Broken Glass

by J. D. Mason

  “Thank you, so much,” Terri responded.

  “There you are,” a lovely, polished, and curvaceous woman said, placing a hand on Luther’s shoulder, leaning down, and kissing him on the cheek.

  Nick and Yolanda looked at each other, as to both be thinking, “Who the hell is that?”

  “Told you I’d swing through,” she said, running her hand along his back between his shoulders. “Bet you never thought you’d see this day coming.”

  Luther immediately stood. “I’d given up on you, woman.”

  She chuckled, wrapped her arms around him and leaned into him.

  “Angie,” Luther said. “This is my son, Nick. Our friends, Yolanda, and Terri Dawson.”

  Angie wrapped both arms around Luther and squeezed. “Nice to meet y’all.” She leaned back and smiled up at Luther. “The place looks good. The fact that it’s so packed tells me the food must damn good.”

  “Eh, it’s all right.” Luther smirked.

  “I’m telling Stella you said that,” Yolanda warned.

  “Do it, and you’re fired,” he threatened.

  “I’m so sorry,” Angie said, looking back and forth between Luther and Terri. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”

  Luther looked at Terri, “No, we—”

  “We’re not together,” Terri chimed in.

  “She’s my date,” Nick clarified.

  “I thought—” Angie looked at Yolanda.

  “Nope.” Yolanda grimaced. “I wouldn’t date Nick’s ugly ass if you paid me.”

  Nick breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

  “Come on,” Luther told the woman, leading her to the bar. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “Y’all enjoy your evening,” she called back over her shoulder. “And it was nice meeting you.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Nick looked at Yolanda. “Who dat?”

  She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I thought you said you were astute,” he challenged.

  “Your daddy’s sneaky,” Yolanda declared, getting up to leave.

  Luther was full of surprises. That was becoming more and more obvious.

  “Can we go?” Terri abruptly said.

  His father and Angie returned to the table. Luther sat a pitcher down and filled four glasses.

  “You know how Lou is,” Angie said, carrying on with whatever conversation the two were immersed in.

  “Hardheaded. Stubborn. Mean?” Luther asked.

  “Well.” She scratched her head. “Yeah. Then there’s that,” she laughed.

  “Here’s to losing your virginity,” Luther said, raising his glass in a toast.

  “Here’s to the sorry son of a bitch who beat ya to it,” Angie responded.

  “Uh,” Nick said, giving Terri the side eye and raising his glass. “Cheers?”

  Nick eagerly contributed to the banter, enjoying this casual vibe with his dad and Angie.

  “Angie wasn’t a musician,” Luther explained, finishing his drink. “But she was one hell of a groupie.”

  “Actually,” she corrected him, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t a groupie. I was a stagehand-slash-assistant equipment manager.”

  Nick drew back. “There’s such a thing?”

  Luther squinted at Angie. “Right? You made that shit up.”

  “I got a paycheck.”

  “So, you say.”

  “Asshole,” she snapped, tossing a paper napkin at him. “I had a real job. One above and beyond sniffing around you trying to get your attention.”

  “I just played guitar, Angie,” he reminded her. “Nobody wanted my attention.”

  She laughed and raised her glass to her lips. “Uh-huh.”

  An hour later, Nick and Terri were saying their goodbyes.

  “Have a safe trip back to New Orleans,” Angie told Nick. “And great meeting you, Terri. Congrats on that new part. Can’t wait to see the movie.”

  “Thanks, Angie. It was nice meeting you too.”

  Terri smiled, but Nick had a feeling that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel the sincerity.

  Tomorrow

  Absurd.

  Terri rode in silence next to Nick on the drive home, with that word resonating in her mind. The whole evening had been absurd. Nick, refusing to be let down easy and accept that the two of them would never be a couple. Luther and yet, another woman pining all over him. And that Angie broad with her snide remarks that dude brains were incapable of detecting.

  “You’re an actress?” She smiled when Nick told her. “What films have you stared in that I may have seen you in.”

  Then Nick rattled off a few of Terri’s accomplishments, rather clumsily, and a strange look filled the woman’s eyes with knowing as they locked on to Terri’s.

  “Wow. Sounds like you’ve got skills. Acting, skills.” The woman’s eyes lingered on Terri’s a bit longer than necessary, before shifting it to Luther.

  Like, what the fuck did she mean by that? A dig? And what was that look?

  The woman looked to Nick, and then back to Luther. “Speaking of groupies… I assume the two of you have seen all of the roles Miss Terri has played?”

  Angie winked at Terri.

  The woman knew. The implication of her snide, little comments seemed to be lost on Nick, but Luther’s subtly averted gaze spoke directly to Terri.

  “I hope you had a good time,” Nick said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “It was nice,” Terri replied.

  After a few moments of silence, Nick made a statement that shook her. “You’re not feeling Luther. Are you?”

  “Why would you say that?” She asked, surprised.

  Terri had made it a point not to let any feelings for Luther, good or—whatever show. He’d done the same. She was pretty sure they’d been convincing, at least to Nick. That Angie on the other hand…

  “You get quiet when he’s around,” Nick commented.

  “I don’t— I’m fine with him, Nick.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Let it go, Terri. Let it all go. Devastation. Nick. Luther and his sad, sob story about his noble, dead wife, his estranged-on-the-mend relationship with his wounded son, and her own jealousy over seeing Luther with any other woman who isn’t her, even though she had no desire to spend one more minute with the man.

  “People have long distances relationships all the time, Terri.”

  Nick’s voice cut into her thoughts. “What?”

  He slowed and finally stopped in front of her house and turned off the engine. “I think we can make it work. Look, I get that your career takes precedence right now and that’s cool, but we’re good together. You don’t have to say anything right now. Just think about it.”

  “Nick, I’m going to be so busy,” she began explaining, “too busy to even think about a relationship.”

  “I get it, but, I’m not in a hurry, Terri. You do what you got to do, and I’ll be here when you’re done, and we can pick up—”

  “We’re not going to pick up anything,” she snapped, feeling like shit as soon as she said it. She didn’t want to hurt him, but damn. “I’m moving, Nick. Leaving and going back to the life I know. The life I love. This film is everything to me. My whole career will turn around because of it and that’s all I care about. That’s all I’ve ever cared about. I just ended up here because the business broke my heart.”

  “Wow,” he said, with an introspective nod. “So, that’s it? That’s it. For real?”

  “I never meant to—”

  Nick groaned and waived her off. “Don’t—not the clichés. Please. I don’t need it and you don’t need to recite it like you’re reading from some handbook.”

  Terri really never meant to hurt him. She never meant to have sex with his father. She never meant to care more about her career than him. Nick Hunt was a brilliant and beautiful man, and he deserved a woman smart enough to appreciate that.

  “I am sorry, Nick.”


  He sighed. “Goodnight, Terri…and take care of yourself.”

  Half an hour later, Terri sat on the sofa sipping on a cup of hot tea. Months ago, she’d left Atlanta and landed here. Somehow, Terri now found herself starring in her own shitty reality show, smack dab in between two men—relatives, father and son, for crying out loud. Maybe someday, she could’ve loved Nick. He was exceptional. The part that blew her mind, though, was how enamored she’d been with Luther, the slut. Who the hell wasn’t he fucking? That singer in New Orleans, the woman tonight, and maybe even that little bartender working for him. Oh, and of course, there was Terri’s smitten ass. Luther Hunt, feigning guilt for leaving behind a sick wife, who insisted he didn’t bring his cheating ass home even when she knew she was dying. Ava wasn’t stupid. Her husband was out there, and she wasn’t blind to it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure why the woman didn’t want him to come home.

  But whatever. Terri’s life was bigger than the Luthers of the world. She was moving on and into the life she’d always dreamed of having. Pride swelled in her chest. She’d more than nailed that audition. Terri owned the part, but the truth of the matter was, she’d gotten it even before she auditioned. Studio execs wouldn’t have paid for her to come to California if they hadn’t made the decision to give her the role.

  Devastation was never meant to be permanent. Terri knew that now. And destiny never abandoned her. It had taken a detour. That’s all. Finally, what was meant for her found her. Until she’d gotten the call from Roxy about that role, Terri didn’t realize just how happy she was that it had.

  She sighed, finished her tea and made her way to the bedroom. Small towns and their drama. This place was like that soap opera she’d played in. Terri chuckled at the comparison, but she’d managed to get herself ensnared in some of her own.

  She’d learned some things about herself since moving here. Other than the fact that she could actually cheat on her boyfriend, which she swore she could never do in life, because she wasn’t the type, though, technically, Nick wasn’t her boyfriend. Yeah. No. It really didn’t count.

  Her career being the most important thing in her life—more important than the Dr. Nicks of the world no matter how outstanding they were. But, as important as it was, she could never, ever let acting be all that she was. Not anymore. The time she’d spent here, Terri had taken the blinders off and saw that there was too much going on in the world around her to live and breathe just one thing.

  She’d found simple release and even joy doing mundane things like mowing her grass or suffering through reading terrible scripts for the community theater festival. As strange as it was, Terri had found connection in ways she would never have found if she hadn’t, even temporarily, quit acting.

  There were the quirky and surprisingly creative theater mavens, Lucy and Mavis, who’s company she truly enjoyed. Even Lanette, with her weird, overbearing, inconsiderate and burdensome self, offered a kind of magic all her own, opening Terri’s eyes to the very real fact even if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, stand back—it might just be a Lanette.

  Nick had shown her what it was like to be courted, the old-fashioned way, and she liked it. He really was too good for her. One day, he’d see it. One day, he’d find a gorgeous twenty or thirty-something-year-old who worshipped the ground he walked on, because he deserved that.

  And Luther? Terry leaned back onto her pillow, closed her eyes, stretched, and moaned at the memory of that, whorish, delectable, brooding, lying man smothering her with kisses, rippling muscles, and low, satisfying moans, filling her soul. He’d shown her a passion she’d never felt before, and in that single encounter… for the time, Terri had given all of herself to a man, mind, body, and soul. Deep down she knew… she’d never really regret it.

  Through The Fire

  The fact that Lanette Dole was recovering from a recent suicide attempt didn’t seem to bother her in the least.

  “You good, sugah?” Luther asked, setting a bowl of nachos with extra Jalapenos on the table in front of her.

  Lanette chair danced with gusto as the band he’d brought in from Nashville jammed with the Boys to Men’s Motown Philly.

  She looked up at him with a bright, wide smile and gorgeous, sparkling eyes, filled with her own brand of happiness. “I’m great. Thanks, Luther. I love this group,” she shouted over the sound of the music.

  He nodded and left her to her own, private party.

  The place was packed. The cover band, Miss Jenkin’s Boys, was a local favorite and filled the place every time they came through. Night’s like this, Luther stepped up to help waiting tables and mixing drinks. He didn’t mind. In fact, he actually enjoyed helping out. It was his business, after all, and any night when the joint was on and popping, Luther had no problem expressing his gratitude by putting in a little extra work.

  During intermission, he decided to step outside to get some air. Luther checked his phone and saw a text from Lisa, a realtor he’d been working with for the last six months.

  “Hey, you,” she texted. “Got time to chat?”

  Her message had come through half an hour ago, but Luther hadn’t had time to call her until now.

  “Hi,” she answered.

  “This a bad time?”

  “No, I’m just sitting here in my pajamas and fuzzy slippers going over some blueprints.”

  “Sounds sexy,” he teased.

  “My pajamas or the blueprints?”

  “Both.”

  She chuckled. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a break right now. I got a full house and I’ve been helping out the wait staff and bartenders to help keep the food coming and the booze flowing.”

  “Nice. So, you still interested in coming out this weekend? I have something I want to show you.”

  “Definitely. Whatcha got?”

  “It’s an old saloon,” she told him.

  He laughed, “Seriously?”

  “Dead serious. It’s been updated a few times, but not recently and it’s in desperate need of a remodel. Since you mentioned expanding your business, I thought it’d be something worth showing you.”

  Luther nodded, slightly. “Nice. Then, I can’t wait to see it.”

  Nights like tonight made him think he was crazy for even thinking about opening another spot, but, Luther’s business was doing well, and more and more, he’d been thinking about expanding.

  “It’s even got a few rooms out above the bar that can be rented out.”

  “Interesting,” he responded.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time,” she paused. “Are you sure you want another restaurant, Luther. You’re doing good where you’re at, but—you know the risks.”

  He sighed. “I know the risks.”

  They spoke a little longer and then said their goodbyes. Luther had become an expert at staying busy. He needed another business like he needed a hole in the head, but he needed extra time on his hands, even less.

  He hadn’t heard from Nick or Terri since they’d come through a few days ago. The fact that Terri hadn’t convincingly broken it off with his son after what’d happened between her and Luther was ludicrous. He’d called Nick a day ago to try and get a feel for where his head was, but he was busy with a patient. He promised to call Luther back and never did.

  Luther had left several messages for Terri, but of course, she wasn’t answering. He was certain that Nick still had no idea what had happened. If he did, he’d have shown up at Luther’s delivering a fist to his face.

  “Who you hiding from?” Lanette asked, coming outside.

  “Not hiding. Just getting some air.”

  The colorful braids she’d worn when he saw her at the hospital were gone. In their place, bone straight, sandy blond hair, parted in the middle and hanging down her back. He’d heard that her mother was white, her father black. Lanette had a family full of white folks in town that didn’t seem to want anything to do with her, and a family of black folks somewhere els
e, who might not have even known she existed.

  “You seen Terri?”

  Luther was caught off guard by the question but didn’t show it. “Not lately.”

  “Me either,” she said, her gaze drifting away in introspection.

  Luther braced himself whenever he had a conversation with Lanette. You never could tell what kind of nonsense was going to come out of her mouth.

  “Her car is at the house,” she continued. “I knocked but nobody answered.”

  Terri probably saw that it was Lanette on the other side of her door and ignored her.

  “Heard she had some big audition in Hollywood about a month ago,” she said, looking at him.

  “Yeah, I’d heard that.”

  “Think she got the part?”

  He shrugged. “I heard she did.”

  “Really?” Her whole face lit up. “That girl lied and said she’d quit acting.” Lanette shook her head. “You think she’s moving to Hollywood?”

  “I’d imagine.”

  Luther hadn’t really considered the possibility until now, but Terri might very well leave now that she’d gotten that role.

  Lanette gave him a side eye look like she didn’t believe him. “I know you like her.”

  Luther sighed. “She’s a nice woman.”

  “No, I mean, you really like her.” Lanette nudged him in the side with her elbow. “She’s cute and all, but—”

  As far as he was concerned, Luther was done with this conversation. “I need to get back inside.”

  “You might can handle those celebrity types, since you are one, but Nick can’t.”

  Luther kept walking.

  “She likes you, too.” Her crazy ass blurted out. “And Nick.”

  He stopped and turned.

  A wicked smile spread her thick lips and she folded her arms. “I ain’t even mad at her.”

  Had Terri actually had that conversation with this woman or was Lanette psychic? Either way, Luther wasn’t volunteering anything.

  “You get home safe, now,” he offered, before going inside.

  “I think she should pick you, though,” she shouted. “Nick’s way too—”