The Ex Talk(25)

“Right,” I say. “And—apparently I’d have liked all of that.” I clear my throat. “How long did our relationship last?”

“Three months.” He says it so matter-of-factly, as though he’s put thought into it.

“Why three?”

“Fewer than that might not be seen as serious enough, and any more than that, I wouldn’t have been back in Seattle yet. The longer the relationship, the more serious we were, the less likely people will believe it.”

I lift my eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

“Like you said. We nail this, and then we can do anything we want.”

We order pizza and continue plotting. Our first date: dinner at Dominic’s favorite Korean place, easy, since I’ve already been there. Our second date: getting lost in a pumpkin patch corn maze the weekend before Halloween. We spent the holiday together, our first one, forgoing costumes while we handed out candy at my place. That was the night we made our relationship official, deciding to keep it from our coworkers for obvious reasons. The station was small, and we didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.

We liked the idea of having a Halloween anniversary, since weren’t relationships a little spooky?

“Do I call you Dom?” I ask.

His face darkens. “No. Never Dom.”

“You don’t correct Kent.”

“You’re not in charge of my paychecks.”

Fair point.

I shove uneaten pizza crusts to the side of my plate and pick up my pen again, tapping it a few times against my notepad. “This isn’t about the relationship, exactly, but do you think I should do some kind of vocal coaching?”

Dominic’s mouth twists to one side. “Your voice is fine. Maybe it’s a little higher than other people’s, but it’s your voice. That’s not something you should have to change.”

He’s wrong, of course. Everyone has always made sure I’m aware of exactly how grating my voice is. He’ll find out soon enough—I’m sure we’ll be flooded with emails from opinionated listeners.

“What I’m more concerned about is keeping this from everyone,” he continues. “We don’t have any social media record.”

“It’s not too out of the ordinary,” I say, “especially since we weren’t telling coworkers. Have you told anyone about it? About what we’re doing?”

He shakes his head. “Not the truth, no. It’s not that I don’t trust my parents, but they can get pretty chatty with their friends. What about you?”

“Only my best friend, but I trust her completely. We’ve known each other since we were in kindergarten.” I’m not sure I can explain to him why it was easier to tell Ameena than it would be to tell my mother.

I turn back to my notes. It’s nearing nine o’clock. I walked and fed Steve earlier this evening before running back to the station, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to wrap this up as quickly as possible. “So. Moving on. The reason we broke up . . . it has to be something that would enable us to stay friends. Or at least friendly enough to host a show together. I don’t want it to cast either of us in too negative a light.”

“Huh,” he says, “I was expecting you to paint me as the villain.”

“Guess I’m full of surprises,” I say. “Let’s think back to why our last relationships ended. I haven’t dated anyone seriously since early last year.”

“What happened?”

“I was . . . more invested than he was,” I say, not wanting to completely embarrass myself. “What about you?”

“Next question.”

“Come on. You know I saw her on your Facebook. She dated you before I did. I should probably know something about her.”

I try to imagine it, Dominic and cute redhead Mia Dabrowski. She must have really broken his heart if he’s still this uncomfortable about it.

He swipes his keys from a drawer below his desk. “I’m gonna need alcohol to get through the rest of this. Any requests?”



* * *



—

Dominic Yun and I are drunk at work and playing catch.

He walks backward toward the bank of windows looking out onto a darkened Seattle street, laughing when he stumbles against someone’s desk. He recovers, tosses the Koosh to me. Twin pairs of empty beer bottles sit on our desks. I don’t know where my hair tie is—probably somewhere on the other side of the newsroom after I tried flinging it at him but overshot by a significant amount. His second shirt button lost the battle a while ago, and his hair is rumpled. He’s wearing only one shoe, revealing a polka-dotted sock on his other foot. This is a version of Dominic I never thought I’d see, and I don’t hate it.

Alcohol was a very good idea.

“What we really need,” I say, fumbling with the ball, “is a catchphrase.”

“A catchphrase? Like what . . . WHAAA-ZOOOOM?” He says it in his best AM radio talk show host voice.

I snort, beer coming up my throat and burning a little. “No no no. Not a catchphrase. A whatchamacallit. An intro. Like”—I put on a 1950s White Man Radio Voice—“‘Hi, I’m Shay and this is Dominic, and we definitely used to date.’ But you know. Catchier.”