Page 38 of First-Time Caller
I pause my rearranging. She’s frowning at the coffee machine, watching as it slowly brews my clandestine French roast, her hands curled in the sleeves of her sweater. She’s hesitant.Nervous.
“I don’t buy it,” I tell her.
“Don’t buy what?” she asks, startled. I guess not many people in Lucie’s life call her on her bullshit. Except maybe her daughter.
I reach for my coffee mug and my forearm brushes against hers. She doesn’t flinch away or press into me. She stays exactly where she is. “The night you called, I asked you questions and you gave me answers. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t waffle. You busted my balls and you charmed half the country while you did it. You know what that tells me?”
“That I’m incredibly trusting with strangers in the middle of the night?”
“It tells me you know exactly who you are, and you know exactly what you want. You’ve just buried it under everything else for so long you’ve forgotten.”
Her face softens, her eyes on mine.
“You know why you’re here, Lucie, and you know what you want. Don’t pretend otherwise. Let’s find your magic, whatever that looks like. This whole place is Team Lucie.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.” I reach for the other mug and hand it to her. “Now, pour your coffee and put on your headphones. Let’s run some audio tests.”
“You’re too far away from your mic.”
“What?”
“You’re too far away,” I say again. “You sound whispery.”
“I don’t sound whispery.” She yells to overcompensate and the feedback in my headphones makes me wince. “Yousound whispery,” she accuses, still yelling.
“Okay, now you’re yelling. Just—” I sigh and curl my hand around her mic stand. I tug it closer, then grip the armrest of her chair. I drag her chair toward me until we’re pressed together shoulder to wrist, her outer thigh tucked tight to mine beneath the desk. Her chin tips up as she stares at me with a dumbfounded look, her bangs in her face.
“Did you just manhandle me?”
“I manhandled the chair,” I tell her. “This is better.”
“How is this better?”
I tap the microphone stand in front of her. “Because now the microphone will pick up your normal voice. No more yelling.”
Her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. This close, I can see the light dusting of freckles across her nose. She does smell like daisies. Fresh flowers with a sharp bite of metal beneath. She exhales and a whisper of her breath brushes against the hollow of my throat. Beneath the table, she tries to rearrange her legs and knocks my knee with hers.
“No more yelling,” she says, her lips moving around the words, which echo through my headphones. Lucie, in high definition. “Noted.”
Someone knocks against the window. Lucie turns to look, but my eyes are stuck on her. Specifically, the curve of her ear and the hair tucked behind it. The three tiny studs along her lobe and the way her fingers trace them. One, two, three.
I clear my throat and turn my head.
There is not enough space in this room.
Maggie knocks on the window again and holds up two fingers. I nod and give her a thumbs-up.
“You ready?” I ask Lucie.
“Probably not.”
I smile. “That’s the spirit. Eileen is doing her thing on the other side of the wall. She’s going to count us in over the headphones.”
“That she is,” Eileen says through our headsets, and Lucie jumps next to me. Her knee drives up into the table and my hand finds her thigh, urging her still. I squeeze gently, letting my thumb trace over the surprisingly soft material. Lucie rattles out a breath and I snatch my hand away, both palms flat on the desk. Together we stare unseeingly at the run of show on the monitor in front of us.
We’re off to an excellent start.
