The Ex Talk(58)

I let out a slow breath, convinced he can hear the hammering of my heart.

“Since we’re being honest,” I say. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.” He lifts his eyebrows, as though encouraging me to continue. “When we started this whole thing, you were so against the lying aspect of it. You were going on about taking down bigots and using journalism to really help people. And yet . . . none of what we’re doing seems to bother you.”

He’s quiet for a few moments. “Compartmentalization is a powerful drug,” he finally says. “My mom actually learned English through NPR. That’s kind of the reason I was so excited about getting a job out here. So I’m pretty desperate to stay there, even if it means . . .”

“Compromising your morals?”

A wry smile. “Well . . . yeah.”

Huh. “Dominic Yun, you keep surprising me. I’m just—” I break off, take a deep breath. “I’m glad I’m not going through it alone.”

“Me too.” With a fingertip, he doodles on the sheets between us. “We’ve been talking too much about me. I want to know more about Shay Goldstein.” He drags his finger over to my bent arm, tapping at my elbow. “Tell me about your dad?”

It’s a question, and the way he says it makes it clear I could easily say no. But I find myself giving in, only marginally distracted by the rhythm of his finger on my skin.

“He had the absolute best radio voice,” I say. “Like Kent times a hundred.”

“He worked in radio?” Dominic pulls his hand back to his side of the bed.

I shake my head. “He owned an electronics repair shop. Goldstein Gadgets. He started it before I was born. I spent most of my afternoons there as a kid, and I loved watching him work. He had so much passion for it, not just for the technology itself but for the art of radio. We listened to everything together, pretended to host our own shows. So I guess we kind of have that in common—inheriting radio from our parents.”

I worry, for a moment, that I’ve slipped too deep into nostalgia, but Dominic is listening intently.

“My mom plays in the symphony,” I continue, “so I never had a quiet house, though sometimes they fought about what to listen to. Even today, I can’t stand the quiet.”

“Do you want to turn something on?” Dominic asks.

“No. This is . . . this is nice.”

“Is it okay to ask what happened? How he—” He breaks off, as though unsure how to verbalize it.

“How he died?” I say. It’s been a long time since I told this story. I roll over to stare at the ceiling, unsure if I want him to see my face as I tell it. “Sudden cardiac arrest while he was at work. No one could have done anything or detected it. A random horrible thing. I remember getting the call from my mom, but then my memory goes dark for like a week. I can’t even remember the funeral.

“My life just . . . fell apart after that. People would tell me I was lucky to have eighteen years with him, lucky he didn’t die when I was much younger. None of that made it any easier to lose him. So I lived in my bed for what felt like months, made some bad choices, then some slightly less bad ones. And it wasn’t until I started interning at PPR that things finally started to feel like they could be okay.”

I close my eyes, trying to fight off the worst of the memories. The days I cried until I lost my voice, the night I lost my virginity to someone who didn’t know it was my first time. Hoping it would help me feel something again when all it did was make me feel worse.

I try to focus on something happier: the radio shows my dad and I hosted in the kitchen, how excited he’d be to show me a new recorder or microphone. It’s how I used to feel all the time, every day coming into work.

When did I lose that?

“I don’t even know what to say,” he says after a while. “I’m so sorry, but an apology doesn’t feel like nearly enough. I guess I’ll say thank you. Thank you for telling me.”

“Goldstein Gadgets is a vape shop now. Isn’t that depressing?”

“Incredibly.” And then he apologizes again: “I’m sorry, Shay.”

My name sounds light as gossamer.

“I’ve spent most of my twenties chasing this idea of domestic bliss I grew up with. And I’m not even sure what that means anymore . . . just that I want that constancy and comfort so badly sometimes that it scares me.”

His fingers are back on my arm, a gentle stroke. Back and forth and back and forth and then they’re gone. “Being an adult sucks,” he says, and the bluntness of it makes me laugh, in spite of everything.

“It really does,” I agree. The ghost of his touch lingers on my skin. “What should we do tomorrow? Fewer soul-searching conversations? We could explore more of the island. If the rain stops, we could go hiking.”

“I’d be down for a hike,” he says. “There’s supposed to be some great antiquing on the island, too.”

“Antiquing?”

“Ah, maybe I never told you. My parents own an antiques shop. I have an incurable fondness for old kitchen gadgets. Cast-iron cookware, specifically.”

“Then it’s settled,” I say around a yawn. Just when I think I’m figuring him out, Dominic reveals another layer. “We’ll go antiquing, and then we’ll go hiking.” I roll over to check the time. “How is it one thirty?”