First-Time Caller

Chapter 15

T he day has deteriorated into madness.

If you had told me a month ago that I’d be sitting in the corner of a broadcast booth after a failed date where a man tried to humiliate me because of my romantic notions while the father of my child attempts to find me a new date, I probably would have given you a polite smile and then pointed you in the direction of the nearest MinuteClinic.

This is not how I expected tonight to go.

I had been tentatively hopeful. A little nervous. Excited.

I certainly didn’t expect things to take the turn they did. But I guess that’s my love life in a nutshell. Underwhelmed and dissatisfied. Print it on my tombstone.

I sink down farther in the beanbag Hughie dragged into the booth from god knows where, a pair of headphones over my ears, a cup of hot chocolate in my hands. I stare at the tiny marshmallows floating in the chocolaty goodness and try to figure out where, exactly, my life derailed.

Two brown boots appear in my field of vision, slightly beat-up with the laces loose.

“Okay?” Aiden asks. I don’t respond. Things are decidedly not okay. Dismal, maybe. Pathetically sad. I can’t believe I ever thought dating apps were the wrong fit for me. I think dating is the wrong fit for me.

“Do you think Mr. Tire is mad?” I ask sullenly. I poke at one of my marshmallows.

Aiden sighs and hunches down in front of me. “No. I don’t think Mr. Tire is mad.”

The backs of his hands brush against my shins and sparks of sensation scatter up my legs. I wish I had time to change before Grayson went full vigilante. I feel stupid in this dress. In these shoes. Like a costume for a character I never agreed to play.

“Lucie.” He sighs. He taps his pointer finger against my ankle, then circles it gently. He squeezes. “I don’t like seeing you sad.”

I don’t like being sad. I’ve never liked being sad. I’ve always done my best to see the glass as half-full. Find the silver lining. Even in my worst moments, it’s something I’ve been able to do.

But right now, sitting in the corner of this studio, I just want to mope. I think I’ve put too much of myself into this, shared too many of the things I usually keep hidden. I got my hopes up. All for a shitty guy in cropped chinos and boat shoes without socks.

I should have known as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant.

He was blond, for god’s sake.

“Lucie,” Aiden says again, voice quiet. A hint of begging. He ducks his head closer to mine and it feels like just the two of us over here. I can smell coffee on his sweatshirt. The cookies he’s always arguing about with Jackson. I want to tip my face into the crook of his neck where the scent of him is probably strongest and hide from the rest of the world. My heart feels beat-up and bruised and I’d like to avoid it all for a little bit.

But I don’t do any of that. I sit in my sad beanbag holding my sad hot chocolate.

“How can I help?” Aiden asks, his body almost curved around mine. Protective.

“I’m fine,” I say. To my horror, my voice wobbles. I clear my throat and try again. “Really. I’m okay.”

His thumb drags up the back of my leg. Down, then up again. More sparks. A glowing warmth that he rubs into my cold skin with his fingertips. “Don’t lie,” he whispers. He swallows hard, gaze tracing my face. He looks so earnest, all the sharp angles of him relaxed into something soft. “Do you need more marshmallows?”

I feel myself smile. “I’m good, thank you.” Over his shoulder, Grayson is settling into my usual seat like a king on his throne. I sigh. “This is going to either be very good or very bad.”

Aiden follows my attention with a frown. “I won’t let it be bad.” He looks back at me. “You’re sure you want to keep doing this? You don’t have to, you know.”

“This?” I ask.

“The show,” he explains. He gestures vaguely above his head. “The dates. All of it.”

“If this is an I told you so moment, you have really shitty timing.”

His frown deepens. “It’s not that.”

“I know you think this is stupid,” I whisper. “I know you don’t like it.”

His jaw tightens and relaxes. His throat bobs once. “It’s not that either.”

“You’re not using this as an opportunity to seize back control of your show?”

“Have I lost control of my show?”

“Maybe. This seems like a good opportunity for you to kick me out.” It was meant to be a joke, but my tone isn’t as teasing as I’d like.

Aiden shakes his head. “No, I don’t think I will,” he says simply.

“Okay,” I say.

Good , I think immediately after.

Tonight has been an absolute disaster, but I don’t think I could handle another rejection. Aiden might not believe in love and romance, but he’s never made me feel small. I’ve been burying the parts of myself that crave connection and belonging for years, and I’m afraid if I stop now, I’ll go right back to the way things were. I’m not sure I’ll ever be this brave again.

This show still feels like my very best shot.

I want my happy ending. I deserve it. And wanting it doesn’t make me weak or silly or any of the things Elliott sneered about over a plate of overpriced bruschetta.

Maybe that’s its own sort of bravery. That I’m willing to try again.

Just not tonight.

I nudge Aiden. “You might want to go take the microphone away from Grayson before he gets excited.”

Aiden doesn’t move. “He doesn’t have to go on tonight. You’re still the boss.”

I nod and manage a tight smile. “I’ve already been called a self-important bitch tonight. I don’t think it can get any worse.”

Aiden’s pretty eyes darken and his face settles into a mask of stone. His jaw clicks once. “He said that to you?”

I nod. Elliott said a lot of things.

Everything had started fine. I put on the fancy red dress Mateo pulled out from the back of my closet and the strappy black heels I’m pretty sure I bought for a bachelorette party I never actually went to. I straightened my hair. I let Maya do my makeup. And when I got to the restaurant, Elliott had been waiting at a table by the big window. He kissed my cheek and pulled out my chair. We made easy conversation over drink orders. I thought everything was going well.

But somewhere in between the appetizers and the wait for our entrees, I realized he wasn’t laughing with me but at me. His eyes were too sharp, his smile too smug. He told me he knew he could get me on a date if he just fed me all the right lines. That women like me were predictable. That I was self-important and unrealistic. That someone who had a kid should be grateful for any attention at all. That I shouldn’t be trying to dictate the parameters of anything. That I was damaged goods.

He was a piece of shit, obviously, but his words twisted like thorns the entire way home. How is it possible that out of all the people who have been texting the Heartstrings phone, I managed to pick the absolute worst one?

Patty was right. I really do have rotten luck.

Grayson found me angry-crying while trying to open a bottle of wine, and now we’re here.

“Aiden,” Maggie calls from the table, holding his headphones in her hand. She wiggles them at him. “Are you ready?”

He keeps looking at me. The same steady, studying look he always seems to be giving me. Like I’m an equation he can’t figure out. Or a particularly interesting constellation that he’s trying to orient himself with.

“What do you think?” he asks, our knees slotted together like puzzle pieces. “You ready? You okay?”

He’s always doing that. Asking me. Checking in.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

One dark eyebrow climbs his forehead.

“I am,” I tell him again. No one ever has ever fussed over me the way Aiden does. “Promise.”

Aiden nods. “All right.” He studies me for another beat, his body swaying closer before he tugs himself away. He reaches behind him for the headphones and hands them to me.

“So you can listen,” he explains as he gently tucks them over my ears. His thumbs brush the sides of my neck.

“All right,” he repeats with a heavy swallow, and then he’s back in his chair across the room, slipping his own headphones on and starting the show.

I close my eyes and listen to his voice in my ears. It melts into my bloodstream and slinks through my body, relaxing my shoulders, curling around the place on my ankle where his hand was just a few minutes ago. I listen to the rhythm of his vowels and consonants and the way he says some words fast and others slow and let myself drift to a place where expectations don’t exist and my feelings aren’t a fragile glass balloon.

An hour later and the show is over for the night. I’m sitting on a wobbly picnic bench outside the station in front of a blinking red tower that reaches to the sky. I told Grayson I’d meet him back at the house, but my feet carried me to this spot instead of my car.

I sit on the bench and swing my legs back and forth, watching the city sprawled out beneath me. I can see the lights in the harbor from all the way up here. The massive cargo ships that inch their way under the bridge, coming and going from the ship-to-shore cranes that stand sentry at the docks.

Aiden drops into the space next to me with a sigh, his hip pressed to mine. The bench groans and something heavy slips over my shoulders. I think I left my jacket inside, over the back of the beanbag.

“It’s cold,” he mutters when I touch the edge of the sweatshirt draped over me in silent question. He glances once at my bare legs in the glittering moonlight and then out at the view. His jaw tightens, then releases. “I didn’t want you to be cold.”

“Thank you.”

He hums a low sound and we sit in the silence. My breath forms little white clouds in front of my face and I wrap Aiden’s sweatshirt tighter around me. It’s the one he was wearing earlier, navy blue with an embroidered Heartstrings logo over the left breast.

“Grayson is something,” he finally says. “I can see where Maya inherited her . . .”

He hesitates and I fill in the blank. “Scheming?”

Aiden scratches at his jaw. “I was going to say showmanship , but yeah. Let’s go with that.”

I laugh. Grayson’s appearance on Heartstrings was just as colorful as I thought it would be. He divided his time equally between advocating on my behalf and absolutely eviscerating some of the candidates who were brave enough to call in.

“Do you think Maggie has regrets?”

Aiden shakes his head and leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Not with the amount of people we had listening tonight. She’ll be fine.” He opens his mouth, then shuts it again, shaking his head.

“What?” I ask gently.

He looks at me over his shoulder. The moonlight paints shadows along the angles of his face. “Back when you first started the show, I thought some of your hesitation with dating might be because of a sordid story with Maya’s dad.”

I laugh. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. Grayson is my best friend.”

“Then why didn’t you two . . . ?” He lets the rest of his sentence drift.

“Stay together?” I ask. He nods. “He offered to marry me when I found out I was pregnant. It was what our parents demanded, but I said no.”

“Why?”

I smile softly. “Because I knew I wasn’t the love story Grayson deserved. Gray and I have spent our entire lives together, but we were never in love. We were kids when I got pregnant. I didn’t want to ruin his chance at finding his big love.”

Aiden watches me, his face unreadable.

“I wanted to have that chance too.” I look down at my hands. “Not that it’s done me a lot of good.”

Aiden drags his hand over his jaw, still looking at me. “Has that been hard for you?”

“What? Grayson and Mateo?” I shake my head. “No. Sometimes I get envious of what they have, but no. I love the family we’ve made. Maya has two great dads, and I have two best friends to make sure I never get too lonely.”

“Were your parents unhappy? That you didn’t get married?”

I nod. “Furious. I haven’t spoken to them in almost twelve years because of it.”

He makes a soft sound. “They don’t know Maya?” he asks.

Something pinches in my chest. “No,” I say, and my voice trembles around the word. I fiddle with the cuff of the sweatshirt Aiden wrapped around my shoulders. “They cut me off when I refused to marry Grayson or agree to an adoption for Maya. I know we were young, but I wanted her. She wasn’t intended, but she never felt like a mistake to me. I don’t begrudge people their choices, but that was mine.” I blow out a breath, watching the cloud rise up, up, up to the sky. I had been so afraid, those early months. Absolutely terrified of what we’d do.

“My parents thought it was a slight against them instead of— instead of a decision that was mine to make. Gray’s parents were the same. They run in the same old-money circles. When we refused to comply with their demands, they just”—I snap my fingers—”pretended like we didn’t exist. Left our things on our respective front porches without so much as a note.” I think about Maya’s face, of doing the same to her, and everything in my body pulls tight. Never , I tell myself, a promise I’ve repeated since I first held her squishy, wiggling body in the palms of my hands. I will never do that to her. “Anyway. We’re lucky Grayson’s great-aunt Tabitha wanted to stick it to his parents. She kept us on our feet financially until we were able to piece it all together.”

I wonder if my parents ever think of me, of us, of the incredible little girl they’re missing out on. Sometimes when it’s late and Maya is at Grayson’s and I’m standing in the doorway of her room overflowing with books and color and stuffed animals and handwritten notes on torn pieces of paper, I wonder what they’ve done with my old room. If they’ve turned it into a Pilates studio for my mom or another office for my dad. If maybe they’ve just kept it empty. An empty room in a house full of pretty objects where they drift past each other like ghosts.

“They sound like assholes,” Aiden says, his voice gruff.

A laugh bursts out of me. “Yeah. They are. Grayson’s parents are worse. But he’s reconciled with two of his siblings over the years, and Maya is surrounded with a lot of love. That’s all that matters to me now.”

“Do you think they’ve heard you?”

I look away from the city and meet Aiden’s gaze. His hair is the color of spilled ink out here, the stars a halo around his head. “What?”

“On the radio,” he explains. “Do you think they’ve heard you and Maya?”

“Oh.” I haven’t thought about it. A yawn cracks my jaw open wide and I shiver, wrapping my sweatshirt blanket tighter around my shoulders. My parents have been out of my life for so long, I’ve wrenched myself free from considering their responses to things. It was a hard habit to break in the beginning, but it’s gotten decidedly easier with time. “They’re still local, last I heard. So probably.”

Aiden hums. “Doesn’t exactly make me want to be nice on the air,” he says.

“That’s assuming you were ever nice to begin with,” I tease. I tip into his side and nudge him with my shoulder. Then I stay there, pressed up against him, because it’s cold and his body is warm and this has been one of the longest nights of my life.

I let my temple rest against the curve of his arm. He shifts closer. I blink slowly and watch the lights bob over the water. Like raindrops against the window. Pinpricks of colors that flare and fade.

“Aiden?” I ask after a while, my body deliciously heavy.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’ll find someone?” I voice the question that’s been banging around in my heart for the past decade. “Do you think I’ll get my magic?”

He takes a long time to answer. So long my eyes drift shut and everything around me turns fuzzy and heavy. Purple and blue dance behind my closed eyes and I imagine we’re floating with the stars, my fingers reaching for their golden cascading light. Somewhere in the hazy in-between, a hand slips under my hair and gently squeezes the back of my neck. His thumb traces the ridges of my spine, and my whole body gets heavier.

“Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.”

AIDEN VALENTINE: All right, Baltimore. We have a guest in the booth tonight, his name is—

GRAYSON HARRIS: Listen up, lizards. There’s a new daddy in town.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Oh, boy.

GRAYSON HARRIS: That’s right. Lu has not been getting the respect or attention she deserves, and I’ll be taking over her search for Mr. Right.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Temporarily.

GRAYSON HARRIS: We’ll see about that. I suggest you buckle up for the ride, folks, because I am discerning.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Let’s ease our way into it.

GRAYSON HARRIS: This is me easing.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Noted.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Would you like to describe your relationship with Lucie for the listeners at home?

GRAYSON HARRIS: She’s the platonic love of my life. We share a beautiful, devious daughter. I’ve known Lu since we were three years old. She used to bring me cheese sticks at the ritzy preschool we went to together.

[pause]

GRAYSON HARRIS: She is one of the most important people in my life. She’s got questionable taste in music, can’t bake cookies to save her life, but has the most generous, kind, beautiful soul. I would commit terrible, violent crimes on her behalf.

AIDEN VALENTINE: I don’t think you need to—

GRAYSON HARRIS: But I’ll settle for finding her the match she deserves.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Most people don’t have such a positive relationship with their ex.

GRAYSON HARRIS: Most people aren’t Lucie.