In “Broken Forever,” set during the opening pages of Chapter 10 of Crossing the Lines, Alice is fretting over a problem that Jay is certain he can solve.
Raw, angry redness decorated the corners of Alice’s eyes. Twenty minutes into Jay’s weekly lunch with her, she hadn’t said a word about it.
No problem. He could do subtle. Come at the topic sideways, like Henry would. He swiped his napkin across his mouth and waved his hand toward her. “Spring allergies?”
Alice stopped her bacon club in midair, cellophane-topped toothpick standing straight up like a tiny red flag. Her eyes narrowed—totally not an effective cover for the telltale sign of crying—and she slid forward, dropping her weight on her elbows. “If I said yes, would you believe me?”
Okay, not like Henry, because Henry wouldn’t have gotten caught. Well. Maybe by Alice.
“Not a chance.” Jay served up the charm smile she liked so much, the one that followed his bad jokes. Sometimes in the evenings now she’d toss a pillow his way or knock him back on the couch and pretend-punch his shoulder before she kissed him. “But I figured I’d start there and work up to ‘Didn’t you sleep well?’ and ‘Who made you cry?’”
Subtle wasn’t his thing anyhow.
Alice set the toasted triangle back on her plate. The toothpick found a resting place on the edge. The top corner of bread dissolved into crumbs under her shredding. “What, not who. Mostly.” She shook her head, and one wheat-blond strand of hair fell across her face. “It was an accident.”
“Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” He’d heaved himself half out of his chair on his way to check her over before he clocked the overreaction. He sat his ass back down. “I mean, do you wanna tell me about it?”
Lifting her face from plate-gazing, she gave him a gorgeous smile of the sad kind, all lips and no teeth. “I’m okay, stud. Bonus points for thoughtfulness. We should have a system. Earn bonus points, redeem from Henry for rewards.”
“I’m up for that.” Not up-up, because today his dick refused to be distracted. Alice had Henry’s sideways-conversation move locked, but he didn’t have to give chase. “But we were talking about the accident you had and whether it’s gonna require the rest of the day off from work.” He winked to make the tease clear—God knew Alice probably never took a day off—but he’d settle her on the back of his bike and carry her all the way home if she said the word. “A little couch time, Henry’s unwavering attention…”
“It’s just a mug. Silly.” Alice tipped her head back, her lips curling together as she stared at the ceiling. “Ridiculous to cry over. I mean”—she laughed, all air and no chuckle—“when you have to bolt to the bathroom in front of half a dozen guys because you sure as shit can’t cry over a broken mug around your coworkers, it’s a bad day.”
Jay slipped out of his chair and came around their tiny two-seater table.
Alice rubbed her knuckles across her eyes. “It’s hard work earning one-of-the-guys status—”
He swooped in and hugged her, crouching beside her and wrapping both arms tight around her. The lemon-and-honey scent of her hair filled his nose. The tension in her back reached his bare arms through the fuzzy tickle of her spring sweater. “I’m sorry your mug broke. And I’m sorry there aren’t more gi—women—on your team.”
“Guh-women, huh?” She buried her face in his neck with a half sniffle, half laugh. “Nice save, smart guy.”
He waved off their approaching waitress before she could pull out her grandmotherly sympathy. He could handle this one on his own. “Even a New Hampshire hick can learn to keep his foot out of his mouth. Mostly.”
As Alice raised her head, her lips brushed his ear. “Just a little toe-sucking, huh?”
“Now I know you’re trying to distract me from getting to the bottom of this mug thing.” If he stayed beside her chair, her strategy would work. He’d knelt at her side Friday night while Henry swung the suede flogger, her favorite. She’d gotten to choose a reward for renegotiating her contract the week before. Not even two weeks yet, and he’d shot from terrified about the future of their relationship to full-on hugging Alice in the middle of the diner’s lunch crowd. He squeezed hard, one more hug for the road, and scooted back around to his seat. “I’m not falling for it.”
“You’re smarter than my mug. One outflung hand from a coworker who can’t talk without flapping his arms, and it took an ill-advised tumble.” Hands splayed, she shrugged with exaggerated heft. “Nothing I can do. It’s completely broken.” She stared through him with faraway eyes, frown sliding deeper by the second. “I should just throw it out—useless thing, what good is it now?—but I’ve got the shards sitting on my desk like I’m hosting a wake.”
“Useless, broken thing.” The boot heel struck his shoulder, knocking him on his ass. He stared up at the sneering face and bright, hungry eyes. “Worthless.”
Fuck. He took a long drink from his water glass.
Henry would tell him he wasn’t a coffee mug. Alice knew only the bare outlines he’d been able to choke out in front of her. Her floggings scraped raw nerves under his skin, but they were only in his head. And that’s where they had to get fixed.
“It’s broken now, okay. But is it broken forever?” On their nights together, her moans and gasps and giggles soothed the terror the rhythmic slaps raised in him. Her enjoyment drove out his fear and brought back the first giddy joy he’d felt. “It could still be good. Save-able.”
Alice peeled apart her sandwich, turning it into finger food she ate layer by layer. Bacon slice. “It wasn’t anything special.” Cheese slice. “Just a generic, off-the-shelf coffee mug.” Mustardy middle bread. “And I don’t even like coffee that much.”
Sure. Except her careful fingers and her pinched face and table-gazing stalling said otherwise. Like a thing shouldn’t matter but it did. Stood-up date embarrassment. He’d gotten through those moments with humor his whole life.
“If it wasn’t special, you wouldn’t be crying over it.” Fork pointed, he dipped his head sideways, risking meatloaf ketchup in his hair to find her eyes. That soul-window connection could make any joke land better. Besides, she wouldn’t be ready to fix the mug until she’d gotten over grieving for it. And she had to fix the mug. She couldn’t junk it. “You’d be all, ‘Hey guys, did you see the”—shit, he should’ve paid more attention in science—“fancy Alice engineer word for that thing it did when it fell?”
“Oh, sure.” She twirled her finger down toward her plate and snatched a meat layer. “The wobble in the angular momentum caused by the relatively slow rotation and sloshing liquid.”
“Um. Yeah, that.” The first and last parts made sense, at least. “The slosh-wobble. See? Fancy.”
A real laugh fell from her lips, none of those puffed air or trying-not-to-sniffle imposters. Her eyes lit up, green and brown flashing at him with actual joy.
Nailed it.
“I’ve…” Pushing her plate forward, she settled her shoulders with a breath. The stiffness clung to her, though, a tight tilt in her neck, a flex in her forearm. “Some of the guys, they have a bunch of crap on their desks. Family photos, yeah, but mostly toys, gadgets—stuff to fiddle with when their brains aren’t working right.”
Mental note: Add desk toys to his Tuesday afternoon paperwork time. Except then he’d probably never get the paperwork done.
“When I first joined the team, the guys left a pile of pink Legos on my desk.” She snorted, head bobbing, tongue tucked into the side of her cheek. “Gag gift, you know? So I built a pink catapult and fired pink bricks at their desks.”
Of course she had. He stopped eating to flash her a double thumbs-up. Fearless Alice. The unbroken submissive. The woman who stood up for herself, except when it came to love.
“But I’ve kept my desk clear of personal stuff. I have two things now, since somebody thought I needed a permanent floral reminder for an indoor picnic I’d never forget—”
She cupped a hand in her hair, just above her ear, as if the hibiscus Henry had given her on their first official play night would still be there. He’d be more than pleased to know the metal sculpture kept the memory alive for her at work every day. Too bad Jay’d tucked his phone away; he’d never snap a picture faster than she’d drop her hand. But he’d mimic the motion for Henry tonight.
“—but for the longest time, I just had one.”
“The mug.” Couldn’t have been from an old boyfriend; Alice didn’t get lovey-dovey emotional about the guys in her past. But if the mug had been nothing special, then the giver had meant a hell of a lot. Enough to make her cry today for the broken memory.
“Yeah. I was all alone out here—had been for five years while I got my degree.” She picked at her side of chips, a crunchy counterpoint while he finished off his meatloaf. “My sister was in California, pre-med, working to help cover what the student loans didn’t. I got the job offer a few weeks before graduation, so I didn’t have a break to celebrate. And then I get home from the ceremony, and there’s this little box”—she squared her hands around her plate, slim fingers and bare forearms where she’d pushed up her sweater—“waiting for me. Coffee mug and a bunch of ‘brain food’ snacks—nuts, dried fruit. She’d either gone doctor or full-fledged Californian by then.” Her smile rounded her cheeks as she shook her head. “Anyway. It’s just a graduation mug with a lame engineering joke. I could replace it in five minutes.”
Except she couldn’t. Love didn’t work that way. “But—”
“Exactly. But.” She sighed, and the tension dropped out of her frame. The truth sag.
He’d done that dance more than once for Henry. Emotional truth-telling was exhausting. But kinda necessary. For the best things in life.
Alice finally met his eyes. The red in the corners of hers seemed softer now. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be the one she sent me. It wouldn’t be a desktop reminder of the people who matter most. It would just be a stand-in.”
Him and Henry, they counted in the people who mattered most to her. If anything ever happened to her hibiscus, Henry would have to commission a different piece, not a replacement. Alice might be their practical-minded engineer, but she couldn’t throw away the pieces she loved. “You’d rather have the original one, broken, than a new one.”
“Yeah.” A wry smile twisted her lips. “If I leave a pile of shards on my desk tonight, either the cleaning crew will trash it or my coworkers will add a joke gravestone and insist on a formal service.”
“So why don’t we fix it?” The thing couldn’t be in that many pieces. And so what if it was? Henry’d picked up every piece of Jay and glued him back together. Polished him into relationship material. Thanks to Henry, the echoing jackasses in Jay’s head had been exposed as liars. Alice could learn to tune out whatever voices told her love wasn’t real—and Jay could help, by making use of her expanded contract time. “You bring the mug over tonight, and between you, me, and Henry, we’ve gotta have enough minds and hands to magic it into one piece again.”
Alice raised doubting brows. “I don’t think it’ll hold a drink again, Jay. Maybe if it hadn’t whanged the corner of the metal desk.”
“But you still love it, right?” He scrunched in closer to the table, leaning toward her. “So we should fix it. Don’t throw it out.” Not without another chance. Someday she’d ask for a flogging and he’d join her. Someday she’d say out loud she loved them. “It can do other things. Hold that brain food your sister sends.”
“Hey.” Alice captured his hands and rolled her thumbs across his knuckles. The intensity thrumming through him slowed to her touch, steady strokes while she tucked her fingers into his palms. “You have such a good heart, Jay. Thank you.” A squint brought out a tiny line at the bridge of her nose. She pressed her tongue to her lips, and her words slowed. “The mug is still useful, and it earned its place a long time ago. I care about it for what it means to me—which makes everything it does for me, whatever that is, special.”
The kind of answer Henry would have given. Her quiet sincerity silenced the mockers and even the doubts that came calling in his own voice. “So you’ll fix it?”
Alice squeezed his hands. “I’ll bring the pieces over tonight, and we can put it back together together.”
“Together together.” A plan for the ages.