Page 80 of First-Time Caller
But Lucie needs to find a date.
So I’m going to find her one.
“Give me your phone,” I say to Lucie as soon as we cut for the first commercial break. I’m not in a particularly good mood tonight and I’m blaming the string of uninspiring candidates. I’m supposed to be picking her next date, but everyone who has called in has either been a bumbling idiot or a self-serving asshole. I don’t know how I’m going to pick someone short of throwing a dart at the wall and hoping for the best. None of these people are good enough.
She blinks at me, her chin resting on her knees and her arms wrapped around them. “What was that?”
“I need your phone,” I say again.
“I heard you, but what’s that tone about?”
“I don’t have a tone,” I grumble.
“I have a twelve-year-old. I know when someone is using a tone.” She curls her legs under her. She’s wearing jeans tonight. Loose ones with a hole at the top of her thigh. A threadbare T-shirt that I want to slip my hands under.
I woke up this morning still tangled up in my dreams, and all I can remember is groping hands, gasping breaths, and the freckles along Lucie’s shoulder. Her laugh curling around me like smoke and her mouth against mine.
I spent a significant amount of time in my shower.
“Aiden,” she snaps. “What do you need my phone for?”
I clear my throat and try to do something with my face that doesn’t say,I dream about you naked now.“Does it matter?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
I grunt and her lips pull into a smirk. She lifts her chin. “Ask me nicely and I’ll give it to you.”
My brain hears something completely different. Or maybe just the last four words of that sentence on repeat. Our new no-flirting rule is harder than I thought. I twist my head to the side, crack my neck, and try again. “Can I please see your phone?”
She hands me her personal phone. I stare at it blankly. The wallpaper is a picture of her and Maya sharing a giant blob of pink cotton candy at an Orioles game. She has a hat on backward and she’s laughing so hard her eyes are squeezed shut. Cotton candy on her nose.
“Not this one.” I set it to the side. I tap the screen again as soon as it goes blank so I can see that picture again. “TheHeartstringsphone.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
“I want to see the texts,” I explain, exasperated and trying not to show it. “Maybe there’s someone in there who will be a good fit.”
“Oh.” Her face tightens. “No.”
“No?”
She tucks her hair neatly behind her ears. It’s down tonight. No braid in sight.
“No, there’s no one that interests me in the text messages. I’ve stopped looking at them.”
“Have you?”
She nods. “I don’t even turn that phone on anymore.”
That’s a lie. I’ve heard the phone buzzing periodically throughout tonight’s broadcast. I study her face. The careful way she’s holding herself. How her eyes keep darting slightly to my left. I don’t think there’s a person in Baltimore who sucks at lying more than Lucie.
“What are you hiding?”
“Me? I’m not hiding anything.” Her fingers inch toward her ear like she wants to rub her thumb against the tiny wrench earring pierced through her cartilage, but she catches herself and snaps her hand back to her lap. “I’m just saying. The text messages don’t have any good candidates. It’s a waste of your time.”
Now I want to see the phone even more. “Lucie.”
“Yes, Aiden?”
