The Ex Talk(60)

“Was your dad into hiking?”

I snort. “God no. He hated the outdoors. It was more that it was therapeutic for my mom and me. My dad actually had this joke—that it was wild he’d wound up in the Pacific Northwest because he and nature didn’t get along. I mean, sure, he could appreciate a sunset or a particularly nice tree, but he was super fair skinned, and he had to wear like SPF ninety, and he claimed mosquitoes loved his blood because he always wound up covered in bites.”

“Was he a redhead?”

“No, he was blond. But my mom is. Why?”

“Your hair”—he gestures—“it’s not all the way brown. In the right light, it has this reddish tint. Or are those highlights?”

“Oh.” I smooth my hands over my ponytail. “No. I’ve never dyed my hair. But I usually just call it brown. Not that exciting. The red is really subtle. Anyway,” I say, moving away from the topic of my hair. “I haven’t gone hiking in a while, either. Been busy. You know, dating you.”

When he smiles, it’s a genuine-looking one. “I did tend to monopolize your time. All the dinners out, all the dumb shit I made you watch on Netflix with me, all my insisting that we spend our weekends at antique shops. And then . . . then there were those weekend mornings where we’d stay in bed for hours.” At that, his smile turns crooked.

“Hours?” I say, my heart picking up speed as my shoes thud against the dirt path.

“Sometimes the whole weekend. We’d order takeout so we wouldn’t have to leave the bed.”

I’m not sure what, exactly, he’s trying to pull here. Surely he’s just messing with me. Again.

“Sometimes you’d even call in sick,” I say. “Because you needed me that badly, and you’d have been too distracted all day at work.”

“Except for that time in Booth C.”

I tap my chin, trying to appear cool and nonchalant. It’s ridiculous how much I want all of this to have been true. “Refresh my memory?”

“You remember.” He knocks my arm with his elbow, and for a moment, I’m convinced I really do have that fake memory locked away somewhere. “You sent me an email, asking me to meet you in Booth C. I thought you wanted my input on something you were recording, but you just locked the door and . . . well, let’s just say, I’d never done that in a sound booth before.”

His words stop me in my tracks. I’m going to need a very long shower when we get to the house. This must be a joke to him—right? Or is he screwing with me because he wants all of it to have been real, too?

“Yeah,” I say. “That was, um. Pretty wild.”

We’re quiet for the next ten minutes or so. I try to focus on the rhythm of my breaths, the jingling of Steve’s collar. It’s not my imagination that Dominic’s flirting with me—at least, I don’t think so. But I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t, what we manufactured in the studio and what’s grown since then. God. Dominic Yun, who I despised the moment he started at Pacific Public Radio. The guy I’m beginning to like more than I ever planned.

When we reach the top, the puffed-cotton clouds and the endless trees feel more like home than Seattle sometimes does. Steve selects a rock for a triumphant pee.

Dominic pulls me in for a victory hug, and it’s criminal that he still smells good after an hour spent trudging up a mountain.

“Take a picture with me?” he says, pulling out his phone.

I make a face. “I look gross right now.” All sweaty and grimy, my hair coming out of its ponytail.

“I’m sure I’m gross, too.”

I reach up to swipe an imaginary smudge off his cheek. “Absolutely filthy.”

He stares down at me, and I wonder if this is the kind of light that makes my hair look more red than brown. “You just climbed a fucking mountain. You’re beautiful, Shay. At work or in pajamas or at the top of a mountain.”

“I . . . ,” I start, because I am speechless. He said it so effortlessly, like it wasn’t meant to affect me quite this way. “Fine. Take the photo.”

I pick up Steve, and Dominic leans in close and holds out his selfie arm. I get another whiff of soap and sweat, and suddenly it’s so intoxicating that I have to press my body against his so he can hold me up.

He turns the phone to me so I can see how the photo turned out, but all I see is his smiling face, his hand on my shoulder, the dimple in his left cheek. How he looks truly happy.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on his face before.





21




In typical Pacific Northwest fashion, it starts raining on our way back down, and by the time we make it to the house, it’s pouring.

“What do you think?” Dominic asks as we shuck off our muddy shoes. “Pasta again?”

“Only if you don’t complain about the noodles,” I say. “Besides, now that I know you’re a cast-iron expert, I feel like we could do better.”

“For the tenth time, they’re not supposed to be that soft, they’re supposed to be al dente,” he says, though there’s a teasing lilt to his voice. He unzips his jacket and hangs it in the hall. His T-shirt clings to his chest, showing off muscles I didn’t know he had and am not displeased to see. “And those skillets aren’t ready yet. You’ll have to wait until we’re back in Seattle for me to show off my cooking skills.”