Page 90 of First-Time Caller
“I’m just”—her fingers dance over the piercings in her ear and my throat tightens—”I’m worried about your credit score,” she finally says.
“My what?”
“Your credit score. Do you owe someone money, Aiden? Do you have a gambling problem?”
It certainly feels like I have a gambling problem every time I’m around her. I’m constantly pushing all my chips toward the center of the table, no matter what my cards look like.
“I don’t owe anyone any money,” I say, lost as fuck in this conversation. I grab my phone and swipe at the screen. “Well, that’s not true. I owe Jackson seventeen bucks, but I’m hoping he forgets about it. Here. Look.”
I hold out my phone to her. She blinks at it.
“What?”
“It’s not a collections agency or the Mafia or whatever is going on in that head of yours. Look at my messages.”
“No. No, I don’t need to.”
I reach for her arm, tugging. I uncurl her fingers and drop my phone into her palm. “Take it,” I say again. “Look.”
Her shoulders collapse in a sigh. “You’re allowed to talk to whoever you want,” she says, voice losing the sharp edge. “I’m being—I don’t know why I had that reaction.”
I blink at her, realization rising like a balloon in the middle of my chest. Like recognizes like, and right now Lucie and I are possessed by the same demon.
“Lucie.” We’re officially late for this broadcast, but I wouldn’t rush this conversation for all the Berger cookies in the world. I slip into the seat next to her. “Are you jealous?”
She glares. It’s the first time she’s looked directly at me since I’ve come into the room. “No.”
Relief is a physical thing loosening my shoulders. I almost collapse against the desk. I don’t care how her date with Oliver went last night, because right now she’s here with me, worried about who I’m talking to. “You are.”
“I’m not. I’m just concerned about—”
“My black-market gambling problem. Yeah, I got it.” I duck my head so I can meet her eyes. I swear to god, I could probably power a generator with whatever this feeling is. Fly to the moon. I’m not alone in this feeling. Not by a long shot. “You want to know why I was doing laps around the parking lot?”
Her mouth twists. “You were avoiding me.”
I nod. “I didn’t want to have time to talk to you before the show. I didn’t want to hear about your date. I didn’t want to see you light up with another man’s name in your mouth,” I confess. She sucks in a sharp breath. “If you’re jealous, I’m jealous too. Worse, probably.”
Her lips part in surprise. I’ve spent every day since I woke up with her face buried in my chest trying to convince myself I’m no good for Lucie.
But I like Lucie. I like her a lot.
My crush hasn’t faded; it’s only gotten worse.
My phone buzzes again. I nod at it.
“It’s my mom,” I explain. “My parents took a road trip up to Acadia National Park and my dad is really into plants. They’ve been blowing me up all day.”
Lucie’s gaze is still stuck on mine. “Plants?”
“Yeah. He picked up gardening as a hobby years ago because—” I swallow. Because my mom couldn’t stand the smell of the hospital antiseptic, and lavender was the only thing that helped her sleep. He filled our entire front garden—made gardens in the back too—and would bring her bunches of it, filling vases on every flat surface of the hospital room. He needed something to do with all his restless energy, and gardening was it. “It’s evolved into a bit of an obsession for him. They’ve been sending pictures all day. Take a look.”
She glances at my screen and I reach over and swipe. “Oh, wow,” she says as soon as the group chat with my parents appears. “You aren’t kidding.”
I push my chair closer to hers. Our armrests knock together. “Yeah. He’s in a mushroom phase.”
“I can see that,” she mutters, scrolling. There’s about sixteen photos of different mushrooms. More of various grasses and ferns. Some close-up shots of a pine tree, dark green needles clustered together. A selfie of my mom and dad in front of a stream, the angle slightly off, my dad’s thumb obscuring the top half of the picture. I can see the curve of my mom’s smile, practically hear the loud burst of my dad’s laugh.
Lucie stops on that photo and brings the phone closer to her face.
