Chapter 28 Mic Drop
MIC DROP
DALLAS
The podcast studio was smaller than I'd expected.
When Davina described her recording space, I'd pictured sleek and corporate vibes, with glass walls, expensive sound equipment, maybe one of those “ON AIR” signs that lit up in dramatic red.
Instead, I found myself standing in the complete opposite.
It was an organized mess wrapped in soundproofing foam.
The studio room was maybe twelve by fifteen feet with acoustic panels in varying shades of pink, white, and gray covering the walls.
The rest of the room was set up like a very stylish, comfortable living room.
A coffee table and three large chairs with throw pillows.
A massive desk dominated the front of the space, with two professional microphones, a mixing board, and approximately seven thousand cords snaking toward outlets hidden behind more foam.
White fairy lights were strung along the ceiling, casting everything in a warm, almost intimate glow that I suspected looked fantastic on camera.
“Don't touch that.” Davina barked as I examined a vintage microphone displayed on a shelf.
“I wasn't going to touch it.”
“You were definitely going to touch it.” She didn't look up from the tablet she was scrolling through, but I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Okay, so!” The studio door swung open, and a whirlwind of energy swept in, arms full of papers, a laptop, and what appeared to be a commemorative wrestling action figure.
“Questions are loaded, social polls are queued, and I may have stress-eaten an entire sleeve of Oreos in the last hour, but we're ready to roll.”
I blinked at the tornado that just blew in.
“Dallas, meet Abigail,” Davina said, still not looking up from her tablet. “Abby, breathe.”
Abby paused mid-step, her eyes going wide behind thick-framed glasses. She was young, maybe mid-twenties, with a riot of red curls contained by a scrunchie and freckles scattered across her nose.
“Hi,” she said, setting down her armful. “Huge fan. Like, genuinely huge.” She extended her hand. “It's really great to meet you.”
I shook it. “Likewise. I hear you're the one who keeps this whole operation running.”
“I try.” She grinned, then caught herself. “Okay. Being cool now. Professional Abby activated.” She headed toward the control booth, a smaller room visible through a window, calling over her shoulder, “Guest chair's the one with the purple cushion. We go live in fifteen.”
“She's...” I searched for the right word.
“Essential,” Davina supplied. “And surprisingly good at compartmentalizing her fangirl tendencies when we're recording.”
“I heard that!” Abby's voice came through the studio speakers. “And it's true! I'm very professional once the light turns on!”
I settled into the guest chair, which was surprisingly comfortable, and watched Davina take her position in an identical chair next to me. She adjusted her microphone, checked her reflection in her phone's camera, and took a breath that lifted her shoulders before releasing it slowly.
“Nervous?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“I've done this five hundred times.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I saw past the professional composure to the woman underneath. The woman who'd been crying out my name this morning. The woman who'd let me see her without armor.
“A little,” she admitted. “This is different.”
“Because of me?”
“Because of us.” She gestured between us with her pen. “My listeners know me. They know my opinions. They've heard me say... a lot of things.”
“About me specifically?”
“About men like you. Or who I thought you were.” She bit her lip. “I'm about to tell them I married my own cautionary tale.”
I leaned forward, close enough that only she could hear me. “Then tell them the truth. Tell them you were wrong about me.”
“Was I?”
The question hung between us, loaded with meaning that had nothing to do with the podcast.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “You were. And I was wrong about you too. We can be wrong together.”
Her expression softened as she opened her mouth to respond…
“Five minutes!” Abby's voice cut through. “First question's a good one. The listeners came prepared.”
Davina's face transformed instantly, the vulnerability disappearing behind professionalism. But her hand found mine, squeezing once before letting go.
“Ready to meet my audience?” she asked.
“Sweetheart, I've performed in front of eighty thousand people.”
“This is different. My audience has opinions.”
“Ouch.”
She grinned. “Just wait until you see the comments section.”
The countdown began. Abby's voice filled the studio: “Three... two...”
The ON AIR sign I'd been looking for earlier? Turns out it was right above the door, and it lit up in brilliant purple instead of red.
Davina transformed.
It wasn't dramatic, no physical change, no obvious shift in posture. But her energy expanded, became magnetic as she took a deep breath and looked into camera one.
“Hey, babes. Welcome back to Big Girl Panties, the podcast where we talk about everything they told us good girls shouldn't discuss, especially if those girls don't fit into sample sizes.” Her voice was warm, intimate, as if she were talking to a friend over coffee rather than broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of listeners. “I'm your host, Davina Lawson-Dodger…”
Lawson-Dodger. She'd hyphenated. My heart swelled in my chest. There was something about hearing my name attached to hers.
“…and if you've been anywhere near the internet in the last week, you probably already know why I added that last part.” She turned to me, and the smile that curved her lips was genuine.
“Babes, meet my husband. Dallas Dodger. Yes, that Dallas Dodger.
No, I haven't lost my mind. Well, maybe a little.”
“Maybe a lot,” I offered.
“He speaks!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I was worried he'd just sit there looking pretty.”
“I can do both. Multitasking.”
A notification chimed, and Davina glanced at the monitor beside her. Her eyebrows rose.
“Alright, first listener question coming in hot from SarahLovesSushi. She wants to know…” Davina paused, reading. “Is it true you dump every woman before her twenty-third birthday?”
I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck. “Okay, that one's making the rounds, huh?”
“Apparently, you have a reputation.”
“I have a lot of reputations. Most of them exaggerated.” I faced the camera.
“Sarah, here's the honest answer: I dated casually for a long time.
A lot of those relationships ended because I was on the road three hundred days a year and had the emotional availability of a brick wall.
The age thing is a coincidence, not a policy.
I wasn't dumping women at twenty-three.”
“And now?”
“Now I married a woman who's smarter than me, more successful than me, and refuses to put up with my nonsense.” I shrugged. “Growth.”
Davina's monitor chimed again.
“Next question from MelanieInMiami: For Dallas—we've all seen you with those tiny model types. Do you have a type?”
My chest tightened uncomfortably. The phrasing of the question bothered me, and I couldn't fully explain why. It was like Davina was somehow separate from every woman I'd been with before. Less than, or different in a way that needed explaining.
“The entertainment industry has a type it pushes, and I went along with it because it was easy. Because I was performing a version of myself that came with certain expectations. The flashy cars, lifestyle, and girlfriends were all part of the show.” I paused, choosing my words.
“Davina isn't part of any show. She's the first person who made me want to stop performing.”
“Smooth,” Davina said, but her voice was softer than before.
“I'm just getting started.”
Another chime, and Davina checked the monitor. “Okay,” she said, her professional tone firmly in place. “CurvyKatie asks: Davina, you've always been so confident on the show. How do you handle all the hate comments about your weight? Do you read them?”
“Honestly? I don't.” Davina's voice was steady.
“I made that decision early on, when I started plus-size modeling.
My mental health isn't worth satisfying some stranger's need to tell me I'd be prettier if I lost fifty pounds.
I know we get them. You can't be a plus-size woman with any kind of platform without knowing. But knowing they exist and letting them into my head are two different things.” She straightened in her chair.
“I built my brand for women who've spent their whole lives being told they're too much.
Too loud, too fat, too opinionated. I'm not going to let anonymous accounts undo that work.”
“So you never read the hate…” I asked curiously.
“Never.” Her smile was sharp. “Abby filters everything. She sends me the love, deletes the garbage, and occasionally reads me the really creative insults so we can laugh at them together.”
“It's true,” Abby's voice came through the speakers. “Someone once wrote a full poem about how Davina was destroying America's perception of beauty. It rhymed and everything.”
“See? Entertainment value only.”
She navigated the question with the ease of someone who'd answered it a thousand times. She made it look effortless, the confidence, the deflection, the refusal to let anyone see that the words might land somewhere soft.
The monitor chimed again. Davina glanced at it, and this time, the flicker lasted longer.
“Next question,” she said, voice light. “JessicaB wants to know…” She paused, and I could see her deciding whether to read it.
“She wants to know how I'm handling the current wave of comments saying Dallas is too good for me. That he must have lost a bet, or this is some kind of publicity stunt, because why would someone who looks like him choose someone who looks like me?”
Davina's composure didn't crack, but I saw the way her fingers tightened around her pen and inhaled deeply.
“Well, Jessica, I think…”