Page 37 of First-Time Caller
“You’re going to tear me apart, aren’t you?” I murmur.
“Don’t worry, Aiden.” Her smile blooms. There’s a secret there, somewhere. “You’re safe with me.”
I sincerely doubt that.
Jackson barrels into the window with his rolling chair, brandishing his broom like a trident and interrupting our staring contest. I see his mouth move but don’t hear a word he’s saying. Thank god.
His eyes land on Lucie and he waves enthusiastically. She lifts her hand in response, forehead crumpled in confusion.
“Is he using a desk chair as a . . . boat?”
“A traveling mechanism of some sort, yeah.” I sigh. I can’t believe he scored a goal on me. “I’d like to say you get used to this sort of thing, but this place always manages to surprise you.”
“Is he the one who does the weather updates?”
“And traffic. He also likes to make sure I’m taking my vitamins and he’s a shit shot at hallway hockey.” I frown, not sure why I felt the need to add that last part. I backtrack. “He’s a fine shot, actually. One of my best friends.”
Lucie hums and I move into the room and peek at the desk. She’s still staring at Jackson as he wheels his way back to wherever he came from and I’m trying not to notice. I distract myself by going through my preshow ritual. Eileen has already been here to set up; there’s a brand-new microphone in the space next to mine and a blank notepad. Lucie shifts to accommodate me and I catch a whiff of motor oil. Fresh soap and . . . daisies. She gathers all her hair in her hand and twists it over her shoulder, fingers working nimbly as she tugs it into a braid. I’m mesmerized by the graceful and practiced movement. It’s probably something she does a million times a day, but I can’t look away.
She is not what I expected. Not on the phone two weeks ago, not when she visited Maggie earlier in the week, and not now, standing in my studio looking at me like she has no idea why she’s here or what she’s doing.
“Can I . . . help?” she asks. I tilt my head to look at her. She shifts on her feet when our gazes snap together. “I’m not used to sitting on my hands.”
I want her to sit and relax and maybe talk to me some more about the things she wants for herself, but I’m not sure that’s possible with the way she keeps shifting on her feet. Plus, we’ll have plenty of time to do exactly that when we’re locked in this room together for . . . hours.
I tip my head to the empty coffeepot behind me. “Make us some coffee? There’s a bunch of stuff in the break room to choose from. Whatever you want.”
She reaches for the handle of the carafe. “I haven’t been relegated to coffee-making duties in a while.”
Shit. I didn’t even realize. I reach for the pot in her hand, but she tugs it out of reach, a laugh under her breath. My fingertips skim the soft material of the sweater she’s wearing and I drop my hand abruptly, curling it into a fist. There is about three inches of space in this room and there’s nowhere I can move that doesn’t have some part of me pressed up against some part of her.
“Relax,” she says. “I was kidding. Thank you for giving me something to do.”
She slips out the door to the booth and I watch her through the window until I lose sight of her. My chest feels uncomfortably tight, my breath too short. It’s not a new feeling, just one I haven’t felt in a while.
Preshow jitters.
The social media fervor around Lucie hasn’t died down, and Maggie has been stoking the flames with teasers about a mystery guest. The internet has more or less figured it out; now everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.
I’mwaiting to see what happens next. I have no idea how Lucie is going to respond on the air. We plan to officially launch “Lucie Looks for Love” tonight, a working title, suggested by Hughie, vehemently protested by me. But I was overruled and here we are. Standing in the middle of a booth that suddenly feels too small, evaluating all the life choices that have led me here. About to do my best to help a woman find something I’m not even sure I believe in. Something that’s never been good to me.
Lucie comes back in the room with a carafe full of water and a bag of ground coffee. I stare at the green label.
“Where did you find that?”
“Someone hid it in an old Christmas cookie tin in one of the top cabinets.” She stops fiddling with the coffee machine to look at me. “Is that okay?”
“Fine,” I say, my voice amused. I’m the one who hid it in one of the top cabinets, in an old Christmas cookie tin. I’ve had to hide my coffee since the second week I was at the station, when everyone decided to use it as their own. No one’s been able to find it for years—not for lack of trying—and Lucie found it in six minutes. “Why were you looking in old Christmas cookie tins?”
“Because I love Christmas cookies.” She looks at the half-crumpled bag of coffee. “Should I put it back? You’re being weird about it.”
I’m being slightly weird about it. “No, it’s fine.” It’s just a bag of coffee. I shuffle some more things around on my desk. There is significantly less space in here with two sets of everything. “Are you feeling good about tonight?”
She blows out a breath. “I’m feeling . . . fine about it. I guess we’ll see how it goes.”
“You’re going to be great,” I tell her, fiddling with the audio controls, trying to find a space for it that won’t have me driving my elbow into Lucie every time I need to adjust. “Just be yourself.”
“That’s the problem,” she mutters.
