First-Time Caller

Chapter 22

A iden kisses me like he’s mad about it.

One second, he’s telling me he should stop, and the next, his mouth is on mine, his hand digging in the hair beneath my braid so he can angle me the way he wants. It’s bruising, and rough, and absolutely delicious, his mouth working against mine ferociously.

I touch my tongue to his bottom lip and he makes a broken sound, dragging himself away. His eyes are shut tight and his cheeks are pink. The tips of his ears too.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes again, but he’s brushing his lips to the corner of my mouth, the curve of my chin. Small, sipping kisses like he’s trying to pace himself. Like he doesn’t want to take too much.

But I want him to take. I’m giving all of this to him willingly. I want him to have it.

“No,” I say, twisting my head to the side and catching his mouth with mine. I make a faint pleading sound and Aiden groans, kissing me like he damn well means it.

Aiden is bossy , I think faintly as his kisses turn rougher. Messier. More desperate. He’s holding me like I’m going to disappear under his grip, our armrests knocking together as we slip and slide on our chairs. I grip his sweatshirt in my hands and hold on for dear life, meeting each press of his mouth against mine with enthusiasm.

“Aiden,” I whisper, and he grunts another animal sound, his thumb pressing at my jaw until I open for him. He licks into my mouth and my body jolts forward in the ancient chair I’m somehow still sitting in, both of my arms around his neck. One of his hands slips around my side, his palm tucked tight to the small of my back, keeping me arched against him.

But the angle is awkward and the tension coiling low in my belly feels hollow and hot and I can’t move the way I need to with Aiden holding me still. I make a frustrated sound and Aiden pulls away, a dazed look with kiss-bitten lips. He looks at my grumpy face and a smile curls at his mouth, decadent and devious.

There , I think. There you are.

“Good?” he asks, knowing I’m not. Knowing I need more. I glare at him and he rumbles out a laugh, ducking his head to press a kiss to the tip of my nose, the curve of my cheek. We’re pushing the limits of Let’s just see , but then he guides my head to the side to press wet, lingering kisses behind my ear and I don’t care. I don’t care about the specifics or the parameters or what it’s going to feel like when I leave this booth. I only care about Aiden and his mouth working down the length of my neck. His palm at the base of my spine pressing insistently. My breasts crushed against his chest.

“C’mere,” he mumbles against the hollow of my throat, a half thought, his thumb edging up the back of my sweater. The rest of his fingers follow, his hand like a brand against my bare skin.

I smile into the top of his head. There’s nowhere to go. “Where?”

“Here,” he says, mouth preoccupied with the line of my collarbone. He tugs at me again, trying to get me to move. “Like this.”

I let him guide me from my chair into his, my knee pressed in the two inches of space at his hip. The chair wobbles beneath us and Aiden drops his head back against faded leather, one strong arm wrapped around me to hold me steady. I grip his shoulders and kiss him again, hovering awkwardly with one foot still planted on the ground, leaning sideways.

“Up, Lucie,” he orders, and goose bumps scatter across my skin. I comply immediately, swinging my other leg over his lap until I’m draped over him like a blanket. He makes a pleased sound and the ache between my thighs intensifies. “Good,” he whispers, and his hand finds the space under my braid again and pulls tight.

Something in me unlocks, unravels, and suddenly I’m ravenous. I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him some more. I suck at a spot beneath his ear, drag my tongue over the rough stubble along his jaw, fist my hands in his dark hair and move him the way I want. I feel voracious, out of control. Every errant thought I’ve had over the past couple of weeks—every sigh and smile and subtle shift of his body next to mine that I’ve tried not to notice—it’s coalesced into this. A cascade of impulsive, decadent decision-making.

Aiden lets me do as I please, only impatient when I spend too long on the soft, warm skin between his shoulder and neck, the collar of his sweatshirt stretched to the side. I trace the chain of his necklace with my tongue and he makes a rough sound, his hand tightening in my hair as he guides my mouth back to his. I feel more drunk right now than I did the night at the bar. Drunk on him and the way he kisses me.

He tugs on my braid by accident and something liquid hot unfurls low in my belly. My body goes limp against his, my arms draped lazily over his shoulders.

“Aiden,” I gasp and his eyes dance in the blue-green light of the dark booth. His head rocks against the chair as he watches me, tongue at the corner of his mouth in silent consideration. I feel him loop the length of my braid around his fist, and when he tugs again, it’s slower. Thoughtful.

He’s asking a question and my body is giving him the answer.

I suck in a sharp breath and roll my hips down. It’s mindless, without consideration for the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves. My body is pulled too tight and I want more of the heat that’s shimmering along my skin in waves. The space between my thighs feels achy and hot and I give in to the pull, rocking against him again. Logic and reason are problems for tomorrow’s Lucie. Right now I feel too good to worry about anything.

Aiden’s eyes close, eyelashes fanned out against the curve of his flushed cheeks.

“Lucie,” he breathes.

“Aiden,” I whisper back, circling my hips again. I love when we do this. When he says my name and then I say his. Fond exasperation and gentle amusement in every syllable. A call and response. The chorus to a song I can’t get out of my head.

Aiden moans lightly and stills me with his hands. His fingers squeeze, thumbprints at my hips.

“We should stop,” he rasps.

I keep kissing his neck. I was right, all those weeks ago. He smells the strongest here. Like coffee and laundry detergent and wintergreen gum. “Should we?”

He hums and mumbles something under his breath. “Yes?” he says, but it sounds like a question. I let myself tuck another kiss against his warm skin. The hand in my hair eases and his palm traces a meandering path down my spine. “Probably?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. If I let myself keep going, it’s only going to be harder to stop. His heart thunders a mile a minute and I know mine is racing to match. “That should probably be a onetime thing, huh?”

He huffs a laugh. “That felt like several things.”

I lean back so I’m perched in his lap, my palms resting on his shoulders. “More than a few,” I agree.

“At least fifteen years off my life.” He sighs. He rubs my back again and I let my gaze drift over him. He looks deliciously wrecked. His hair is mussed from my hands and his lips are swollen. My yanking has left the collar of his sweatshirt crooked, the jut of his collarbone visible. I’ve always thought Aiden was handsome, but he looks beautiful like this. Messy. Undone. Cracked open and torn apart.

I sigh. I wish that kiss made me like him less.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.

“Like what?”

He swallows. “Like you’re plotting something.”

“I’m not plotting anything.” I’m just trying to appreciate all of my handiwork for probably the first and last time. Aiden is right. That can’t happen again, no matter how good it was. This infatuation I have with Aiden needs to end. He’s made it very clear he can’t give me what I want, and I’m not in the habit of pushing people. I’m going to believe what he says. I’m not going to beg him to be something he’s not.

I won’t beg him to want me.

I let my palms drift over his chest, tracing the pattern of letters on his sweatshirt. “Just this once,” I say again, but I don’t think I mean it. I wait for Aiden to correct me, to suggest something different, but he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” he agrees. The palm on the small of my back reluctantly retreats from beneath my sweater. “Yeah,” he says again, teeth clamped on his bottom lip in a wince.

I laugh. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one having trouble with that. I climb off his lap and try not to notice the way he has to adjust himself, but my cheeks burn hot as I collect my things. I hear Aiden do the same on his side of the booth, and it should be awkward, probably, but it’s remarkably easy to occupy this space with him. He turns off the machines and buries a yawn in his fist, running a lazy hand through his hair when he catches me watching him.

“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

The walk to my Subaru on the other side of the parking lot has never felt quite so long or so short. The blinking red light at the top of the radio tower makes everything look ethereal this late at night, the stars a blanket above us. It’s easier to see them out here on the outskirts of the city. Maya would love it.

We stop at my car and stare at it, like it’s something that’s just dropped out of a black hole and not the thing I’ve been driving for close to a decade. I don’t want this night to end quite yet.

“Our listeners,” Aiden starts, voice rough. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye and then glances back at my car. I can see our wavy, blurry reflection in the driver’s window. Our dark heads bent close together and his shoulder bumping mine. He releases a breath. “Our listeners will probably still want to hear about your dates. If you’re open to talking about them,” he says awkwardly.

It’s like the last twenty minutes never happened, and while that’s supposed to be what I wanted, something in my chest sinks. I didn’t want the reminder of the show tonight. Not after the way he just kissed me.

“Yeah,” I agree, fumbling to reconfigure my settings. I shrug, feeling approximately two inches tall. “I can share all the juicy details.”

Aiden frowns in the reflection.

I turn to unlock my car but he catches my hand with his. My keys bite into my fingers.

“Lucie,” he says, a thin thread of something looping around the sounds of my name. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

It’s not his fault I feel like I’m being handed a consolation prize. He’s been nothing but honest and I’m—I’m tired, I think. For so many reasons. My head and my heart have always had trouble being on the same page, but they feel especially far apart right now.

I give him a smile and try to memorize what he looks like with my kisses burned against his mouth. I press up on my toes and drop one more on his cheek, squeezing his fingers with mine.

“I think you’re supposed to say good night.”

Mateo is on my couch when I slip through my front door, a book in his hand and an empty tea mug on the coffee table. I’m not expecting him and my keys go flying across the hardwood.

When I bend down to scoop them up, I feel like I have a neon sign on my forehead:

I MADE OUT WITH AIDEN AT THE RADIO STATION.

In smaller letters right beneath:

AND I LIKED IT A LOT.

Sans serif font, size eight in the bottom right corner:

PROBABLY SHOULDN’T DO IT AGAIN, THOUGH.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Mateo says as I slowly straighten. He sets his book next to his empty mug. “Maya wanted to sleep here tonight.”

I frown and glance up the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

He nods. “Everything is fine. Grayson is on an art bender and she said the smell of the paint was giving her a headache.” He stands from the couch with a yawn. “But between me and you, I think she’s been missing you. I caught her trying to keep herself awake with her books.”

My heart pinches in my chest. I’ve been spending too much time at the station. Too much time away. “Thanks for bringing her over.”

“Of course.” He closes the space between us and squeezes my arm, a knowing look on his face. “And don’t start, okay? You deserve to do things for you.”

I unwind my scarf from around my neck. “But if Maya’s been needing me . . .”

If she’s been needing me while I’ve been making out in radio booths and playing Skee-Ball and getting piggyback rides on the way home from bars from handsome men—

He shakes his head. “She’s been missing you, not needing you. You’ve met all of her needs with unfailing precision for the past twelve years. Now it’s time to do something for you.” Mateo ducks his head so I have no choice but to meet his warm brown eyes. I’ve heard Grayson call them whiskey on the rocks eyes more than once. It’s an apt description. “What she needs is to see her mom prioritizing her own happiness for once. So she can learn to do the same.”

“That’s”—I have to pause and steady my voice—”that’s really nice, Teo.”

“It’s also really true.” He twists his neck back and forth and picks up his book. “I listened to the show tonight. You sounded happy.”

I immediately think of Aiden’s hand in my braid. The low rasp of his voice while his hands tugged my body closer to his. The creak of his chair and the shape of his smile in the glow of his computer screen.

I press my lips together and examine the warm glowy feeling burning right under my skin. “I am happy,” I say slowly, afraid if I acknowledge it too loudly, the feeling might scurry away. “The show has been good for me, I think.”

Mateo hums in agreement, fighting a smile. I narrow my eyes.

“Grayson told you about finding Aiden in the living room, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did,” Mateo says with another yawn. He grins at me sleepily. “But in my role as favorite co-parent, I’m not going to pry.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll leave that to my better half, who will likely have ten thousand questions when this commissioned piece is done. And that meddling daughter of ours, who was trying to stay up so she could interrogate you.”

I laugh and he stretches with a groan.

“I’m going to head back. You need anything before I go?”

I shake my head and follow him to the back door, leaning against the frame and watching as he trudges through the backyard, through the rusted gate we should probably fix sooner rather than later, and up the stairs of their tiny back porch. He waves again once he’s in their kitchen, and I flick off the lights.

The house settles as I move up the stairs. Sleepy sounds that move like a symphony. A song I know every word to. Floorboards creak beneath my feet and the door of the haunted closet at the end of the hall groans open as the heat kicks on. Warm air rumbles up through the ancient HVAC and wind whistles at the stained-glass window above the door. I poke my head into Maya’s room and I turn mushy and soft at her small but rapidly growing body tangled in the sheets, her arm flung out across the blankets. It’s the same way she’s slept since she was two years old and hardly sleeping at all.

I turn off the string lights crisscrossing her ceiling and she rolls halfway in her bed, a curved lump beneath her blankets.

“Mom?” she calls blearily. I wonder if I’ll ever stop hearing her voice in an echo of a memory, my name called out a thousand times through the dark. Maya then and Maya now.

“It’s me.” I slip through her door and perch on the edge of her bed, rubbing my hand up and down her leg. “You wanted to sleep here tonight?”

“Dad’s painting,” she mumbles into her pillow, not opening her eyes. “Too much Fleetwood Mac happening. And I wanted to see how the show went.”

“You’re very invested in my dating life,” I whisper.

“I’m the mastermind behind it,” she whispers back, slurring her words. She pauses a beat too long. “Obviously I’m invested.”

“Yeah, I guess you are.” I laugh. “The show was good.” What happened after, even better, but that’s not a conversation I’m going to have with my kid. Maya grumbles a nonsensical sound and I grin. “I reluctantly admit I’ve been having a good time.”

“See?” she mumbles, curling up farther beneath her blankets. “I’m a genius.”

“You really are, kiddo.”

I collect the book that’s open next to her and mark her page, then place it on her nightstand.

“Aiden’s probably happy,” she mumbles drowsily.

“About what, honey?”

“Your dates,” she says, voice faint, half-asleep and probably dreaming. “Heard you tonight. I bet he’s happy he doesn’t have to set you up anymore.”

“Oh yeah? Why is that?” I scratch my fingers through her hair, untangling the long strands across her pillow. “You think he’s tired of me?”

“No,” she whisper-slurs, her mouth buried in her pillow. “He likes you.”

“Of course he likes me. I keep telling you. I’m very likeable.”

“No, he like likes you.”

“Like like , huh?”

“Mm-hmm. The internet says so.”

Maya used to sleep-talk all the time when she was a kid. She’d wake up all worked up, telling me tiny blue gremlins were making a colony in the colander beneath the sink. That owl people lived in the shower. This feels like that.

“That’s what the internet says?”

“Yup. The great, big, giant world, Mom.” She yawns so hard she squeaks. “Everyone is . . . They think you guys are great. Good. They’re probably talking about it right now.”

“No one is talking right now. They’re all asleep.” I twist one of her curls around my finger. “Like you should be. Get some rest. You can interrogate me in the morning.”

She mumbles something about blueberries and cottage cheese and the predicted life spans of gibbons and I slip out of her room to wander down to mine, my body tired but my mind running a mile a minute.

I know the show has been in distress. And while ratings have been good since I joined, I know Maggie wants more. It seems like a leap and something out of character for Aiden, but he . . . he wouldn’t have kissed me for the show, would he?

Lucie from a month ago probably would have let that thought linger, but I’ve learned a thing or two about standing confidently in my space since I started at Heartstrings . I pull my phone from my pocket and type out the number I’ve memorized. I hit send before I can overthink it.

LUCIE: Are you aware the internet is talking about us?

I drop my phone on the edge of the bed while I change into an oversized T-shirt and a pair of short black shorts, worn with a hole on the thigh.

My phone buzzes and I force myself to wash my face and brush my teeth before I look at it.

AIDEN: To which US are you referring?

I roll my eyes.

LUCIE: You and me. Aiden Valentine and Lucie Stone.

AIDEN: Yes, I’m aware. Why? Did you see something?

No. Frankly, I’m still too terrified to open any of my social media applications. Blissful oblivion is the name of the game at this point.

I tap my thumbnail against my screen.

LUCIE: What are they saying?

AIDEN: A bunch of stuff.

God, this man. It feels like he’s being deliberately obtuse. Two steps forward and then he sprints back, hurling himself into an emotionally destitute bush.

LUCIE: Like what?

AIDEN: Lucie.

LUCIE: Aiden.

AIDEN: I’d prefer if you just ask what you want to ask.

I sigh and crawl into my bed.

LUCIE: Maya said something.

AIDEN: Was it something about a long-lost historical artifact?

LUCIE: I knew you loved the Indiana Jones thing.

AIDEN: Of course I did. It was incredible.

AIDEN: What did she say?

I bite at my bottom lip, thumbs hesitating. I’m being ridiculous.

AIDEN: I’m on the edge of my seat, Lucie.

I blow out a breath and ask the question.

LUCIE: Why did you kiss me tonight?

My phone immediately rings in the palm of my hand. I almost fling it across the room, bury my head beneath my pillow, and pretend I’m asleep.

But I’m working on being a new and improved version of myself, and new Lucie doesn’t avoid phone calls no matter how uncomfortable they might be.

I groan and hit answer. “Hello?”

“Are you implying,” he asks, in lieu of a greeting, “that I’m willing to whore myself for ratings?”

I flop back down on my bed with a sigh and toss my arm over my eyes. “No.”

“Seems that way.”

“It’s not that way,” I grumble, feeling stupid. Nothing about that kiss felt contrived or planned. I know that. “I just—I didn’t realize people were talking about us. Like that.”

“I wouldn’t think too much of it.” I hear the sound of fabric rustling in the background. I imagine him in bed, one arm tucked behind his head with his phone pressed to his ear. I wonder what he wears to sleep. If he keeps the chain around his neck. “People like to create narratives around that sort of thing. For about six months when I first started, people thought Jackson and I were hiding an illicit affair.”

“Were you?”

“Nah, he’s not my type.” Sheets rustle again. “I prefer leggy brunettes who steal my coffee.”

I bite my lip against my smile. “Aiden.”

“Lucie.” He singsongs my name, a hint of amusement.

I want to tell him to stop. That he shouldn’t. But the words stick in my throat. I like how I feel when I have Aiden’s attention on me. I trace the edge of my comforter with my thumb. “So that kiss tonight wasn’t an elaborate plan to keep viewers interested in the show?”

“I don’t know how it could be, seeing as how listeners won’t ever know it happened.” He must adjust his phone because his voice sounds closer. Rougher. “That was for me and you. No one else.”

“Good.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Good.” He’s quiet for the stretch of several seconds and my eyes flutter closed. I listen to him breathing and picture him in the space next to me. One arm shoved under the pillow, the other heavy on my hip beneath the blankets. Scruff and sleep-warm skin and our legs twisted together.

“Must not have kissed you all that well,” he grumbles, making my stomach flip, “if you feel the need to ask me that question.”

I wiggle down farther in my bed, feet kicking. “You were fine.”

He scoffs. “Fine?”

“Proficient, I’d say.”

“Oh, good. That’s much better.”

I grin up at my ceiling.

Aiden releases a sigh. “I kissed you because I wanted to, Lucie. I’ve been wanting to and I think—I think I got tired of pretending I don’t. My crush isn’t going anywhere. I think it would be easier for us both if it was, but . . . it’s not. That’s what I should have told you when I walked you to your car, but I think I left my brain in the studio.”

“Me too.” I rub my fingertips against my lips. Touch lightly at the edge of my smile. “The crush thing,” I explain. “All of it.”

“All right.” He blows out a breath. “That’s settled. Now we can move on to more important matters.”

I roll to my side and tuck my legs to my chest, wedging my phone between my ear and my pillow. “Such as?”

“What are you wearing?”

Heat bursts in my cheeks and I bury my laugh in my pillow. “Aiden.”

“What? That’s a platonic question.”

“Is it? Have you ever asked Jackson what he’s wearing?”

“All the time, so we can coordinate.”

“Okay, then I guess I have to answer.”

He hums his agreement. “It would be rude not to.”

I glance down at my oversized T-shirt. Some of the stains on it are more than a decade old. This was one of the few shirts I still managed to fit in when I was nine months pregnant with Maya, and I’m too sentimental to get rid of it.

Aiden clears his throat on the other end of the line, impatient. “Edge of my seat, Lucie.”

“I’m wearing an oversized Ravens T-shirt from their 1997 season and a pair of bike shorts.” I lower my voice the way he does when he’s on the air. “The shorts have a hole on the thigh,” I breathe.

He groans. “Socks?” he asks.

“Mm-hmm,” I confirm, wiggling my toes. “Cable-knit.”

He sighs happily and the warmth tightening in my belly presses out until my whole body is suffused with it. Dipped in gold. I want to take it further. Ask him what he’s wearing. Maybe listen to the sound of his breathing change. Rush faster like it did when I was in his lap and my hands were in his hair.

But it feels like another step in the wrong direction with Aiden, and I’m not even sure what we’re doing. I’m excellent at getting my hopes up only to be handed a heavy dose of disappointment down the line.

I skim my fingers over my belly. “It’s time to go now, I think.”

“Yeah,” he says. I can hear his hesitation through the phone. “Yeah, it probably is.”

We hover there, in the uncertain space of more and maybe.

“Good night, Lucie,” he finally says.

“Good night, Aiden.”

I dream of rough laughter and coffee beans hidden in cookie tins, Aiden’s voice in my ear and his firm hands on my hips.

COMMENT FROM MORETHANRATSHERE:

Is it just me, or did the show end a couple minutes earlier than usual tonight?

COMMENT FROM ORIOLESMAGIC28:

It started late too.