Beautifully Broken 3: Before We Fall

We glance at each other, but follow Joe’s lumbering steps as he leads us into the gym’s kitchen. It’s a large, older room with crudded-up corners and yellowed counter tops.

“The kids out there, they don’t usually have enough to eat,” he tells us. “I try to make sure that they get something here, an after-school snack, I call it. But really, it’s a meal. The walk-in needs to be cleaned up and the food needs to be organized. Throw anything bad out, but only if it’s bad. I’m not made of money, and we need to be judicious with supplies. Got it?”

We both nod, and I’m impressed once again with Joe’s heart, even if he did snap my head off.

He leaves us and Dom and I look around.

“Well, fuck.” Dom sighs, glancing at the dented-in cooler door. “This is going to take a while.”

I shrug. “Oh, well. I’d rather be busy than sitting around counting down the minutes till we go home.”

“Well, okay then. After you, Princess.” Dom gestures with a shrug, holding open the heavy metal door, allowing me to go first. “Don’t trip on the rust. Jesus. I think these appliances were made in 1940.”

He’s right. The cooler is a relic, old and creaky. I don’t even like to be near it, much less in it.

As we step inside, I automatically shiver, running my hands over my goose-bump-covered arms as I look around at the haphazardly stacked shelves of food. It smells like stale food, standing water, and armpits in here.

“God. I don’t think this place has been cleaned since 1940, either.”

I poke at the food, some of it outdated and some of it fresh, and Dom sighs. “Well, this is gonna take a while. I can see that. We forgot the bucket and sponges. I’ll be right back.”

He turns back toward the dented door, but when he pushes down the handle, nothing happens.

“What the hell?” he mutters. He wiggles it harder, then puts his weight into it. I stare at him, dumbfounded, watching him struggle to open the door. Finally, he turns around and stares at me.

“We’re locked in here.”

I try not to freak out as I shrug and stare at the locked door.

“Don’t worry. Joe will come hunting for us before he leaves. It’ll be okay.”

But Joe doesn’t.

And it’s not okay.

It’s freaking cold. It’s small. It smells like a swamp. And we’re trapped.

We straighten the food on the shelves in an effort to move around so that we don’t get too cold as we wait, but eventually we run out of things to do. And I’ve got goose bumps on every plane of my body, and still Joe doesn’t come.

I bang on the door, the cold metal stinging my hands, but no one hears. I shout. But no one hears. I even kick the door. No one hears and no one comes. Finally, I slide to the floor dejectedly.

“Can we freeze to death in here?” I look up at Dominic, who is leaning against the wall, apparently calm.

He shakes his head. “Nah. It’s a cooler, not a freezer. It won’t be comfortable, but we won’t die.”

“When do you think someone will find us?” My voice is small and Dominic glances at me.

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know if Joe walks around and does a final check before he goes home at night, or not.”

“Fuck.” I sigh, letting my head fall backward against the wall.

“You can say that again,” Dominic tell me as he slides down to sit next to me, letting his head rest against the wall, too.

“Fuuuck.” I draw the word out for maximum impact. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. For a second, the walls close in around me until something occurs to me.

“My cell phone!” I blurt, suddenly remembering that we’re in the twenty-first century. I pull it out of my pocket, but am dejected yet again to find that I don’t have a signal.

I look over to find Dominic shaking his head. “I don’t have a signal either. These walls on this cooler are thick and metal. Nothing’s getting through it.”

“I think the universe might be throwing us together,” I finally answer, putting my cell back in my pocket.

I’m kidding, but Dominic smirks again, his trademark smirk… the one that made him famous. Even now he seems cool and calm, which is exactly the opposite of how I feel.

“Like fate?” he asks. “I don’t believe in it. And if there is a Fate, she’s a cruel bitch.”

I stare at him because there’s something in his face now, something vulnerable, just for a second. Something hurt. But then he covers it up and once again, he’s a closed book. I can’t help but be intrigued by these glimpses. There’s so much more to Dominic Kinkaide than anyone knows. I can feel it.

“Well, we’re stuck in here together. We might as well get to know each other,” I tell him, in large part because of that look in his eye. “Because god only knows how long we’ll be here, and the silence is killing me.”

Dominic is already shaking his head. “No, thanks. I don’t care to see the details of my life splashed across the tabloids tomorrow. But thanks anyway.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and settles down, closing his eyes.

I shake my head, feeling a little sad at his outlook on life. “It must suck to be you,” I tell him. “To always think the worst of people. You should know, not everyone is out to use you. Or exploit you. Just FYI.”

He opens his eyes, raising an eyebrow. “Really? It’s been my experience that generally, someone wants something from me. I’m a big one to learn from past experiences.”

“I bet you are,” I answer wryly. “Too bad it seems like not many of them were good.”

Dominic scowls as he tries to get more comfortable on the floor next to me, his long legs crossing at the ankles.

“You don’t know anything about me. You only know what my publicist manufactures for the public. Everything you know about me is engineered, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. It’s all a game, Princess. The masses just don’t know that.”

The masses. As if the rest of the world is completely separate from him. Apparently, I’m part of the masses, along with everyone else, while Dominic is alone. In his mind, it’s Dominic against the world.

Suddenly, I really do feel sorry for him. He might be rich, and he might be gorgeous, but he wears the utter weariness of his life on his face. It’s clearly way too much for someone his age. It’s like he’s a hundred years old and he’s just tired of it all.

“You know, if you don’t like your life, you can change it,” I tell him, my lip shivering with the cold. “You’ve got the world on a string. You can do anything you want. You realize that, right?”

Dominic stares at me, his green eyes gleaming in a dangerous way. “We work together for a couple days and you think you know me now?”

I ignore his sharp tone. “No. Of course not. But I know of you. And I can see a lot on your face. More than you’d probably like for me to.”

He stares at me, his gaze unreadable. “Such as?”

I stare at him, appraising him. “You’re jaded. And dark. And something has hurt you badly, something in your past. You think you’re all alone and you’re tired of everything.”

Dominic breathes sharply, not taking his eyes off of mine. “You think you can see all that?”

I nod slowly, not breaking our gaze. “I know that I can. Want to talk about it?”

Dominic chuckles now, a humorless laugh. “Hell, no. Like I said, I don’t need to see shit about myself in the tabloids. They publish enough lies about me. I don’t need to give them truths to work with. Nice try, though.”

I can feel heat from his body emanating from him and I scoot a bit closer.

“Sorry,” I tell him when he glances at me. “I’m freaking cold. And you’re warm.”

“Fine,” he answers, lifting his arm to wrap it around my shoulders. “But no pictures. I don’t want this on any form of social media. Trust me, you don’t either. They’ll hound you for weeks.”

I roll my eyes. “I know that might be what you’re used to, but taking a picture with you is the last thing on my mind at this point. All I can care about is not losing my fingers and toes to hypothermia.”

“Has anyone told ever you that you’re a bit melodramatic?” Dominic asks dryly, although his arm does tighten a bit around my shoulders.

I chuckle, but don’t reply. I enjoy sitting with him for several minutes before the silence starts to gnaw at me.

“Okay. This quiet is killing me. You might not want to talk,” I tell him. “But I’m going to distract myself. Let’s play Twenty Questions.”

Dominic rolls his eyes, then closes them. “Go for it.”

“Did you have a good childhood?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. “No comment.”

I chew on my lip. “Okay. Have you ever had a crush on a costar?”

I look at him, but he still doesn’t open his eyes. “No comment,” he answers again.

I hesitate, dying to ask him something, but terrified to do it. But in typical Jacey Vincent fashion, I barge ahead and do it anyway. “That girl you were with at the party… was that Emma?”

He completely tenses up, I can see every muscle freeze as he opens his eyes and stares at me. “How do you know about Emma?”

The look on his face is almost frightening in its intensity. “Your sister mentioned her the night we met,” I answer slowly. “You were smacked in the head, so you probably don’t remember.”

I watch a myriad of things cross his face—confusion, sadness, pain, and something else dark that I can’t identify—before he finally shakes his head. “No. And I have no other f**king comment.”

The mood around us has turned as dark as Dominic’s expression, and I’m not sure what to do about it. His reaction is fascinating, but I’m sure not going to press him for more, not if the mere mention of the girl turns his mood so black. So instead I change the subject.

“What’s it like being Sin Kinkaide’s brother?”

He stares at me drolly now, the ugliness gone from his eyes. “You should ask him what it’s like to be my brother.”

I shake my head, amused by his arrogance. “I would, but I’m trapped in here with you, not him. And you’re not cooperating in this game.”

Dominic smiles slowly. “You’re very astute, Princess. That’s because I don’t want to play. Unless I get to ask you the questions. That would be more fun.”

I shrug. “Fine. Shoot. You ask me, I’ll answer.”

He stares at me. “Are you high maintenance?”

I smile. “That’s an easy one. No.”

“Do you dream in color?”

I roll my eyes. “You’re not even trying now. I think everyone dreams in color. I’ve never heard of anyone dreaming in black and white. In fact, I had the weirdest dream the other night, and it was in full color. I dreamed that it was raining, but that the raindrops turned into pink rose petals. And then when I looked at the ground, it was covered in a foot of petals, just like snow.”