergency room, flailing his arms as if he could make the doors open faster with some sort of Jedi power move.
“Where is she?” he growled at the check-in attendant, skidding to a halt in front of her window. “Lucy. Luciana. Meyer. Vincent. Whichever goddamn name she gave. My wife. Where is my wife?”
The attendant blinked at him, unaffected. “Sir, you need to slow down—”
“Slow down?” he yelled, slamming his palms down on the counter. “Slow down? Oh, ha fucking ha, let’s make fun of the freaked-out rock star with terrible puns about his career!”
She closed her eyes and inhaled with the shared exasperation of customer service workers everywhere. “No. You need to slow down because I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Oh.” Jack flushed, took a breath, and tried again. “I need to find my wife.”
Elvis’s crooning belted from Jack’s phone. He snagged it from his pocket with such force that it slipped from his grasp like a cake of soap, spiraling in the air and smacking the attendant on her upper arm. She glared at the phone, unbroken and taunting on her immaculate counter before fixing her executioner’s gaze on Jack.
“Sir,” she said, the singular word heavy with warning as she cracked her neck.
“Please,” said Jack. “Please.” A nineties’ television character popped into his head, courtesy of life with Lucy, so he went for it. “Have mercy.”
Elvis began to sing again. The attendant and Jack stared at the phone before he snatched it away and answered.
“Jack, we can hear you all the way back here,” said Parker.
“‘Back here’? Where is ‘back here’? Where are you?”
“Well, now I’m staring at you.” Jack turned to where Parker was frowning through an internal pair of glass sliding doors, putting Lucy’s phone away in his pocket.
“Oh, thank God,” Jack groaned. “Assist me.” He motioned at the attendant, and Parker approached her. After a few animated words, she waved them off with a dissatisfied grunt. Jack bolted through the automatic doors, sprinting until Parker’s hands clamped onto his shoulders.
“Wrong way,” he said, spinning Jack’s body until he faced the opposite way. When he let go, Jack started running again, like a wind-up toy that only knows to go forward as fast as possible. “She’s in here.”
Jack plowed through the door into a small, hygienically pristine room. The harsh fluorescent lights were dimmed, but not darkened. Lucy was perched cross-legged on the bed, a thin white blanket draped over her shoulders. Her skin was a little pale, with shadows under her eyes, but she glanced up at the door with a cheerful grin—until she saw Jack. She snapped her head toward Parker.
“I told you not to call him,” she said.
The assistant merely shrugged at her.
“What happened?” Jack asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.
“I’m fine,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “I just fell and hit my head. Not even a concussion.” Another glare at Parker. “I don’t need to be here.”
“You fell?” Jack tried to force oxygen into his lungs before he passed out and they both needed a hospital bed. “How did you fall?”
“Well, I fell after the bike messenger knocked me over.”
“The bike messenger.” He rubbed a shaky hand over his face and took another deep breath. “I’m getting this story in the wrong order. Start from the beginning.”
“I was dropping off a package at UPS,” she said in her recitative tone. “I wasn’t paying attention. I stepped in front of a bike messenger. He crashed into me.”
Jack spun to Parker with a fierce frown. “I want his name. And badge number.”
“They’re bike messengers, not cops,” said Lucy. Her eyes widened with sudden worry. “Do you think he still got his package delivered on time?”
“Lucy.”
“Fine, I fell and hit my head. I was only knocked out maybe thirty seconds.” She picked at the flimsy threads of the hospital-issued blanket. “The biker made me call someone to get me. I called Parker, and then Parker—” she shot daggers at their assistant, “—made me come here.”
“Head injuries are no joke,” he protested. “Eighty percent of concussions are—”
“Not now, Parker,” Lucy and Jack said in tandem.
He clamped his mouth shut before muttering something about brain trauma and impossible employers.
“You called him?” Jack asked, loathing the bitter, itchy feeling running down his spine—confusion, worry, relief, and hurt all fused together and infiltrating his bones. “You called Parker?”
Lucy dropped her gaze. Her hand tapped and twitched against the blanket. “Yes.”
“But not your husband.”
She sighed and met his eyes. “I mean, you’re not my real husband.”
A rattling noise reverberated as Parker stumbled backward, clambering for the door handle. “I’m just—I’m going—you know—Christmas shopping,” he mumbled, escaping through the door and shutting it fast behind him.
“Not your real husband?” repeated Jack, cocking his head.
Lucy winced but kept her eyes fastened on his.
“If I remember correctly,” he said, tapping his finger to his lips, “I was in a wedding yesterday.”
“Jack.”
“And if I recall, you were there.” He stepped forward until his thighs bumped the safety rail of her bed.
“Jack.”
“And I’m pretty sure you gave me a ring.” He looked at his left hand and mock-gasped. “Oh, look! There it is!” He wriggled it in the faint light. “Look, it’s so shiny!”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she protested. “Not real as in—”
“I am real,” he gritted out. “I am your real husband.”
Lucy started to turn away, her jaw clenched, but then she paused, giving his expression a double take. Her brows unknitted, and her face relaxed. “I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.” She exhaled, a sound of surrender. “I should have called. We’re friends and—”
“Honey,” he said, reaching out to cup her chin, tipping her face toward him. “We are not friends. We haven’t been friends in a long time.”
A kaleidoscope of emotion spun across her face—shock blending into sadness, and sadness blending into puzzlement.
He dropped his hand and twisted away from her. “If you need help,” Jack said, “you call me. I don’t care when. I don’t care why. I don’t care if you’re lost in the city, or you need bailed out of prison. I don’t care if your entire arm fell off, or you just have a paper cut. You call me, and I’ll bring a Band-Aid, and I will bandage up that fucking paper cut. Just call me.” He swung open the heavy door.
“Where are you going?” asked Lucy, her voice bewildered.
He turned to her with a much braver smile than was truthful. “I’m going to send Parker home,” he said. “Then I’m going to find a doctor and get you out of here. And then, I’m going to murder myself a bike messenger.”
* * *After being released several hours later, Lucy barely stayed awake on the ride back to the townhouse. Jack helped her to her room, undressing her clumsily as he tried to pull her shirt over her head without hitting the swollen knot on the side of her skull.
“I can get undressed on my own,” she murmured just before snuggling herself into her pillow, clad only in her bra and jeans. Any other time, he would have probably gone mad with lust at the sight, but right now, it would be a bit like seducing a sleepwalker. He tapped a finger between her shoulder blades.
“I finally get to see your tattoo,” he said. “Tell me about it. It’ll keep you awake ‘til you’re dressed.”
“It’s a guitar,” she mumbled. “The end.”
“Come on, Lucy. You’re not falling asleep in your street clothes.”
She groaned and rolled over, unzipping her jeans so Jack could shimmy them off her legs. “We all have tattoos. All the siblings. Ariana has the most. We all like to go together and get them. Family bonding and all that.”
Jack worked a pair of plaid flannel pants up her calves and thighs, handing the waist off to her so she could wiggle it over her behind. “And you got a guitar?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I like music.”
He huffed a low laugh. “I know, baby, I know.”
“It has the lyrics to ‘I Dig Rock and Roll Music’ around it.” She curved her back so he could see it properly.
“Very appropriate,” he said, tossing a sleep shirt over her head and yanking downward. She reappeared through the neck hole with an addled scowl, like a kitten enduring her first bath.
“All right, Cottontail,” he said. “I’m done bothering you. Lay down.” She burrowed back under her duvet as he tucked it around her. He retreated toward the door as her breathing steadied.
“You don’t bother me,” she said. “I should have called you.”
“Just go to sleep.” He hovered in the doorway, watching her—for what, he wasn’t sure. He just needed reassurance that she was okay. That they were okay.
She raised her head again, her rumpled hair slipping over her face like black lace curtains. “Good Lord,” she muttered. “Stop your mother hen impression and get in the bed.”
Jack bit back a chuckle, more relieved at her catty response than any previous apology. “Good Lord. Let me undressed.”
She arched an eyebrow and burrowed herself further into the blankets. He stripped down to his boxers as quietly as he could and, since it was too early to join her in sleep, grabbed a book about Motown from her bookshelf, and slipped under the world’s most magnificent duvet.
* * *Jack was long gone by the time Lucy finally awoke, the only remnant of his presence a scribbled note on her bedside table that read “EAT. SLEEP. TAKE TYLENOL.” and was accompanied by something that was either a sketch of a rabbit or a vacuum cleaner.
A flicker of movement caught her eye through the cracks of the curtain. She peeked out and was greeted by cotton ball clouds and a slate-gray sky.
Snow was coming, and Lucy loved snow.
She stretched with caution, testing for any sharp pains. The lump above her ear was swollen and tender to the touch, but no headache persisted beyond that. A few bruises and stiff joints were the only other effects of the previous day’s ordeal.
Well, and also total, utter, absolute, completely bonkers confusion about Jack.
Trying to get a read on his feelings was like trying to get a straight answer from a magic eight-ball. She wanted to shake him and get an “it is decidedly so” or even a “my sources say no” just so she could escape this awful, indeterminate limbo. Instead, she was bombarded with “reply hazy, ask again” every step of the way.
She didn’t know what Jack wanted. She didn’t even know exactly what she wanted. But, what she did know was how to make cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.
Since she hadn’t made it to the grocery store yesterday, and she wasn’t sure what the forecast for dangerous bike messengers was for today, she ordered groceries for delivery. Within a few hours, she had enough sugar, flour, eggs, and sprinkles to put the Keebler elves out of business.
Lucy loved the way cookies could be both uniform and unique, and she could create the same shape over and over in a flawless, sweet pattern. Back in Indiana, she had a whole box of metal cookie cutters that had been passed down from her paternal grandmother, found in every shape from angels to zebras. Miles away and on short notice, though, she had to work with a cheap cellophane-wrapped four-pack consisting of a star, a stocking, and a gingerbread man and woman.
As she worked up a batch of gingerbread cookies, she bobbed her head and danced around the kitchen to holiday music from Chuck Berry, John Lennon, and Queen. Most of the gingerbread troops were the typical sort, rusty cinnamon brown with polished frosted details. Two, however, she kept aside for customization as I’m sorry cookies. Or maybe Thank you cookies. Or even, Are we cool? cookies.
She first cut out a standard gingerbread man, but then added a silhouette of a guitar, shaped carefully with a butter knife. An adjacent gingerbread woman had a tiny circle placed in her hand, scaled to the cookie size of a vinyl record.
Several hours later, the gingerbread cookies were iced, the sugar cookies were cooling, and her hands had been washed often. Lucy mixed a mass batch of frosting, separating it into smaller bowls and adding food coloring. She lost herself in absolute tranquility as the color rippled out from the drops in precise, orbicular red green yellow blue.
A shadow descended over the bowls of rainbow frosting. Lucy jumped and glanced up at the source. Jack stood in the doorway of the kitchen with a peculiar, disoriented expression.
“You scared me,” she said, clasping at her heart and planting the wooden spoon in one of the bowls. Jack said nothing, his gaze tracing over her, examining her, that odd, pinched look never fading.
“It’s snowing,” she said. “So I made Christmas cookies.” She peered out the window where the snow shimmered as it caught the city lights’ reflections.
Jack’s dark eyes shot to the window, then back to Lucy. He raked his hands through his hair, leaving a few rebellious strands saluting upward.
“Fuck.” He dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling with his hands on his hips.
Lucy frowned. Maybe he didn’t like snow.
“I know we were going to do cookie pictures,” she said. “But I wanted to make you a surprise.” He tilted his head forward again, his mouth set in a pained grimace. She picked up the plate with her I’m sorry/thank you/are we cool?/please don’t hate me/my sources say I might be in love with you cookies.
She pointed to the girl first, twirling her hand like Vanna White. “Look, she’s holding a little record.” She glanced at Jack, who was chewing his bottom lip. This wasn’t going well.
“And look at this guy.” She held the plate closer to Jack. He looked at the gingerbread man, his finger outlining the edge, sending a few crumbs bouncing across the plate.
“He’s got a guitar,” she said. Jack’s brow knitted together. He ran his fingers through his hair again, and the muscle in his jaw ticked.
“You play guitar,” she added, her voice a little wobbly. He lifted his gaze from the cookie very, very slowly until their eyes locked.
Then, in one fluid, startling motion, he snatched the plate from Lucy, tossed it on the counter, cupped her face with his long, lean fingers, and kissed her.