Page 50 of First-Time Caller
“Is it?” I ask.
“Life or death, babes,” Patty says. “They can wait.”
Maya and Patty duck their heads together, scrolling through the phone. I distract myself with more cookies, but my mind wanders right back to last night and whatever the hell I said that upset Aiden.
I thought we were doing okay. I know I was nervous on the show at first, but I thought I settled in easily enough. Maybe he’s not used to sharing his space. Maybe I was yelling into the microphone again. He came back to the booth after Jackson’s weather update and was a different person. Cold. Abrupt. We spent the last hour on the air fielding phone calls that went on far too long. I think he was trying to avoid talking to me, and I have no idea what I did to upset him.
“Yikes,” Patty says. “Is that a picture of a lizard?”
I try to look at the phone screen. “It better be a picture of a lizard,” I murmur.
“His name is Bartholomew, apparently.” Maya presses her nose to the phone. “Mom, these guys suck.”
“I told you.”
This is a waste of my time. I’m spinning my wheels with a bunch of faceless, aimless people shooting their shot over text message and it’s not going to go anywhere. What’s the likelihood that any of this does anything for me? Slim to none, if lizard boy is any indication.
“This guy is interested in what your feet look like.”
Gross. “You can delete that one.”
“Obviously.” Maya scrolls some more. “And this guy said you can stop by his snowball stand whenever you want. Free egg custard. It’s in the parking lot of that strip club. The one next to the pit-beef stand.”
“That actually sounds promising. You can flag that one. I love blue raspberry.”
“Aiden is in here too. He texted you this morning.”
I grab the phone out of Maya’s hand. “What?”
Patty snickers. “Oh, look. Now she’s interested.”
I tuck the phone against my chest so she can’t see the screen. “Go make your drinks. They’re about to stage a coup.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Patty says, swinging her towel over her shoulder. But she gives in, sauntering her way over to the espresso machine at the front counter, going through the motions of fulfilling orders. “Say hi to Sexy Voice for me,” she calls.
Maya bounces in her chair next to me. “What did he say?
I pull the phone away from my chest and glance at the screen.
AIDEN:For the record, this was not my idea.
AIDEN:Hope you’re not being bombarded.
My phone has buzzed twice in the time it took me to read those messages.Bombardedis an understatement.
“Are you going to text him back?” Maya asks, her cheek pressed against my arm.
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to be texting with guys that are interested, right?”
“He wouldn’t have texted you if he didn’t want to talk to you.”
Oh, to have the optimism of a twelve-year-old. I swipe up with my thumb and silence the notifications, then darken the screen. I’ll deal with this later. When Patty isn’t watching me out of the corner of her eye and Maya isn’t bouncing in her seat.
“Pizza for dinner?” I ask, hoping it’ll distract her. Hoping it might distract me, too, from this pressure in my chest. The fog in my head and the itchy, scratchy feeling at the base of my spine. I’ve been shoved out of orbit and I have no idea what needs to slot back into place to make everything feel steady again. The pages of my instruction manual are faded and too hard to read.
Maya grins at me and it’s like looking in a mirror that only reflects good things back. My heart grows three sizes in my chest and not for the first time, I think maybe this is the only love I need. The best kind. The kind that won’t fade out or burn away. The kind that will stay.
“I am literally always down for pizza,” Maya says, looping her arm through mine and tugging. “Especially if you sweeten the deal with cannoli.”
