Broken Open

by Lauren Dane

  Tuesday didn’t speak; she just watched him from where she stood, leaning against the corner of his writing desk, listening as she petted both cats, who’d moved to be sure she could reach them.

  “I’ve never told this story to anyone.” He threw a hand over his eyes and she did move then, coming to face him, taking his hand and looking him dead-on.

  “I don’t want you to hide your eyes. I’ll close my eyes if you want. If it would make it easier to say.”

  “It shouldn’t be easy.”

  But when he moved his arm, she’d closed her eyes. She took his hand, holding it in hers, not letting go. And he loved her and hated her. He needed her and she was there with his hands in hers and her eyes closed so he could finish his story.

  She wrecked him right down to his foundations and he didn’t know if he could survive. Not with her and not without her, either.

  “You don’t know what it’s like. To need something so bad your entire body just revolts until you get it. Being drug sick is the worst. Your whole body hurts. Your muscles cramp. You can’t keep anything down. So there I was in that dirty little hovel, subhuman, backed into a corner. I needed that heroin so much I could taste it. I thought about letting her do it just so she’d pass out and then I could make a run for it. But it was heroin-addict strength, you get me? And it was my mother with a dirty needle poised at her arm. She was going to do it. She was using everything she could to reach that part of me that remembered what it was not to be chained by addiction.”

  “You didn’t make her do it, did you?”

  “No I didn’t. She opened the door and the treatment people came in and whisked me off. But I considered it.” He could still feel it, that part of him that wanted to do it, no matter the cost. “What kind of person does that make me?

  “You’re going to feel guilty about thoughts in that situation? Really? What’s your endgame then, Ezra? How do you get to the point where you can let yourself be loved by me and not panic that loving me back is as bad as being addicted to drugs?”

  “I nearly lost who I was. It took years to live a normal life again. Yes, I’m afraid of falling back into that.”

  “I’m not belittling your struggle or how far you’ve come. I admire you a great deal. You’re incredibly strong. You’ve rebuilt yourself. So you thought a bad thing five years ago. So you thought a bad thing five minutes ago. They’re thoughts. Some of them are bad if we’re talking serial killer–type thoughts. But we aren’t. And you’re not a cornered animal. You’re Ezra Michael Hurley. You’ve written twenty-two hit singles, twelve of them since you got out of rehab and stopped touring. Your family sees it, your fans see it, I see it. Why can’t you? What’s holding you back?”

  So few people spoke to him that honestly. That she would do it, that she paid enough attention and cared deeply...

  “You said you loved me.”

  “Yeah, I did. Three times I think. I’m pretending it’s no big that you haven’t responded in any way.”

  He straightened, reeling once again. And once again she was the source. “You can’t love me.”

  She nodded. “I totally can so love you. You’re not the boss of me just because I let you hold me down while you fuck me. That night we came back to my house and Paddy and Nat were there? I figured it out during a whispered conversation with Natalie in my room while you were down with Paddy. I’m scared, but I’m at the point where I’m more scared to walk away than to stay. You better love me back, Ezra, because I am a fantastic catch. I will not tolerate your bullshit. But I respect your space and I’m supercute.”

  “What if I’m replacing one addiction with another?”

  “I can’t say. You have to decide. I’m obviously not a physical addiction. I’m not going to mess with your internal organs. I’m way easier on your bank account. I make your cock hard instead of, um, not. So you crave me. So you want to be with me. I want to be with you. You’re supposed to want to be with people you like. You’re definitely supposed to want to be around people you love. What’s bad there? Tell me the horrible outcome of you craving what I’ve got right here?” She cupped her pussy and he had to cough to clear his throat. She pointed to her head. “Or here?” And her heart. “Or here?”

  “We’re both broken in multiple ways. And yet we found one another. My broken pieces fit with yours. I want you to crave me. I crave you. I want you with me. I want to fall asleep listening to the sound of your breathing. It’s okay to be a little broken. I’ll help you hold your pieces together. When you get tired and you just don’t know if you can do it, I’ll be right there.”

  “I’m freaked the hell out. I can’t do this until I have it straight.”

  She looked so very, very sad. “All right.” She went to the closet and came away with her dress on a hanger. She came back from the bathroom with her toiletries kit and he moved quickly to stop her.

  “Wait. You’re leaving? I’m not breaking up with you. Are you breaking up with me?”

  “You need to figure stuff out first, Ezra. I can’t be something you relegate to a resentful addiction. Something you are powerless against. I’m not heroin. I’m not a bad thing at all and I can’t be with anyone who thinks that.”

  She finished packing her things.

  “Don’t leave.”

  She turned, cupping his cheek.

  “Yeah?”

  He wanted to say the words she needed. But he knew she’d see right through anything but the truth and he didn’t have the words she needed. Not right then.

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m going home. Have a safe trip this weekend with your friend. Remember to let yourself have a good time.”

  “I tried to stay away. Tried to deny how much I needed you to prove to myself I could. But I hated it and I missed you.”

  She cocked her head. “I liked some of those words. Next time you think about doing something silly, how about you aim at doing things that don’t punish us both. If you don’t want me anymore you better say so right now. I’ll go and this will be done. I don’t want to be something you have to argue with yourself to want. I want to be with you. I want you to binge on me until you get your fill. Binge and binge until you realize you don’t have to because I’m here waiting to give you whatever you ask for.”

  “Is that what love is?”

  She shrugged. “In this case it is. From me to you, always, yes.”

  “And you love me even though I have a crazy family and three goats named Marshmallow? Even though I failed everyone in my life so badly I had to go away for nine months just to get to a place where I’d then spend years making right?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Not even though. Because of. You’re so much stronger than you know. You can need me. You can crave me. I’m here. I’m all yours. It’s me and you and it’s okay. You said Ezra and Tuesday were supposed to be different—you remember that?”

  “And you’ll be here when I get back from Vancouver?”

  “Ezra, I told you. I will always be here when you get back from wherever you go. If you need to be alone, that’s okay. If you need to be with me but in quiet, that’s all right, too. I want you to rebuild your friendship with Jeremy. I know you have to harvest things and plant things and do that farmer stuff. And all of that comes with who you are. It’s part of who we are. I need to be alone sometimes, too. But I love you. I can’t hide it. I can’t minimize it. I want you to love me back and you’re not ready. So, I’m going home. You know the way once you get your shit straight.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  TUESDAY SET HER glass down on the table and looked across at Natalie.

  “So I told him that until he finds a way to accept needing me, I mean really accept it, we won’t work.” They’d stopped for breakfast on their way up to Olympia to hang out with Tuesday’s sister for the day.

  Tuesday’d shifted her lunch date with Kelly to the following week, but hopefully both women would have happy news. Kelly and Vaughan had stopped in to the gallery opening but they’d had
the girls and after a bit they’d all headed out to dinner with Michael and Sharon.

  She and Kelly had spoken about it on the phone the day before but they needed a long session with cocktails to update one another on what had been going on.

  “Paddy said he was super grumpy and withdrawn at their meeting with Jeremy. He says good luck. Paddy, I mean, not Jeremy. For what it’s worth, I think you made the right decision. He needs to accept how he feels for you. Not just for you, but for himself.”

  “I don’t want to sound mean or unfeeling. I understand he’s freaked by needing and craving anything. I get it. He never wants to be that guy again. I can get behind that totally. I don’t want it, either. I can accept his broody darkness. His wounds and flaws. I love him. But I can’t do it on my own. I can’t face needing someone that much and him not allowing himself to do the same. It’s uneven. I’d start resenting him.”

  “You deserve to be adored and craved and desired. I don’t think you’re wrong for needing him to really understand what it means to accept what he feels about you. All of it. So, does he tie you up or use handcuffs?”

  “See, this is the drawback to sharing sex details with you. No it’s not like that. He’s rough, but not to hurt. Like he needs it so bad he has to take it. It’s—I can’t even believe I’m discussing this—it’s all encompassing when he and I start up. He likes to be in control, but it’s not whips and chains. I’d totally let him use whips and chains if it flipped his switch. If anyone could get me to like it a lot, he could. But it’s just...he likes to be in control. He likes to set the pace. I’m fine with that. He’s not telling me how to vote or how to spend my money—if he wants to hold my wrists while he fucks me I’m all for it. He works it. It’s unbelievably hot.”

  “Sounds hot. I mean, all you have to do is look at him and know he has something happening in sexytown.”

  Tuesday laughed. “It’s the number one tourist destination voted for by me, that’s for sure. But I don’t want to be a visitor. I want us to be together. I want him to be all right with it. Before Ezra I was meeting men I barely knew in hotel rooms to have sex. I knew it was empty, but I needed something. I let it in as far as I could. You know? Like all right, I don’t have to know these jokers that well. You go out on a date, see if you have any click and if you do and he’s not a freak you might accept the second date invite but middinner just say hey let’s get to it. I’d do it for a while and then break it off. I figured maybe one day I’d be able to take the next step. But Ezra isn’t a small step—he’s a trip to Neptune away from random fucks in midpriced chain hotels.”

  They paid for their food and got back in the car, heading north once more.

  It was easier to say while she drove, her gaze on the road ahead. Knowing Natalie would never judge her helped as always. But she’d never said some of this out loud. Speaking it gave it a whole different sort of reality.

  “Ezra isn’t random or generic. He’s not bland. There’s nothing mild about him. There’s no just one bite with him. It’s the most intense thing I’ve ever felt. Even when I first saw him it was like all the air got sucked from the room. I guess for a while I was so overwhelmed with sensation I was wary of it. And then it lasted. I still feel that way every time he’s near. And I realized this was a vastly different sort of thing than I’d had with Eric. You know, I talked with you about it. Anyway, I’ve been struggling with it. Up until Ezra got in between me and the Heywoods.”

  “Di spilled some truth in that room.”

  “Well, you’ve said a lot of the same stuff, so don’t think I haven’t heard. But it was really her saying you know what? Who cares? Who cares if I love Ezra less or a million times more than I ever did Eric? The only person who would have cared was Eric. I’d been hanging on to all that guilt and maybe I used it to protect myself as long as I could. I closed the door on my marriage with Eric. It’s a memory. It’s part of who I am now and who I’ll continue to be. But whatever this is, I accept it. Ezra has brought so much into my life. As improbable as it seems, he and I are broken and jagged but when you put us together, our broken pieces fit. I am feeling so totally Zen about this right now. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been so one hundred percent okay with where I was and who was in my life. If he can’t love me back it will suck. But I will survive. I know I’m capable of this for someone else and that means a lot. I wasn’t sure I could feel this way again.”

  “He’ll come around. He’s grumpy and emo, yes, but smart. You’re the smartest option he has. He’ll realize it. I promise. Anyway, I’m glad you love Ezra. Ezra is wonderful and handsome and smart and sexy and he loves animals. He has two pigs—how can you not just want to boop his nose sometimes?”

  Tuesday guffawed at the very thought. “I’ll give you twenty dollars if you do it.”

  Natalie’s laugh deepened and went bawdy. This person who’d been with her through so many highs and lows. “So hey. I love you, Natalie. Thank you for being my sister and my friend and my lighthouse. You never let me get too lost.”

  “You’re going to make me cry. I love you, too. I honestly wouldn’t be here today without you.”

  That’s what she’d told Ezra she needed. He needed to accept living every damned day. With her. He had to pick her and life and a future where they were open to all the other came along with.

  “No more living in blacks and grays. Loving Ezra has left me broken open. I can’t pull myself back together if he walks away. He’s my missing piece. Don’t get me wrong—if he comes back and says he can’t give me what I need, I’ll survive. That’s how life goes. But I want to move forward with him.”

  “I want that for you, too. You deserve it. Let’s buy stuff today. Let’s get some new shoes and some cute outfits and go out in one tonight.”

  “You’re on.”

  * * *

  “DO YOU WANT me to drop you off at Paddy’s?” Tuesday asked Natalie as she got off the highway after a fun day with her sister and brother the day before. They’d gone up to Seattle and spent the night at a swanky boutique hotel and had gone to dinner and had drinks and even went dancing in the new outfits they’d bought. That morning they’d got up, had a nice brunch and she’d dropped both her siblings off at SeaTac on their way back to Hood River.

  It had been a long day with a lot of driving so it really wouldn’t be that big a deal to just take Nat up to the ranch if she didn’t want to drive up herself. Plus she could look at Ezra’s house and go say hello to the pigs. But mainly she was going to say she was just being a good friend to drop Nat off at her boyfriend’s place.

  “That’s okay. I’m going to take a long shower and then read and go to bed early. I have a lot on my to-do list at work in the morning.” To underline that, Natalie actually had to pause to yawn in the middle of the sentence.

  It was probably just as well she didn’t go up there. She had to keep hope and yet not torture herself with it. He’d be back and come to her. If he didn’t, he wasn’t worthy of her.

  Once home, Tuesday made them some soup before both women headed up to their respective sides of the house.

  The plumbing was good, but the house was big and so she let Nat take the first round and then showered later. Since she had the time she chose a new color for her nails and toes and then deep-conditioned her hair. There was all sorts of moisturizing and trimming and plucking and several hours later she washed off the mask goop and gave herself a look in the mirror. Smooth and soft. Her nails and toes shiny in a summery coral shade.

  She pulled out a navy blue dress to wear to the gallery the next day and realized the sandals she’d want to wear with them weren’t in her closet.

  Grabbing a robe, she headed downstairs through the kitchen to see if she’d left them at the back door. If not, they might be in her trunk but she didn’t think so.

  She looked around under the bench at the entry and finally realized the tapping she’d been hearing wasn’t Natalie doing something upstairs, it was at the door.


  Clutching her robe tighter, she went to look out the peephole and then wrenched the door open to find Ezra standing there.

  She didn’t have words, all her Zen gone. Now she worried he’d say no thanks and she’d have to live without him. If he did, though, she’d have so much hot revenge dating around town!

  They looked at one another for long, silent moments. Finally, he stepped into the house and pulled her to his body, burying his face in her neck.

  Joy rained through her, soaking into her cells until she was saturated and trying not to cry. “You’re here.”

  “You promised. And here you are.” He said it with a little edge of wonder in his tone. Like she’d planned to be down here right then when he got to her door.

  She took his face in her hands. “I told you I would be. Still don’t trust me? Why are you at my door at eleven-thirty on a Sunday night? I thought you were coming back tomorrow afternoon. ”

  He put his hands over hers, drawing them into his, kissing her fingertips. “Beauty, can we talk?”

  She wanted to say, only if you’re here to tell me you love me. But she didn’t. “Yes. Come in. Let me lock up.” She reached around him and took care of that, catching sight of her sandals tucked under the ottoman. She bent to snatch them up. “Ha!”

  He followed her upstairs and into her room.

  “Jeremy’s plane leaves for LAX at six tomorrow morning. I was going to fly back to Portland and then drive here but I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to see you. So he and I had dinner and I took a private plane. A friend of Damien’s is a pilot. He brought me back here. He brought me back here so I could tell you something. Well, a lot of somethings.”

  She hung her robe on the hook and sat on the love seat at the foot of her bed, tucking her feet beneath her.

  “I’m in love with you. I may be crappy at it. You can find a million men better for you than me. But I don’t care because you’re mine.”

  She nodded sharply. “I’m glad we can agree on this. As a start goes, this is really good.”