Chapter 32
Q uestions immediately race through my mind.
Advice about what? Why are you with Maya? Did you mean to call in to your own radio station? Have you hit your head? Is there a bird in your gutter?
Why haven’t you called?
Instead, I settle myself with a deep breath and ask, “How can I help?”
Aiden makes a faint sound on the other side of the phone. Something pleased or relieved. Maybe a combination of both. It’s hard to tell when I can’t see his face.
“Well,” he says. His pause feels like it lasts a lifetime. I wish I brought in the chocolate mints I found in his car. The rumpled-up and well-worn list of things I like, just so I could hold on to some sort of tangible proof that he’s thought about me. Finally, Aiden exhales a sharp breath. “This is a romance hotline, right?”
“In theory.”
“I have a question about that. About romance.”
“Okay . . .” I say slowly.
“What does it feel like when you fall in love?”
“What?” I ask, winded. It’s a bucket of ice water over my head. A fist through my papier-maché heart. Somewhere next to me, Jackson’s chair creaks as he turns to me in concern.
“There’s this woman,” he says. He pauses, reconsiders, and starts again. “Have you ever woken up from a dream with your heart going a million miles an hour and no idea why? Just—just the vague impression of something . Like a memory you can’t quite get a hold of or—” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “I’m not saying this right,” he grumbles.
“Then try again,” I tell him.
“I will,” he says. “I’m going to.”
My galloping heart settles. Hope flares. I asked him to give me a reason and this feels like—this feels like maybe he’s giving me one. Or trying to, at least.
“My entire life,” Aiden continues carefully, his voice softer. Wait , he’s saying. Listen. “I’ve done my best to not feel much of anything. Feeling almost always led to hurting and I didn’t want to hurt anymore. So I decided not to. But I think somewhere along the way, that choice became a habit I didn’t know how to break. I stopped believing in good things. I stopped believing in anything at all.”
I swallow, my throat dry, thinking of a boy with messy hair in a hospital hallway, his fingers clenched tight around an empty key ring. Aiden didn’t stop believing in good things. He forgot how to.
“So I’m hoping,” he says, and I hear the way his voice wobbles around the word. Hope has always been hard for Aiden. “I’m hoping you can help me.”
“With what?”
“Tell me what it feels like to fall in love.”
“I’m not sure I’m qualified for that,” I manage.
“Actually,” he says and I can hear the affection. A thumb at my chin, tipping my face toward his. “You’re the only one who is.”
“How do you figure?”
“You’ll see.”
“Okay,” I whisper. I decide to trust him. Trust that whatever he’s doing won’t end up with my heart on the floor. “What are you feeling right now?”
“To start with, I’m eating pineapple pizza.”
A laugh bursts out of me so quick and sharp, I ache with it.
“Pineapple pizza is the best. I’m not sure that’s something you need to be worried about.”
“Who says I was worried about it?” he asks lazily.
“Noted.” Another laugh pops out of me like a soap bubble. “What else is going on?”
“I think about her all the time. I wonder what she’s doing. I’ve got this hair tie on my wrist that I stole from her. She doesn’t know about it,” he adds as an afterthought, and the hope burns brighter. A solar flare in the middle of my chest.
“Do you keep a list of her favorite things in your glove compartment?”
He makes a short, amused sound. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. So I don’t forget.”
“What else?”
“She does this thing when she laughs . . . it’s like she laughs with her whole body. I’ve never seen anything like it. She holds her hands tight together like she’s—like she’s holding on to her happiness. Like she’s not afraid to grab it.” Aiden pauses, his breath gusting over the receiver. In the background, I hear the crunch of asphalt. He must be pacing, wherever he is. “I want to be the kind of man who deserves that laugh. Who earns it.”
“It’s not about deserving,” I say, my throat tight. “If someone gives you something, you have it. You don’t have to earn it.”
“Hold on,” he says. “I’ve got a few more things.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“She told me once she doesn’t want to settle anymore and I think that’s what I’ve been doing. My whole life, I’ve intentionally broken everything down because it’s been easier for me to handle. And it’s been the same with her. I’ve been letting myself have sips of her, afraid of what might happen if I let myself go. But I want— I want to kiss her when other people are around. I want to hold her hand. I want to have pancakes at her house on Sunday mornings and I want to help with Indiana Jones costumes. I want her people to be my people too.”
My eyes burn. I blink and a tear spills over, glancing along my cheek. No one has ever wanted the full package before. All of me and all of Maya. The family I’ve cobbled together for myself.
Another tear chases the first, then another.
I want to see him. I need to see him.
“What do you think?” he asks, sounding shy and unsure in a way he never has before. Aiden with his heart on his sleeve. Finally. “Is this what love feels like?”
I ignore his question. I don’t want to answer it over the phone.
“Where are you?” I ask instead.
He’s standing in the back parking lot with his phone halfway to his ear, watching the back door with quiet, focused eyes. I burst through it like a tornado and his face tumbles into something relieved. Like he wasn’t sure I’d want to see him. Like he was hedging his bets.
I ignore the car in the back corner with a small face pressed up against the passenger window and head straight for him, walking until the tips of my boots are pressed to his and he has to angle his face to hold my gaze. He’s still holding his phone halfway to his ear, even though I hung up on him thirty seconds ago. This part of the conversation is for us. No one else.
“Do you mean it?” I ask.
He nods. “Every word.” He finally drops his phone and slips it in his back pocket. I catch a glimpse of my hair tie on his wrist and my heart stumbles over itself. “But I might have lied a little bit. I already know the answer to my question.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, his eyes amused. He reaches up and traces his fingertips across my cheek, then curls his hand around the back of my neck, his thumb beneath my ear. He holds me steady, nowhere to look except right at him. “I know what falling in love feels like because I’ve been falling in love with you.”
My breath rattles out of me in a whoosh . His thumb dances a circuit from the hollow beneath my ear to my cheek again, catching a tear. I guess I haven’t stopped crying.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“What else could it be?” he says, voice hushed. Reverent. Wanting. “I’m sorry about this week. I wanted to take the time to find the right words to say. I wanted to get it right.”
“I don’t need the right words. I just need your words.” I grip his sweatshirt. “Don’t make me wait like that again. Tell me where you are, even if it’s not perfect.”
“Okay,” he says quietly, its own kind of Band-Aid over the wounds we inflicted on each other. A laugh sighs out of him. “You’ve always been so much braver than me.”
“You called in to a radio station.”
“You started it,” he says, voice low. “I figured we should end how we began, yeah?”
I feel my face pinch. “Are we ending?”
A slow smile inches across his face. I watch it start in his eyes and drift down to his lips like the sun setting in the sky, the whole world lit up in gold. “Not even close, Lucie.”
I want to kiss him so bad I feel it like a palm between my shoulder blades. A string from his chest to mine, pulled tight.
“What now?” I warble, shifting closer, digging my nose in the hollow of his throat. He laughs, his big hand cupping the back of my head.
“Well, I’m hoping you love me too.”
“I do.” I sniffle, somewhere in the depths of his sweatshirt. I’m probably getting snot on it, but I don’t care. I never thought I’d be wanted the way Aiden wants me. Never thought I’d be seen and appreciated and adored. But he does. He sees me. He wants me. He loves me. “I love you a lot.”
He hums, a vibration in his chest that rumbles into mine. The hand in my hair holds me tighter. “I’ve never let myself feel like this,” he confesses quietly. “I’m out of practice, but I’m going to work so damn hard at it. I promise.”
“I’ll be right here with you.”
“I know,” he whispers. I slip my hands beneath his sweatshirt, let myself feel the shape of him, and he sighs, dropping his cheek against the top of my head. “I’m gonna love you so good, Lucie.”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight, hoping I can hold on to this moment forever. It’s not perfect. Not even close. There’s something rattling under the raccoon couch. My preteen daughter and both of her dads are staring at us from the car parked in the corner of the lot. An early spring storm is rolling in and my hair is probably doing something ridiculous in the humidity.
But it’s mine. Even in its flaws, this moment is mine.
“Can I kiss you now?” I ask. I tug at him. “Please?”
He doesn’t answer with words. The hand threaded through my hair slips to the nape of my neck, and he grips me there, angling my head back, his mouth slanting down over mine like he’s been waiting for it. Like the whole time he’s been standing out in this parking lot on his phone, he’s been counting down the minutes until he could kiss me again.
I loop my arms around him, trying to drag him closer. I feel desperate, itchy, eager to have him. He changes the angle of our kiss and shushes me with a mumbled “easy” against my mouth right before he kisses me again, licking into my mouth with a hot groan. I settle there against him and let him kiss me the way he needs to, until it’s something slow and deep and wet, both of my palms resting flat against his chest, the pound of his heart a perfect match for mine.
Somewhere behind us, a car lays on its horn. I can hear muffled banging on the window, a cheer from somewhere in the station.
Aiden pulls back, his cheeks pink. He stares down at me with a tender smile, one that grows wider the longer he looks.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hey.” I smile back.
“I’m really glad you called. All those weeks ago.”
“Technically I’m not the one who called.”
He rolls his eyes and wraps both of his arms around me. “Either way,” he says.
I smile and drop my forehead in the place between his shoulder and neck. The spot I fit into perfectly.
“I’m glad you answered.” I grin. “Mr. Tire is going to be so happy.”
JACKSON CLARK: All right, Baltimore. She’s in the parking lot. We’re watching them through the window and they’re talking. They’re talking. They’re talking.
MAGGIE LIN: You don’t have to repeat yourself.
JACKSON CLARK: I’m just providing real-time updates—oh my god. They’re kissing. There is a kiss happening, people.
MAGGIE LIN: I knew it.
JACKSON CLARK: You did not know it. You thought he hated her. I’m the one who knew it.
MAGGIE LIN: Okay, you knew it.
[pause]
JACKSON CLARK: Wow, they’re really going at it, huh? His hands are—
MAGGIE LIN: That’s enough.
MAGGIE LIN: Good night, Baltimore.
JACKSON CLARK: Just—wow. That’s a public parking lot.
MAGGIE LIN: Good night , Baltimore.
MAGGIE LIN: We’ll see you next time on Heartstrings , Baltimore’s romance hotline.