Page 6 of Broken Lines

“You datedtheJackson Havoc?”

“Well…” She grins. “We…spent time together.”

“Until he disappeared, of course,” Connor sighs.

“Oh, no, even after that.”

Connors jaw drops as my mother keeps going.

“But, yeah, there was Tom Roberts, from Matchbook 30—”

“I’m sorry, Judy, could we go back for a sec?”

“Sure, Connor,” she grins a Cheshire Cat grin as she drags on her cigarette.

“Did you just say you’ve kept in touch withJackson Havoc?”

She shrugs. “A bit, sure.”

Chuck hits the pause button as the office goes silent.

“You understand what this means, right?”

He sits, swiveling his gaze back to stab into me.

“Melody, Jackson Havoc, the biggest fuck-off rock god since Led Zeppelin, dis-a-fucking-pears off the face of the goddamn earth. Shit, some people think he’s as dead as most of the rest of his band.”

“Yeah…?”

“Andyour momknows where he is?! Do you see how fucking huge that is?!”

I groan to myself.

Yeah, it’d be huge if it wasn’t completebullshit. Because I know my mother, and I know she’s completely full of shit, as always.

“Look, Mr. Garver—”

“It’s Chuck,” he grins widely. “Just call me chuck, Mel.”

He stands, rapping his knuckles on the desk before he turns to pace the floor behind his desk.

“There’s our story.”

“What, that my mom screwed—”

“No, I don’t give a fuck whose dick your mom sucked, Melody.”

He strolls the front of his desk and sits back against the edge of it, crossing his arms over his chest.

“But I give a huge fuck about landing the music story of thedecade. Jackson. Goddamn. Havoc.”

He grins hungrily at me.

“That’s your story.”

My jaw drops.

“Wait,mystor—”

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