Chapter 28
I stare unseeingly at the coffeemaker in my kitchen, contemplating my existence.
I got home twenty minutes ago and haven’t done much of anything, moving through my house like the Ghost of Satisfied Sexual Adventures Past. The Ghost of Horny Present? I don’t know.
Is that what sex is supposed to be like? No wonder Patty is always yelling at me about getting laid. I feel both bone-deep exhaustion and incandescent euphoria. Like I could sleep for ten thousand years and also swim the length of the Chesapeake Bay.
My front door slams open and I hear feet on the stairs, pounding up. Maya shouts a distracted hello, and I’m glad I only gave in to Aiden once this morning. I don’t know how I would have explained slinking into the kitchen while my daughter poured Froot Loops at the counter.
As it stands, I comb my fingers through my hair, trying to untangle some of the knots. Aiden bent me over the vanity in his bathroom after our shared shower this morning and threaded his fingers through my hair, angling my head up so I could watch us in the fogged-up mirror. I shiver thinking about it—about the hazy, unfocused outlines of our bodies moving together—a bloom of warmth low in my belly.
I said I wanted fun and Aiden delivered. At least four times, he delivered.
“Hey, Lu. I told Maya to go upstairs and wash her Colonel Mustard mustache off. It was freaking me out the whole drive home. Every time I glanced in the rearview, it was like I had a tiny Danny McBride in the back seat.” Grayson pads his way into my kitchen without looking up, studying something on his phone as he beelines for the fridge. “And are you aware that Cindy’s mom is an absolute witch? I counted at least six Live, Laugh, Love signs in her hallway. Just the hallway. God knows what those bathrooms contained. Potpourri, I bet, and not the fun kind. I’m worried about the influence she’s having on our kid.” He grabs a yogurt from the top shelf and knocks the door closed with his hip. “I think we need to start screening— oh my god , you had sex.”
The yogurt drops to the kitchen floor, Blueberry Burst bursting across my hardwood. Grayson looks at me with his eyes blown wide.
“Oh my god,” he breathes. “Oh my god .”
“Stop it,” I hiss, listening for Maya upstairs. “Shut up.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Nothing happened,” I try, not convincing in the slightest. “It was just—”
“Don’t you lie to me, Lucille. You’re standing there bowlegged, you’re wearing the same sweatshirt I saw Aiden in two weeks ago, and you’re making a cup of coffee without the cup for the coffee.”
I blink at the coffee machine, spitting out coffee straight onto the countertop. I curse and reach for the closest thing to contain it. A cereal bowl in the shape of a grapefruit.
Grayson points at me. “You had sex with Aiden.”
“I—” I consider lying, then decide it’s not worth the effort. I rub the sleeve of the sweatshirt across my cheek and nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I had sex with Aiden.”
Grayson props his hands on his hips. “And?”
“And what?”
“How was it? Wait, don’t answer that.” He reaches into his back pocket for his phone again, fumbling with it. “I need to text Patty.”
“Patty?”
“Patty,” he says, forehead pinched in concentration as he rapidly types something out. Somewhere above us, Maya is blasting Olivia Rodrigo, singing along at the top of her lungs. It warbles through the floorboards and straight into my brain.
I rub my knuckles across my forehead. “Why are you texting Patty?”
Before I can even finish that sentence, my front door slams open again. Patty comes skidding into the kitchen with a bottle of champagne in one hand and her apron in the other.
It is nine thirty in the morning.
I frown at her. “Did you run here?”
“Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because Grayson used the code word.”
“What’s the code word?”
“Apricot jam,” Grayson offers, crouched down on the floor, wiping away the exploded yogurt. I look at him, then Patty, then him again.
“What does apricot jam mean?”
Patty slams the champagne bottle on the countertop. “It means you had sex, you little trollop. Come on. Give Mama all the details.”
“I’m not—you have an established code word for when I have sex?”
“Among other things,” Grayson mutters under his breath, tossing yogurt-laden paper towels into the trash. He shuffles excitedly over to the fridge again and pulls out a bottle of orange juice. “It was with Aiden,” he tells Patty.
Patty starts twisting at the top of the champagne bottle. “Of course it was with Aiden. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is a master class in thirst from those two. Half of Baltimore has been waiting with bated breath for them to start banging live on the air.”
“Um. Excuse me?”
Grayson pulls out three glasses from one of the top cabinets and places them in a line. “She has a hickey on her neck.”
“She has two hickeys on her neck.”
“I’m standing right here,” I try to interrupt. I have three hickeys on my neck, actually, and one on the inside of my thigh. I flush thinking about that one as they continue to talk like I’m not standing two feet in front of them. I take a careful sip of coffee from my bowl and think of the way Aiden curled around me in his sleep last night. His hand on my bare hip, his other arm wedged beneath his pillow. His body lean and relaxed beneath the blankets. Lines on his cheek from the pillow when his blue-gray eyes cracked open.
The first thing he did when he woke up was smile at me.
Then he rolled me on my stomach, pressed my knees wide, and made me see stars.
I sigh happily into my cereal bowl–coffee mug.
“Look at her face ,” Patty hisses, shooting her mimosa like it’s a dollar shot at ladies’ night. She slams her glass on the countertop. “Does he have a big dick? He sounds like he has a big dick.”
“ Patty. There are children in this house.”
“There is one child in this house, singing her little heart out to ‘Deja Vu.’ She can’t hear a word we’re saying. And even if she could, I was there when you walked her through the birds and the bees.” She pauses, flicking her eyes up and down my body. “You certainly look like you’ve been ravaged by a big dick.”
I shift on my feet. “Just because Maya is educated and empowered doesn’t mean she needs to hear about her mom and . . . dicks.”
Patty pours herself another mimosa. She adds a minimal amount of orange juice. “So he did dick you down, huh?” She lifts her glass in a toast. “Go ahead, girl. God, I’m proud of you.”
“You deserved this, Lu.” Grayson clinks his glass against hers. “We’ve been waiting for this moment.”
“You’ve been waiting for me to get . . .” I can’t bring myself to say dicked down aloud.
“Well, no. Not exactly that. I’m just happy you’re happy. You look happy.” He pats the stool next to him at the breakfast bar with an expectant look. “Come over here and tell us all about it.”
“No, thank you.”
He raises both eyebrows. “You want to wander down this road with me? You know I can be persistent. I won’t stop until I know all the juicy details.”
I know he won’t. Neither will Patty. The two of them together are about as subtle as a woodchipper. And with no Mateo, I am outmanned and outnumbered. I take another fortifying sip from my coffee bowl, my eyes darting between them.
I set it down primly on the countertop. “I can’t come over there.”
“Why not?”
I twist my hands in the oversized sleeves of the sweatshirt Aiden tugged over my head before I left his house this morning. He kissed my mouth and slapped my ass and I smiled the whole drive home. I clear my throat. “Because standing is easier than sitting at the moment.”
Patty and Grayson gape at me across the kitchen, their glasses raised halfway to their mouths. Then the pair of them burst into loud cackling laughter. Grayson laughs so hard he slips from the stool and onto the floor behind the breakfast bar they’ve set up shop at.
I hide my smile behind my hand.
Maya appears in the doorway of the kitchen, hair wet and Colonel Mustard mustache nowhere to be found. She steps over her dad without missing a beat and walks right into my open arms, slotting into the space that’s always fit her perfectly. I drop my chin on top of her head and squeeze.
“Did you have fun last night?” I ask over the obnoxious squawking on the other side of the kitchen. “Everyone liked your costume?”
Maya nods. “Yeah. The mustache was a hit and I got to be the murderer. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.” She mimes whacking someone over the head with a deadly instrument. “What’s going on with those two?”
I shrug. “Who knows?”
“It’s okay. I can guess.”
“So can I. They’re drinking champagne before noon. You know it makes your dad giggly.”
“The sweatshirt you’re wearing probably has him giggly too.”
“What’s wrong with the sweatshirt I’m wearing?”
“Well, it’s clearly not yours. The sleeves are too long and it’s man-sized,” Maya points out. She drops her arms out of our hug. “It has a Heartstrings logo.”
“I’ve been working there. Maybe I picked it up after a shift.”
“It says Aiden under the Heartstrings logo.”
Oh shit. It totally does.
Behind Maya, Grayson and Patty dissolve into more laughter. My cheeks flush hot. I’m being put on blast by my twelve-year-old.
“It’s not—we’re just—”
“Is he your boyfriend now?”
“I don’t—” I look to Grayson for help, but all I can see are his legs peeking out from the side of the bar. He’s gone still and I know he’s listening intently for the answer. I look at Maya and sigh. “I don’t know, honey.”
“Why not?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Wearing his sweatshirt is a big step.”
“Yeah, Lu,” Grayson’s eyes appear on the other side of my countertop. “It means it’s serious .”
I resist the urge to flip him off and look back at my daughter. “Is that what it means?”
She nods. “Daisy Wagner only started wearing Luke Sinclair’s football sweatshirt when they were official.”
“Who are Daisy Wagner and Luke Sinclair?”
“High schoolers,” Patty answers, sipping lightly at her champagne. She reaches down and helps Grayson off the floor. When I give her a questioning look, she shrugs. “I’m very tuned in to the local gossip. Maya gives me an update when she does homework at the shop.”
Maya nods like a tiny, all-knowing oracle. “I signed you up for that show because I wanted you to have a boyfriend, Mom. I don’t care about how it happened. You don’t have to hide things from me.”
“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, kid, but”—I grip her shoulders and steer her closer to me—”I’m not hiding anything from you. Aiden and I are . . . we’re enjoying spending time with each other.” Patty snorts. I ignore her. “I like him a lot, but I think—I think I’ve spent a lot of time caught up in outlining expectations for myself. That first night, when you called in to the station, I said I wanted magic. Do you remember?”
Maya nods. “The whole world remembers, Mom.”
“Well, I think that was a lie.”
Grayson slowly lowers his glass of champagne to the counter-top. “Lu. If you’re changing your mind about what you want to fit into whatever shape Aiden wants you to be in—”
“It’s not that.” When he raises his eyebrows, I straighten my shoulders and tell myself to be brave. “It’s not,” I say again. “I said I didn’t want to try, but I think I’ve been afraid to try. I think I’ve been telling myself I wanted magic and fireworks and something life-altering because it made it easier to withstand the constant disappointment of never—of never being enough.” Grayson opens his mouth to interrupt, but I steamroll over him. “If I told myself I was waiting for something better, it made those puncture wounds feel like paper cuts. I wasn’t missing out. I was waiting for something better. It gave me hope that I’d find my happy ending, you know?”
“Yeah, honey. I know.” Patty’s voice is gentle.
“I’ve been waiting for the perfect thing. The fairy-tale thing. But Aiden’s right.” A smile splits my face, even as pressure builds behind my eyes. “That doesn’t exist. Because it’s different for everyone, isn’t it? Love isn’t—it doesn’t work like that. I don’t want the things I thought I wanted.”
Maya blinks up at me, thoughtful. “What do you want?”
I think of Aiden first thing in the morning, his hair mussed by sleep and his arm around my waist. I think of the tiny desk we share at the station and how he’s slowly made space for me there. I think of my name yelled down a cobblestone alley, Aiden appearing between the streetlamps. A too-crowded breakfast table with a plate of toast handed over without a word. His sad eyes and careful smile, the way he keeps himself hidden away. A voice whispering in the dark, at the very edge of a dream.
I think you’re the magic.
I pick up my coffee bowl. “I don’t want something perfect; I want something honest. Something that can be mine.” I reach for Maya’s hand with mine and she twists our fingers together, squeezing. “I think it’s time I make my own magic, kiddo.”
I get to the station fifteen minutes earlier than usual and find Aiden in the break room, glaring at his contraband-coffee Christmas cookie tin like it’s insulted his family name.
“I hope no one else is stealing your coffee,” I say from the doorway, shrugging out of my jacket. He fumbles the tin, catching it at the last second, his fingertips pressing dents in the side. I grin. “That’s my job.”
His eyes flick to mine and he smiles my favorite half smile, the lines by his eyes appearing in earnest. We’ve been texting each other most of the day—nonsense about how to fold a fitted sheet, a comment about pineapple pizza paired with ranch dressing (disgusting, thank you), and the benefits of the coffee bowl—but seeing him causes a violent chemical reaction somewhere in the middle of my chest.
I push off the door and busy myself with organizing a stack of discarded napkins so I don’t do something stupid like launch myself at him. Am I allowed to do that? Is that part of the fun?
He clears his throat and sets the tin on the counter behind him without looking. “No one is stealing my coffee.”
“Did it personally offend you?”
“Not yet.” He watches me in amusement as I patiently fold another napkin from Dunkin’ Donuts into my stack. “What are you doing over there?”
“Here?” I ask.
He nods.
“Oh. I’m organizing.”
He takes a step closer and hums, feigning interest in my asinine task. “I’m always saying how we need better-organized paper products in the break room.”
I nod, rolling my lips against my grin. He’s close enough to drag his knuckles over my forearm, and my body breaks into goose bumps beneath my sweater. “A clean break room is a”—I suck in a breath when he leans forward, his nose against my neck—”a prosperous one,” I finish awkwardly.
“Lucie,” Aiden rumbles, his smile tucked between my shoulder and neck. He punctuates my name with a kiss.
I tilt my head back to give him more room.
“Let go of the napkins.”
“Okay,” I say airily, dropping them immediately. They flutter to the ground like recycled-paper snowflakes.
“Good,” he whispers right below my ear, and I fist one hand in the front of his sweatshirt. I was hoping we could talk before our shift, but this is good too. Whatever this is. “Now I’d like to kiss you before I have to sit in a booth with you for three hours thinking about all the noises you made at my house the other night. Is that all right?”
I nod dumbly. “Yes. That is, uh, acceptable.”
I can feel his laugh catch in his chest. The way his ribs expand under the force of it. “Great. Come here.”
Except he doesn’t let me go anywhere. He cups the back of my head in his big palm and tugs my mouth to his. His kiss is surprisingly sweet. He sucks lightly at my bottom lip and then nips at it with his teeth, teasing me with his tongue before he pulls away. He looks over my shoulder at the open doorway, then slides his eyes back to mine. Something in his expression flickers and he drops his hand from the back of my head.
I catch his fingers with mine before he can pull too far away, though. I told Maya I want to make my own magic, and I think it starts like this. Being brave in the break room, telling Aiden what I’m thinking.
“I missed you,” I tell him quietly, my cheeks flaming beneath the confession. He did all sorts of absurd things to my body the other night, but this is what I’m blushing over. I’m a ridiculous human being. “That’s probably not the right thing to say, but I—I missed you.”
Aiden’s quiet, his expression unreadable. My heart fumbles in my chest and I try not to let regret swallow me whole. Too much. Too soon. I still don’t know the rules to this game and—
His thumb touches lightly at my chin, tipping my face to his. His eyes are soft and his smile is devastating and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him look more beautiful. I press my hand to the middle of his chest, right where his empty key ring rests. Some luck for me, this time.
“If that’s not the right thing to say, then I don’t want the right thing,” he tells me. “I missed you too.” He shifts on his feet and drops his hand. Another covert glance at the door behind me. “How do you—how do you want to play this?”
“Play this?”
He nods. “Yeah. I’m following your lead. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
I feel like I’m missing part of the equation. I twist one of the earrings I put in this morning. A little red heart Maya got me for my birthday. “Whatever I’m comfortable with?”
Aiden nods again, patient. “We probably should have talked about this sooner, but I was—I was distracted.”
I watch Aiden’s eyes darken, his pupils fat in his blue-gray eyes. It took me four tries to leave his house the other morning, and we definitely weren’t having a conversation when he lifted my hand and sucked some misplaced strawberry jam off my thumb.
I shudder out a sigh.
“Yeah, I guess we didn’t talk about it.” I sway and stare at him. I’d never had sex on a kitchen table before. That had been . . . new. Aiden licks his bottom lip like he’s remembering too and stares back. “Can’t we—I don’t know. Can’t we just play it normal? Be how we usually are with one another?”
I don’t want to go through the hoops of pretending, but I don’t want to explain it to anyone either. I like that it’s just for us right now. Our own little secret. I’ve never had something to myself before, and I’d like to be greedy with Aiden for a little bit before everyone and their auntie in Baltimore weighs in. We don’t have to talk about it on the air, right? It can be something that’s ours.
Aiden shoves his hands in his pockets. It looks like he wants to say something, but then he glances at the door again, drags his hand over his jaw, and I watch as he forces it away.
He gives me a half smile. “Sure,” he says. “We can do that.”
Voices drift from down the hallway. Jackson and Eileen are seemingly arguing about three things at once. They drift closer and I catch: “Old Bay goes on everything, don’t be ridiculous,” and “I wish you’d use the term haboob more often in your weather reports,” and finally, “If Mercury isn’t in retrograde, then how do you explain Aiden’s attitude?”
The last one makes me laugh. Aiden rolls his eyes, but I see the smile he tries to hide as he takes a step back and puts some space between us. Jackson and Eileen tumble into the room, still arguing, and head for the coffeepot in the corner while Aiden bends to collect the napkins I dropped when he kissed me.
Everything is exactly as it always is.
Aiden and Jackson bicker about coffee. Maggie bellows from her office about start times. I slip into my seat next to Aiden in the booth and his body bumps into mine beneath the table. I scoot closer and tuck one of my feet behind his, delighting when he presses both of his feet against mine. Like a hug. We drink coffee and talk to callers and I sneak glances at him out of the corner of my eye until he drops his hand to my knee and drags his thumb against the tear in my jeans. Be good , he says without saying anything at all. Then I just stare blankly at my notepad with various doodles on it and try not to breathe too heavily into the microphone. At the end of the show, he walks me to my car and presses a kiss below my ear. Small. Quick. He pairs it with a wink and a squeeze of my hand. A secret. A promise.
It’s not until I’m home, bundled up in my blankets, wearing Aiden’s sweatshirt like a nightgown, that I think about that look on his face again.
For a second, I could have sworn he looked disappointed.
AIDEN VALENTINE: This next bit is sponsored by Matthew’s Pizza. Stop by on Tuesdays for half-price carry-out pies.
AIDEN VALENTINE: I’ve heard their pineapple is very good.
LUCIE STONE: Oh, so you like pineapple on your pizza now.
AIDEN VALENTINE: I’m coming around to it.