Page 68 of First-Time Caller
“I wouldn’t say I’m helping you find your match. I just bought you a beer.” I nudge the basket of French fries closer. “And fries. Did you eat dinner?”
She grabs one of the fries and tosses it in her mouth. She groans when she gets a taste and then immediately grabs two more. “Well?” she asks, reaching for the ketchup from the table behind us.
I grab a fry too. “Well, what?”
“You’re a man of contradictions, Aiden Valen.”
I shrug. “I like having a paying job.”
She rolls her eyes. I laugh.
“What? It’s true. I took a job in radio because I needed quick cash in college. I was a dumb kid and thought it would be better than working at the campus cafeteria. My friend needed coverage for a shift and said she’d pay me double if I did it for her.”
“And you fell in love? That first shift?”
“I hate to squash the optimist in you, but no. I liked the quick money and I liked that I got a bunch of girls’ numbers.” I shovel another fry in my mouth and wiggle my eyebrows. “Apparently I have a nice voice.”
Lucie gives me a sour look.
“Don’t look at me like that. I was in college.”
“That’s not an excuse for being a trollop.”
Another laugh barks out of me. Two of the men at the bar turn to glance at me over their shoulders. I smother my smile into something manageable. “I also liked . . . being someone else. I liked putting my problems away and existing as a new person.”
“Aiden Valentine,” Lucie says. “Instead of Aiden Valen.”
“Exactly. The biggest problem Aiden Valentine had was what song to play next. It was easy for him to be happy. Easy for him to make conversation. Easy to be charming.” He didn’t have a sick mom or a slowly deteriorating GPA or trouble with people. “I liked talking to people. It was purely coincidental I ended up on a show about romance. I liked talking about love until I . . . didn’t, I guess.”
“Why?”
Maybe it’s the low light or maybe it’s the burn of alcohol in my belly or maybe it’s Lucie, but the truth tumbles out of me. “I started to see this common thread with callers. How love could make them miserable. How it could tear them to absolute pieces. And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. I think I started waiting for it. Bracing myself for it. It felt easier that way.”
“Why?” Lucie asks again, her body curving closer into mine.
“Because I saw it with my life too. With my . . . with my dad. My mom got sick,” I rasp, my palms pressing against my cold glass. “She kept getting sick and it tore my dad to absolute pieces every time. And I think that’s when I stopped believing in good things.”
She sucks in a sharp breath and leans closer. “Is she—”
“She’s okay now, but it was—” I drag my thumb up and down the condensation, focusing on it. Trying to hold myself here and not in a memory. “I was a kid the first time she was diagnosed. Three days before my eighth birthday.” I remember there were balloons on the kitchen table when my parents sat me down. A cake that sat in the fridge and was never eaten. “And it was—we all had a hard time with it—but my dad—” My voice cracks at the edges and I swallow around it. “It devastated my dad. My room was right next to their bathroom, and some nights, after my mom fell asleep, I’d hear him through the wall. He’d run a shower to cover the noise, but I could—I could hear him crying.” I could tell in the morning, with his red-rimmed eyes and his drawn face. The way he’d look at my mom when he thought no one was looking at him. Like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. Like he wouldn’t survive it if she didn’t.
I keep talking, determined to move the conversation forward. I’m sprinting across a field of conversational land mines, tossing out the most devastating milestones of my life like they’re party favors. “He loved her so much, and it was killing him the same way the cancer was killing her. After that I thought it would be easier if I just never—if I didn’t let myself feel that.”
Lucie makes a soft sound. Her fingers brush over my arm. “Aiden.”
I shake my head. “Nah, don’t do that. I’m not the one you should feel sorry for.” I take another pull from my bottle and force some levity into my voice. “Anyway, I worked in radio for a long time and it was good. And then it wasn’t.” I attempt to lighten the mood. “I think I heard one too many complaints about mediocre anniversary gifts. It took the shine off romance for me.”
Lucie watches me carefully, her chin in her hand. I wait for her to ask more questions about my parents, but she must read the apprehension on my face. I don’t talk about them. Not ever. It’s how I hold myself together. It’s how I keep going.
Her eyes soften.
“You’re helping me,” she points out. “I have to think you believe in romance a little bit if you’re willing to help me.”
“Maggie threatened me with bodily harm.”
“Is that why you’re here tonight? Because Maggie threatened you?”
“No. No, this is my own misplaced sense of chivalry.” I force a cough into my fist. “I think I’m coming down with something.”
