Page 63 of First-Time Caller
“I wanted to have that chance too.” I look down at my hands. “Not that it’s done me a lot of good.”
Aiden drags his hand over his jaw, still looking at me. “Has that been hard for you?”
“What? Grayson and Mateo?” I shake my head. “No. Sometimes I get envious of what they have, but no. I love the family we’ve made. Maya has two great dads, and I have two best friends to make sure I never get too lonely.”
“Were your parents unhappy? That you didn’t get married?”
I nod. “Furious. I haven’t spoken to them in almost twelve years because of it.”
He makes a soft sound. “They don’t know Maya?” he asks.
Something pinches in my chest. “No,” I say, and my voice trembles around the word. I fiddle with the cuff of the sweatshirt Aiden wrapped around my shoulders. “They cut me off when I refused to marry Grayson or agree to an adoption for Maya. I know we were young, but I wanted her. She wasn’t intended, but she never felt like a mistake to me. I don’t begrudge people their choices, but that was mine.” I blow out a breath, watching the cloud rise up, up, up to the sky. I had been so afraid, those early months. Absolutely terrified of what we’d do.
“My parents thought it was a slight against them instead of— instead of a decision that was mine to make. Gray’s parents were the same. They run in the same old-money circles. When we refused to comply with their demands, they just”—I snap my fingers—”pretended like we didn’t exist. Left our things on our respective front porches without so much as a note.” I think about Maya’s face, of doing the same to her, and everything in my body pulls tight.Never, I tell myself, a promise I’ve repeated since I first held her squishy, wiggling body in the palms of my hands.I will never do that to her.“Anyway. We’re lucky Grayson’s great-aunt Tabitha wanted to stick it to his parents. She kept us on our feet financially until we were able to piece it all together.”
I wonder if my parents ever think of me, of us, of the incredible little girl they’re missing out on. Sometimes when it’s late and Maya is at Grayson’s and I’m standing in the doorway of her room overflowing with books and color and stuffed animals and handwritten notes on torn pieces of paper, I wonder what they’ve done with my old room. If they’ve turned it into a Pilates studio for my mom or another office for my dad. If maybe they’ve just kept it empty. An empty room in a house full of pretty objects where they drift past each other like ghosts.
“They sound like assholes,” Aiden says, his voice gruff.
A laugh bursts out of me. “Yeah. They are. Grayson’s parents are worse. But he’s reconciled with two of his siblings over the years, and Maya is surrounded with a lot of love. That’s all that matters to me now.”
“Do you think they’ve heard you?”
I look away from the city and meet Aiden’s gaze. His hair is the color of spilled ink out here, the stars a halo around his head. “What?”
“On the radio,” he explains. “Do you think they’ve heard you and Maya?”
“Oh.” I haven’t thought about it. A yawn cracks my jaw open wide and I shiver, wrapping my sweatshirt blanket tighter around my shoulders. My parents have been out of my life for so long, I’ve wrenched myself free from considering their responses to things. It was a hard habit to break in the beginning, but it’s gotten decidedly easier with time. “They’re still local, last I heard. So probably.”
Aiden hums. “Doesn’t exactly make me want to be nice on the air,” he says.
“That’s assuming you were ever nice to begin with,” I tease. I tip into his side and nudge him with my shoulder. Then I stay there, pressed up against him, because it’s cold and his body is warm and this has been one of the longest nights of my life.
I let my temple rest against the curve of his arm. He shifts closer. I blink slowly and watch the lights bob over the water. Like raindrops against the window. Pinpricks of colors that flare and fade.
“Aiden?” I ask after a while, my body deliciously heavy.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I’ll find someone?” I voice the question that’s been banging around in my heart for the past decade. “Do you think I’ll get my magic?”
He takes a long time to answer. So long my eyes drift shut and everything around me turns fuzzy and heavy. Purple and blue dance behind my closed eyes and I imagine we’re floating with the stars, my fingers reaching for their golden cascading light. Somewhere in the hazy in-between, a hand slips under my hair and gently squeezes the back of my neck. His thumb traces the ridges of my spine, and my whole body gets heavier.
“Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.”
AIDEN VALENTINE:All right, Baltimore. We have a guest in the booth tonight, his name is—
GRAYSON HARRIS:Listen up, lizards. There’s a new daddy in town.
AIDEN VALENTINE:Oh, boy.
GRAYSON HARRIS:That’s right. Lu has not been getting the respect or attention she deserves, and I’ll be taking over her search for Mr. Right.
AIDEN VALENTINE:Temporarily.
GRAYSON HARRIS:We’ll see about that. I suggest you buckle up for the ride, folks, because I am discerning.
AIDEN VALENTINE:Let’s ease our way into it.
