First-Time Caller

Chapter 21

I was a freshman in high school the second time my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I had been operating under the foolish impression that because she had it once, she wouldn’t have it again.

She was sick. She got better. We were done with it. Forever.

So when she started getting tired again, when the headaches came back, the optimistic part of me thought it was a cold.

But it wasn’t a cold, and whatever part of me that was responsible for hope went quiet.

I’ve always been good at avoiding the things that make me feel like shit. Content to compartmentalize , a therapist told me when I was younger. But now all the heavy doors I’ve locked everything behind are rattling on their hinges. I know I’m acting like an asshole, but I don’t know how to stop. It’s muscle memory.

The back door to the station opens and Maggie appears at my side.

“It’s ten degrees out here.” She shivers. “Why are you sitting in the parking lot?”

“I’m standing,” I mutter.

She slants a narrow-eyed glare in my direction. “Lucie is here.”

I know she is. That’s why I’m standing in the back parking lot in ten-degree weather. Because I don’t know how to sit in the space next to her and hold myself in my carefully contained boxes.

“You need to get in there,” Maggie says, gentler than she’s ever been. She nudges my shoulder with hers. “Don’t keep her waiting.”

“I won’t.”

Except I already have. In more ways than one.

All I’ve been able to think about is our night at the bar. I’m haunted by it. My hands on her hips, her fingers sifting through the hair at the nape of my neck while we swayed in the middle of a sticky floor. Her hands reaching for me from the couch in the middle of her dark living room, her dress almost indecently high against her thighs. The happy sigh she made when I slipped socks over her cold feet. How her whole body softened against me in sleep, her nose nudging at the hollow of my throat.

The couch in her living room was lumpy and too small, but it’s the best sleep I’ve had in my fucking life.

It’s just a crush. We’re spending so much time together. It’ll fade.

It’s the flimsiest lie I’ve ever told. I’ve been trying to course correct ever since.

“Fuck,” I breathe up at the sky, turning toward the studio when all I want to do is climb into my Bronco and disappear.

By the time I make it into the booth, Eileen is on the other side of the window holding up two fingers in warning. I nod at her and she turns them toward her eyes, then back at me, the universal gesture for Get your shit together, asshole , through a soundproof window.

I give her a thumbs-up.

I would if I could.

Lucie spins in her chair on the other side of the booth. Her hair is in a loose braid over her shoulder tonight and it feels like a personal attack. She’s sipping the good coffee that I keep moving but she keeps finding and I can’t get a deep enough breath.

“So he does work here,” she says quietly, keeping her eyes on the desk. “I was starting to wonder.”

“I do,” I say, holding myself by the door. I watch as she arranges some pens. Then straightens her headphones. She hasn’t put them on yet. She usually waits for me.

What am I going to do with all this information when she’s gone? All these tiny data points of Lucie. How she sips her coffee. How she arranges her body in her chair. How she rubs at her ear when she’s uncomfortable. Where will it all go when she goes back to her life and I’m still here?

Because she is going to leave. Whether with Oliver or some other person perfectly suited to be the man of her dreams.

She sighs and turns halfway in her chair, looking at me over her shoulder. The last time I saw her she was sprawled across a couch in her living room, in cozy flannel pants and an oversized sweatshirt. I felt like I was on the very edge of something when I left her house that day, and I’ve spent every hour since trying to walk myself back.

“Your phone has been vibrating,” she tells me.

I blink. “What?”

“Your phone. While you were outside. It’s been buzzing.”

Right on cue, the phone I left next to my microphone lights up with a notification. It buzzes once, then twice more.

“Are you going to answer it?” she asks.

“Oh.” I drag my hand through my hair. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t need to check it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know who it is.” And I don’t want to look at seventeen different pictures of leaves right now. I dig the heel of my hand into my chest and rub, trying to get rid of the pressure sitting heavy in the middle of it. It feels like I swallowed a tire swing.

“Oh,” she says. She searches my face carefully and then averts her eyes back to the corner of the desk. She frowns at her chocolate mints. “I see,” she adds, her voice quiet.

“What do you see?”

She bites her lip and then releases it, tipping her head back to the ceiling. Her braid slips over her shoulder and swings down her back. “You don’t owe me an explanation,” she says slowly.

“For what?”

“For who you’re texting,” she says. She nods at my phone. “Someone is clearly trying to get a hold of you.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “She can be pretty persistent when she wants to be.”

Something in her face dims. “Clearly.”

I stare at her. My phone buzzes twice more against the cup-holder, rattling the mismatched pens inside.

This is why I stayed in the parking lot for so long. I feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind in this tiny room. I can’t think clearly when Lucie is around. “What’s going on?” I ask slowly.

“I’m just”—her fingers dance over the piercings in her ear and my throat tightens—”I’m worried about your credit score,” she finally says.

“My what?”

“Your credit score. Do you owe someone money, Aiden? Do you have a gambling problem?”

It certainly feels like I have a gambling problem every time I’m around her. I’m constantly pushing all my chips toward the center of the table, no matter what my cards look like.

“I don’t owe anyone any money,” I say, lost as fuck in this conversation. I grab my phone and swipe at the screen. “Well, that’s not true. I owe Jackson seventeen bucks, but I’m hoping he forgets about it. Here. Look.”

I hold out my phone to her. She blinks at it.

“What?”

“It’s not a collections agency or the Mafia or whatever is going on in that head of yours. Look at my messages.”

“No. No, I don’t need to.”

I reach for her arm, tugging. I uncurl her fingers and drop my phone into her palm. “Take it,” I say again. “Look.”

Her shoulders collapse in a sigh. “You’re allowed to talk to whoever you want,” she says, voice losing the sharp edge. “I’m being—I don’t know why I had that reaction.”

I blink at her, realization rising like a balloon in the middle of my chest. Like recognizes like, and right now Lucie and I are possessed by the same demon.

“Lucie.” We’re officially late for this broadcast, but I wouldn’t rush this conversation for all the Berger cookies in the world. I slip into the seat next to her. “Are you jealous?”

She glares. It’s the first time she’s looked directly at me since I’ve come into the room. “No.”

Relief is a physical thing loosening my shoulders. I almost collapse against the desk. I don’t care how her date with Oliver went last night, because right now she’s here with me, worried about who I’m talking to. “You are.”

“I’m not. I’m just concerned about—”

“My black-market gambling problem. Yeah, I got it.” I duck my head so I can meet her eyes. I swear to god, I could probably power a generator with whatever this feeling is. Fly to the moon. I’m not alone in this feeling. Not by a long shot. “You want to know why I was doing laps around the parking lot?”

Her mouth twists. “You were avoiding me.”

I nod. “I didn’t want to have time to talk to you before the show. I didn’t want to hear about your date. I didn’t want to see you light up with another man’s name in your mouth,” I confess. She sucks in a sharp breath. “If you’re jealous, I’m jealous too. Worse, probably.”

Her lips part in surprise. I’ve spent every day since I woke up with her face buried in my chest trying to convince myself I’m no good for Lucie.

But I like Lucie. I like her a lot.

My crush hasn’t faded; it’s only gotten worse.

My phone buzzes again. I nod at it.

“It’s my mom,” I explain. “My parents took a road trip up to Acadia National Park and my dad is really into plants. They’ve been blowing me up all day.”

Lucie’s gaze is still stuck on mine. “Plants?”

“Yeah. He picked up gardening as a hobby years ago because—” I swallow. Because my mom couldn’t stand the smell of the hospital antiseptic, and lavender was the only thing that helped her sleep. He filled our entire front garden—made gardens in the back too—and would bring her bunches of it, filling vases on every flat surface of the hospital room. He needed something to do with all his restless energy, and gardening was it. “It’s evolved into a bit of an obsession for him. They’ve been sending pictures all day. Take a look.”

She glances at my screen and I reach over and swipe. “Oh, wow,” she says as soon as the group chat with my parents appears. “You aren’t kidding.”

I push my chair closer to hers. Our armrests knock together. “Yeah. He’s in a mushroom phase.”

“I can see that,” she mutters, scrolling. There’s about sixteen photos of different mushrooms. More of various grasses and ferns. Some close-up shots of a pine tree, dark green needles clustered together. A selfie of my mom and dad in front of a stream, the angle slightly off, my dad’s thumb obscuring the top half of the picture. I can see the curve of my mom’s smile, practically hear the loud burst of my dad’s laugh.

Lucie stops on that photo and brings the phone closer to her face.

“You look like your mom,” she says quietly. “Same eyes.”

I blow out a breath. “She’s a lot nicer than I am.”

I busy myself with setting up the audio channels for the show, trying not to let my mind trip back to my least favorite memory. A hospital room crowded with flowers. My mom in a bed with too-white sheets, petals in her hair.

I wish I could talk about my mom without feeling like my chest is caving in, but the worry and the panic are tightly bound with everything else. I still haven’t figured out how to tug myself out of it. It’s been so long since I’ve tried to open those doors that I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how.

But maybe I could try? Lucie tries, even when it’s hard.

Maybe I could try.

“She, um—it’s a celebration trip.” I explain, my heart pounding in my chest. The words feel clumsy on my tongue. I don’t know how to talk about it because I’ve never talked about it. “They planned it during my mom’s last round of chemo. The doctors said it would help if she had something to look forward to.”

I try to untangle a stubborn cord half-hidden behind one of the monitors, fumbling with the end of it.

“She’s better now?” I can feel Lucie looking at me, but I refuse to meet her eyes. “Your mom?”

I yank on the cord and something beneath the desk jerks. “Yeah. For now. But I try not to—she’s had cancer a couple of times.”

Lucie’s quiet while I finish untangling the cord and loop it around the back of the monitor. If Eileen or Maggie needs a reason for our delayed start, I’m prepared to blame it on this cord. I’m counting to ten in my head, visualizing a sunset over the ocean or sheep over a fence post or whatever it is the hospital-appointed therapist told me to do when the anxiety felt like a noose around my neck.

Content to compartmentalize.

“You didn’t want to go?” Lucie finally asks. The frantic race of my heart settles a bit at the sound of her voice.

“Go where?”

“Acadia.” She leans back into my space and tucks my phone in the front pocket of my long-sleeved shirt. I stop what I’m doing. “There was a message from your mom. She said she missed you and was hoping you might be able to make it next year.” A smile. “I think your dad might be making an annual pilgrimage to the mushrooms.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” I straighten my already straight keyboard and flip a page in my notebook. “I wasn’t able to make it this year. Too much going on.” I hand Lucie her headphones. We are now about six minutes late for the broadcast. I can’t believe Maggie hasn’t come barreling through the window yet.

“With the station?”

I nod. “Yeah, it’s tough to get coverage and Maggie has been on me about ratings.” She hasn’t actually said anything for three days, but it’s a good enough excuse. “The timing wasn’t right. I couldn’t make It work.”

Lucie nods. “Okay.”

I settle into the sounds of familiarity, packing away all my buzzy, anxious feelings. I’ll turn them over later when I’m alone and not overly aware of Lucie right next to me, slowly unwrapping a tiny chocolate mint.

“It was cute, though,” I murmur. When I feel shaky and exposed, it’s easy to distract myself with things that feel good. And from the moment I met her and made an inappropriate comment about dental instruments, Lucie has always felt like something good. Like the very best thing.

Lucie looks up, a chocolate held between thumb and forefinger. I tug on my headphones and Eileen bellows, “FINALLY.” She starts to count down from ten.

“What was cute?” Lucie asks.

“When you were jealous.”

Lucie rolls her eyes and pops her chocolate in her mouth, a smile curling at the corner of her lips. I want to feel the shape of it against my fingertips. I want to bite the edge of it.

I’m afraid my crush has slipped into an infatuation.

I don’t want to fight it anymore. I don’t think I can.

“It’s cute that’s what you think that was,” she whispers back.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Lucie Stone.”

She’s still laughing when the red light above the door flicks on.

I do my best to be professional. We take calls from listeners, I don’t hang up on anyone, and I only find two excuses to touch her during the first half of the show. Then someone calls in to ask about her date, and every muscle in my body pulls tight at the reminder that last night, Lucie was out with another man.

“Oh,” Lucie says, a wide smile lighting up her face. Something inside me strains under the pressure. “I had a really nice time. Oliver is a great guy.”

The listener on the other end of our headphones gasps. “That sounds promising! Are you going to see him again?”

I knock over a pen cup. Lucie glances at me out of the corner of her eye while I collect wayward pens.

“No,” she says slowly, trying to tuck her smile away and doing a poor job of it. “No, we decided we weren’t right for one another. We’re gonna be friends, I think.”

The listener on the other end doesn’t share my relief. “Well, that sucks.”

“That’s how it is,” I butt in, rude as fuck. “Lucie decides.”

“I’m just saying,” the caller groans. “If you can’t find someone, where’s the hope for the rest of us?”

Lucie’s face pinches. “I don’t think I’m the measuring stick you should be using. My situation isn’t exactly ordinary. I think when the right thing comes along, I’ll know it.”

“So, you’re still looking for dates?”

Lucie looks at me from across the desk. “Very cautiously, yes. But I think on my own terms. No more crowdsourcing. ‘Lucie’s Road to Love’ is going private, I think. I’ll be making the decisions myself.”

“What does that mean?” the caller asks.

Lucie tips her head back and forth in thought. “I don’t think I’m going to look for dates on the air anymore. Sorry, Mr. Tire.”

“Mr. Tire can deal with it,” I murmur.

There are new rules to the game now. I won’t have to sit in this booth and watch Lucie entertain the attention of people who want to take her out, but I do have to live with the knowledge that it could happen at any moment. Lucie’s heart is open in a way that it wasn’t when Maya first called in to the radio show all those weeks ago. She’s just inches away from her happy ending. I know it.

The thought makes me borderline violent. I want to keep her in this booth with me for an undisclosed period of time. I’m possessive of her, apparently. Of her time and her laughter and her smiles that stretch so wide her eyes slip shut.

“I’ll only stick around for as long as Aiden wants me to. I don’t want to step on any toes.” She winces. “And I’m not sure how entertaining I am if you guys aren’t watching the car crash that is my love life.”

Fuck. If she only knew.

“Aiden wants you to,” I say, sounding like a whole idiot. But I don’t care, because her face lights up, a little wiggle in her chair. “No toes being stepped on. I’m sure the listeners appreciate your musical selection more than mine.”

“That’s true,” she says. “And just because the show isn’t setting up dates for me doesn’t mean I won’t be dating.” Her cheeks go pink and she looks down at the table. She grabs a discarded chocolate mint wrapper and starts to fold it into the world’s tiniest paper plane. “I just need to keep my eyes open, I guess. Like the other night.”

I rub at my bottom lip. A green dress drifts lazily across my mind. A jukebox that played only one song. Lucie on my back, her arms draped around my neck.

“The other night?” I ask.

She gives me one slow blink. A dare in the start of her smile. “You know the night I got stood up? When I was leaving the restaurant, I actually ran into someone on the street.”

“Yeah?” I ask, like I didn’t sprint over to Duck Duck Goose the second she texted me. Like I wasn’t sitting on my couch like an asshole, eating the chocolate mints I stole from her side of the desk and pretending not to look at my phone. “You didn’t mention it before.”

“Yeah,” she says, her smile bigger now. It climbs all the way to her eyes. “I think I wanted to keep it to myself for a little bit. We got a drink.”

“A drink with a stranger?” Our elbows bump together at the tiny desk. The room has shrunk in size. Too small for everything that’s tumbling out between us. That wall that was between us is crumbling brick by brick. I try to keep my voice neutral. “That seems suspicious.”

“It wasn’t. It was nice. We had a couple of drinks and I tried to show him how to throw a Skee-Ball, but he was categorically awful at it and I think—” She licks her lips and I am acutely aware of every place we’re touching. The rasp of her breath in my ear through my headphones. “I think that’s what I want.”

“Strange men on the street who are bad at Skee-Ball?”

She shakes her head. “I want to feel it first and think about it second. I want to be in the moment and not worry about what’s coming next. I don’t want to twist myself into circles over the idea of a partner.”

I exhale a short breath. “Then don’t.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

She grins at me. I think I’m jealous of the guy I got to be when wanting her was something I was allowed to do. I’m torn between who I am and who I want to be.

“Will you see him again? Your mystery Skee-Ball man?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, back to her tiny airplane. She creases one of the lines with her thumb and then folds again. “I don’t know if he had a good time. Maybe he doesn’t want to see me again.”

“I’m sure he does.”

Her eyes snap to mine and she folds another tiny wing. “I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Maybe he’s got a good reason,” I rasp. “Maybe he’s trying to figure out some things for himself.”

Maybe he’s trying to hold himself together. Maybe he’s trying to give you everything you want.

She finishes her paper plane and throws it at me. The point digs into the center of my chest then falls to my lap. Bull’s-eye.

“I guess we’ll see,” Lucie says.

“I guess so. In the meantime, see you never, Oswald.”

“Oliver,” Lucie corrects, a reluctant laugh tumbling out of her.

“Whatever.”

We stare at each other. Static fills my ears and my head and my lungs.

“It’s late,” Lucie says. She tilts her head toward the clock without looking away from me. “We should probably wrap up. Do you want to tell the good people of Baltimore good night, or should I?”

“Good night, good people of Baltimore.”

Lucie laughs and the sound vibrates against my bones.

“Lucie.” My voice cracks on her name. My heart is pounding like a drum in the center of my chest. “It’s always a pleasure to have you in the booth.”

She tries to hide her smile in her shoulder, but I see it anyway. “Right back at you.”

I wrap up the rest of my sign-off and try to rationalize. I tally the score while a whirlwind whips at the edges of my reason. It’s normal to feel affectionate toward Lucie, I tell myself. We’ve been spending three nights together a week, every week. But affection isn’t the thing I’m feeling. It would be easier if it was.

I’m drunk on her smile. Desperate to know more about her. I want to know her favorite pizza toppings. What sort of toothpaste she uses. If her blush disappears once it reaches the top of her chest or if her whole body flushes pink. I’m buying mint chocolates at CVS because I can’t quit the craving. I want my hands in her hair and my mouth at her throat. I have fantasies where I bend her over this table. Others where I wrap her in a blanket and feed her toast.

I’m not standing at the edge. I’m all the way over it.

“Show’s over,” she says, her voice muffled through my headphones. Hers are flat on the desk, set on top of her tiny notepad like they always are. I don’t touch them when she’s not here because I like the reminder that she’s coming back. “Are you going to . . . ?” She gestures at my headset.

I swallow. “I haven’t decided yet.”

A smile ghosts across her mouth and she reaches between us, tugging them off. Her finger glances over the shell of my ear.

She puts my headphones next to hers.

“Are we going to talk about it?” she asks, one eyebrow raised. She’s calling my bluff while I can’t stop looking at her mouth.

Eileen left five minutes ago, flicking off the lights in the hallway. The only thing illuminating the room is the glow of my computer screen and the streetlight streaming in through the window. Her face is shadow and light.

We are the only two people in the building.

“I . . . haven’t decided that yet either.”

“We can’t keep doing this, Aiden.”

“Doing what?”

“You know what,” she breathes. I’ve seen so many shades of Lucie, but I’ve only seen this one in glimpses. Heavy eyes. Pink cheeks. This is Lucie when she wants .

I turn in my chair and our legs knock together. I set my palms against her knees to hold her steady. “This isn’t a good idea,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“Because you’re looking for something else.”

Her eyes drag down to my mouth, then flick up again. They’re darker than I’ve ever seen them. Tortula ruralis. Moss right after it rains. My thumbs trace the buttery-soft material of her jeans against her thighs without a single thought for the consequence. Her body tilts toward mine.

“I know. But I can’t stop thinking—” She sighs around the rest of that sentence, watching me. “You’ve thought about it too, haven’t you?”

I nod. It feels like my brain has been rewired to only think about it. About her.

She shakes her head slightly. “Maybe—” She bites down around the edge of the word, her jaw clenching tight. Her eyes search mine.

“What?” I ask. My thumbs trace over her knees again. A little higher to a spot that makes her breath hitch. All I need is the flimsiest of excuses, and I’ll have her flat on her back on this table. Give me a reason , I want to beg. Please. Make the choice for me. “Maybe what?”

She releases a breath. “Maybe we should try.” Her tongue swipes at her bottom lip and my body flushes hot. Spark plugs in my chest, doing something ridiculous. “Just to see,” she adds, leaning into me, eyelashes fluttering when I raise my hand to cup the side of her neck.

I nod. Her skin is so soft. I spread my fingers wide. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Her face tips toward mine. We’re drifting closer, the space between us almost nothing. Our noses bump together and she makes a soft sound. “We’re mature adults, right? This is—”

“—fine.” I finish for her. Maybe if I give in to this pull, it won’t feel so goddamn intense. Like swiping your finger along the icing of a cake. Just a taste to cut the craving.

I press my knuckle to her chin and drag my nose down the length of hers.

“Lucie,” I try one last time, reason wrestling with desire. I don’t want to take anything from her she’s not willing to give. “I’m not what you’re looking for,” I try to remind her.

She hums, dreamy and light. “You might not be what I’m looking for, but you’re what I want. And that’s enough for me. Trust me to decide for myself.”

I curl my other hand around her rib cage. “Tell me to stop,” I whisper.

Her hands fist in my sweatshirt, twisting. “Absolutely not,” she whispers back.

She shifts closer and the corners of our mouths connect and float away. A low sound sticks in the back of my throat. I should scoot back. Put a stop to the flirting and the looking and the touching and the wanting that splinters down my spine and breaks over my skin every time she so much as glances in my direction. I’m nothing but a distraction for Lucie, a sidestep off the path she should be on. Kissing her won’t lead to anything good.

But I’ve never claimed to be all that good to begin with, and I’ve been on my best behavior for weeks. Lucie’s mouth forms the shape of my name and my restraint crumbles, reduced to dust at her feet. I don’t want to fight it anymore. I can’t.

“Fuck it,” I whisper, and I drag her mouth to mine.

CALLER: How can you tell if someone is attracted to you?

LUCIE STONE: Oh! Um. I don’t—I’m actually pretty terrible at reading cues. Clearly. That’s, uh, why I’m here.

AIDEN VALENTINE: That’s not why you’re here.

LUCIE STONE: Oh?

AIDEN VALENTINE: You’re here because you keep dating—what did you call them?—dillweeds.

LUCIE STONE: [laughter]

LUCIE STONE: That’s right. I did say that.

AIDEN VALENTINE: But we’re working on it.

LUCIE STONE: Yeah. Yeah, we are.

[pause]

AIDEN VALENTINE: But to answer your question, if someone is attracted to you, they’ll look for excuses to touch you. You’ll probably catch them staring. Not in—not in a creepy way.

LUCIE STONE: Nice staring?

AIDEN VALENTINE: Fond gazing.

LUCIE STONE: Smizing.

AIDEN VALENTINE: What’s that?

LUCIE STONE: You haven’t heard of smizing? Smiling with your eyes? Look. Watch me.

AIDEN VALENTINE: I’m watching you. You’re not doing anything. That’s just your face, Lucie.

LUCIE STONE: I’m smizing at you.