Broken Records by Bree Bennett
Chapter 27
“I have something for you,” Jack said a month later as they ran through the back door of the Stewart Theater in Albany, dodging January winds and unyielding snow. The theater wasn’t Madison Square Garden, but it was the best venue Kim could get on short notice, booked when public interest in Jack had begun to grow again.
“You do?” Lucy frowned, stamping the snow off her boots. “I don’t like surprises.”
“I know.” He gave her an odd look. “It’s not a real surprise. More like an unexpected action that I have taken.”
She squinted an eye. “That’s literally the definition of a surprise.”
“Oh. Well, then.” His confident, cocky half-smile was nowhere to be found, replaced with anxious, tight lips. He folded her hand in the crook of his arm like a tense prom date.
“You look nervous,” she said. “Is it Uncle Jesse? Has he come to steal me away?”
“No.” He scowled at her. “And the poor man has a real name, you know.” They stopped by a dinged metal door, a crinkled sheet with his name attached by peeling masking tape. His throat bobbed, and he gestured for her to enter.
Lucy pushed the ajar door open with her index finger, half-expecting someone to jump out from inside. Instead of the stark, fluorescent-lit dressing rooms of other venues, the room was filled with soft, warm light, emitted by a cozy standing lamp that looked plucked from an antique store or a grandmother’s living room. Jack’s acoustic guitar was already leaning against the wall, and some helpful concert tech had loaded a folding card table with bottled water and snacks. And on the other side of the room…oh.
“Jack?” she asked. Her voice trembled and wavered like newsprint in a summer breeze. “Is this…for me?”
She took a shaking step forward. The other half of the dressing room had been converted into the epitome of cozy comfort. A plush plaid blanket laid folded over the arm of an oversized, squishy easy chair in a scene right out of an L.L.Bean catalog. In front of the gray chair was a television, and on the screen was a clear view of the empty stage.
“Look here,” Jack said. The tips of his ears were piglet pink as he guided Lucy to a coffee table next to the chair. “You can use this remote to zoom in however you like, or move the camera from side to side.” He clicked the buttons to demonstrate, zeroing in on an unsuspecting stagehand.
“I can watch your concert. I can really watch it.” How could her heart hurt be this full?
He expelled a long breath. “Is it okay?”
Lucy couldn’t speak. She was stricken silent with awe and amazement and absolute, absolute love.
She loved him. She loved Jack.
Lucy clapped a hand over her mouth, preventing the declaration from rushing out of her lips like a careening river.
“You’re editing. I can see it in your face.” His smile fell.
She dropped her hand and clamped her mouth shut. Her fingers were twisting and twitching, little flickers of movement that were the only barrier keeping the words from spurting out. She shook her head and stumbled toward him, throwing her arms around his waist and squeezing a startled “Oof!” from him. An attempted inhale mutated into a hiccupped sob.
“Are you crying?” His tone was bewildered as he ran his fingers through the tangles of her hair. “Please don’t cry.”
Lucy buried her face against his chest, her fingers trailing back and forth against his collarbone. Thankfully, his shirt was black, and it hid the tear stains.
“Is it a sad kind of cry?”
She managed a weak head shake.
“So you’re happy.” He tipped her chin up, wiping away her tears with his rough thumb. Their eyes locked, and it was over; the dam was broken.
“Oh God, I’m so in love with you,” she breathed out. His body froze in place, his eyes flared, and Lucy’s mind shut down.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
He dropped his hand from her chin and stumbled backward.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
Both of his hands covered his face, and he scrubbed at his scruffy jawline. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Lucy’s eyes snapped to the floor, studying the lines of the faux-wood flooring and trying to lose herself in the patterned swirls.
“No, Lucy,” he commanded, stepping back toward her, cupping her face in his broad hands. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to spring that on me and disappear into your head.” He tilted her head again until their eyes met. “What. Did. You. Say?”
Lucy was trembling, her heart racing, but still his gaze seared into hers, fury and lust and something wholly more complex twisting together into a flame that burned away at the last of her defenses. “I’m in love with you.”
He made a pained, guttural sound and touched his forehead to hers. “No one—no one has ever said that to me.”
“I’m sorry. I just—it came out. But we can pretend I didn’t and just have everything go on as normal. It’s okay, I—”
“Hush.” He dipped his head to meet her eyes. “Are you going to let me say it back, or do you need to keep talking?”
She blinked. “Wait—what?”
He leaned in, brushing her lips with his before smiling. “I love you, Luciana. Good God, how I love you.”
Lucy pressed a hand to her sternum, her chest prickling with a beautiful, wondrous ache that made her want to laugh and cry and run and fall, fall, fall, deeper and deeper.
“Really?”
“Really. You’re it for me, Cottontail. Contract or no contract.” He flopped back into the easy chair, drawing her onto his lap. “I’m not sure where we go from here. You’ve already moved in, and I’ve already proposed.” He nuzzled her nose. “Are we at the matching pajamas phase yet?”
“Let’s start with matching slippers and work our way up.” She leaned forward, kissing him with tiny, affectionate pecks. He drew her closer and deepened the kiss, grinning against her mouth as he rolled his hips upward, the friction and pressure causing a tug deep in her belly.
“Guess what,” he whispered, nipping at her lip. “I love you.”
“Guess what,” she said, dipping her fingers into his waistband, the metal button of his jeans cold against her skin. “I love you too.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. “Ten minutes to soundcheck, Mr. Hunter.”
Jack dropped his head on her shoulder with an agonized moan. “Can we just postpone the concert?”
“Nope.” Lucy pressed a chaste kiss to his hairline, where silver and espresso alternated in a monochrome symphony. “The show much go on.”
“And what a show it will be.” His impish mouth cocked to the side. “But first, Cottontail, you need to help me with my eyeliner.”
* * *Lucy had always wondered what it would have been like to be in the audience during Elvis’s comeback special. To see the legend of all legends brought back to life more potent than ever, like a rock and roll phoenix rising from the ashes of frivolous movies, nonsense songs, and the pressures of fame and fortune.
As Jack descended on the stage, flanked by Hasan, Lainey, and Maya, Lucy’s heart stuttered. This was something different. Something new. Something legendary.
Lainey broke into a wailing intro to “Slow Down,” and as her fingers danced over the strings like an electric ballerina, Jack pointed to where Lucy’s camera was hanging from the catwalk. With a Cheshire Cat smile, he wriggled two fingers in his rabbit symbol, just for her, before breaking into the performance of a lifetime.
Guitars screamed. Fans roared. Lights flared. And despite the crowds and the lights and the noise, Lucy was safe and calm, curled up in an armchair that felt more like a hug than a piece of furniture.
At the end of the show, Jack approached the microphone with a flirty but sheepish smile. “So, uh, we’re gonna try something new,” he said, crinkling his nose teasingly at the consequent cheers. “We’re gonna finish up with our new single from the upcoming album. Hope you like it.”
Lucy crossed her fingers on both hands, wishing she could cross her toes as well. This was Jack’s first single in nearly five years, and she didn’t know anything about it. Was it going to be a love ballad? Something wistful? Something darker? All she had to go on was the occasional roguish smirk and a “You’ll see, Cottontail” whenever she had asked about it.
And then the lights went out. A single spotlight, pale as a moonbeam, shone down on Jack where he stood, center stage, strumming in a minor chord as he began to sing.
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear of a demon king from hell,
A dark-eyed knave from New York town, whom you all know so well.”
Lucy clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide as tea saucers.
“His name is known throughout the world as a genius or a hack,
But oh, the many stories,
The rumors and the stories,
The legends and the stories of the bastard called Mad Jack.”
Lucy slapped her second hand over the first, because holy shit, it was a sea shanty.
The stage lights exploded into an array of swirling colors, unveiling the rest of the band as Lainey burst into a wild guitar intro, turning it into—a punk rock sea shanty? But on stage left, Maya had brought out a fiddle—an actual goddamned fiddle—transforming the song into what could maybe be called a Celtic-influenced folk punk rock sea shanty. All the while, Hasan was in the back, thumping away at his drums, and Jack was front and center, grinning and laughing like the veritable madman he was as he leaned in for the chorus.
“With a hey—” and Maya, Lainey, and Hasan all yelled “hey!” in response.
“And a ho—” (Again, a shout of “ho!”)
“And to hell with them all,
Mad Jack is somewhere out there following the devil’s call
Watch your gin, watch your gold, and above all, watch your back,
‘Cause no one here on earth is safe from that bastard old Mad Jack.”
The audience absolutely lost their minds. Whoops and hollers and cheers echoed like fireworks through the theater as Jack went on to croon about “a bed fire down in Rio,” a “holy man and a monkey,” a “sword fight with an ambassador,” and countless other tales—no, not tales, but shenanigans.
When the bridge came, the drums, guitar, and fiddle dropped out, leaving Jack alone with a guitar and a smirk, waving his hands at the audience. “You gotta be quiet so I can finish,” he said, ducking at the barrage of cheers that came at him before singing.
“He nearly was thrown in jail because of one ticked-off prince,
And went back to the big city and hid there ever since
But before he hung up his guitar and let life fade to black—”
Jack moseyed closer to the microphone, speaking the following lines in a libidinous purr that demonstrated just why so many fans launched their bras on stage at his concerts.
“A rock and roller rabbit,
A jumpy sort of rabbit,
“An elusive little rabbit—” and he paused and sneered in the most Elvis-y fashion imaginable,
“—Tamed that bastard, poor Mad Jack.”
Lainey struck a power chord. Lucy fanned herself. The song finished with a raucous repeat of the chorus, with fans yelling the “hey!” and “ho!” and Maya’s hand flying as she fiddled, and in the midst of it all, Jack singing and laughing and possessing the stage like a maniacal trickster god of rock and roll.
The stage went dark, and the house lights went up. Lucy turned off her television as running footsteps thundered in the hallway outside, and Jack sprinted into the room like a kid on Christmas morning. His hair and shirt were slick with sweat, and his chest was pumping like a locomotive engine.
Lucy met his gaze, then tipped her head toward the doorknob. Jack’s grin unfolded across his face, and he flicked the lock with a sultry, teasing pout—and then staggered back as she flung herself at him, lips meeting lips in rough, gasping cadences.
“What was that?” she demanded between kisses. “I mean—seriously, what was that?”
“That, my darling,” Jack growled, biting below her jawline, “was a motherfucking shenanigan.”
She yanked his shirt over his head, ignoring the rent sound of a torn seam, and reciprocated with her own shirt.
Jack stared down at her, pupils blown, his face lit with lust and adrenaline. “Have mercy,” he breathed, grinning wickedly as she shivered from head to toe.
Then Lucy seized his hand, dragged him to the easy chair, and proceeded to show him exactly what she thought of that bastard poor Mad Jack.