Page 101 of First-Time Caller
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.
Kissing Lucie was a mistake.
Not because I regret it, but because I am fundamentally unable to think about anything else.
I step into the studio and my eyes dart to my chair, remembering the way she rolled her hips on mine. I go to fill up my coffee mug and I taste her on my tongue. I slip on my headphones and I catch a whiff of her perfume. Or whatever it is that makes her smell the way she does. Daisies and something metallic. Fresh air.
Lucie fills up this room like a ghost, and kissing her did not calm the attraction like I had hoped. It poured gasoline all over it and I’m walking around with a wildfire in my chest.
I scrub roughly at my jaw and Maggie pokes her head in through the door. “Okay?” she asks. “Ready for the show?”
I nod, staring hard at my computer screen in front of me, trying not to think about Lucie’s mouth on my neck. “Fine,” I mumble.
She steps farther into the studio, the door closing behind her. “You sure?”
I grunt. She sighs.
“Forget I asked, then, you grump.” She tucks her hair behind her ears and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the doorframe. “I wanted to talk to you about Lucie’s exit plan before she gets here.”
My hand freezes over my keypad. “Exit plan?”
Maggie nods. “Yeah. She said she was done with the dating experiment, right? She’ll probably want to get back to her life at some point.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. Maybe it’s stupid, but I haven’t thought about Lucie’s last day. Not once. I stare unseeingly at my computer screen and Maggie snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“What?” I flinch.
Her eyes narrow. “Pull it together.”
