The Ex Talk(80)

All of it feels unreal, which makes it easier to forget that we built it on a lie. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? I want to tell Ameena, but we’re still not talking. See? Of course I want this. How can my dad be holding me back if I’m going to PodCon? Maybe if she sees this evidence that proves her wrong, she’ll take back what she said.

Fortunately, tonight is my friend date with Ruthie. We decided to grab dinner at an Oaxacan restaurant in Ballard, this place with homemade tortillas and seven different kinds of salsa. After working until ten every night this week, I’m utterly exhausted, wrung out, in desperate need of salt.

“PodCon,” Ruthie says, plunging a chip into pico de gallo. “I can’t believe it. We haven’t even had ten episodes, and we’re going to be at fucking PodCon.”

“It’s pretty amazing,” I agree. I drag a chip through salsa verde and chew it thoughtfully. Now that the initial excitement has dulled to a buzz, I’m feeling . . . strange. I want Ruthie’s boundless enthusiasm to rub off on me.

“You look a little off.” Ruthie frowns, as though weighing what she wants to say next. “Can I ask a kind of personal question?”

“Uh . . . maybe?”

She laughs. “You can one hundred percent say no. It’s just, I’m around you and Dominic all day, five days a week. And the two of you have been acting especially weird lately.”

“You’ve noticed that?”

She nods. “Did you—” She breaks off, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask you this, but . . . has anything happened between the two of you? Since you broke up, I mean?”

When I’m silent, her jaw drops open.

“Shay,” she whispers with a shake of her head, but it’s not a judgmental one. “Oh my god. I had a feeling, and not to brag, but I’m never wrong about these things. Never. I swear I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m still a little mortified over the whole thing?” But that’s not the right word. I’m not mortified when Dominic pushes a hand through his hair, and I’m not mortified when he bends to pick up his work bag and his shoulders flex beneath his shirt. “But I’m not sure we’re anything anymore.” I think about how Dominic was able to be brave with his childhood friend. If he could do that with someone he had so much history with, I should be able to do it here. “It really only happened a few times.”

“A relapse,” she says. “Maybe it was bound to happen, the two of you working so closely together. It happened after Orcas, didn’t it? Or on Orcas?”

I’m quiet again, and she lets out a squeal.

“Part of me wants to say congratulations because, well, he’s gorgeous. The boy does a good lean.”

“He does indeed,” I agree.

“But are you okay about it?”

Ruthie is too good. I don’t deserve her—not when even this bit of truth is tinged with dishonesty.

“We’re trying to be professional. I . . . sort of ended things last week. Again,” I add quickly.

“Do you want to be together?”

“I’m not sure. No.” Why does everyone keep asking me that, as though it matters? “How do you think people would react? If they knew?”

“I think it would be great fucking radio, first of all. The show bringing you two back together? People would lose their minds.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

“But it’s tricky, you’re right.”

I take a sip of my sangria. “Well, I’m officially sick of talking about myself. Please feel free to talk about you for the rest of dinner.”

“It’s funny you think I’m that interesting,” she says. “Well, I think Marco ghosted me, but I’ve been texting with this girl Tatum, and it’s been going well . . .”

I listen. I really do. Ruthie is great, but I want this to be a salve to my loneliness in a way it can’t possibly be. Not when I’m lying to her.

And definitely not when I’m lying to myself.



* * *



—

By the middle of next week, Dominic isn’t looking great. I mean, yes, he is still a very attractive human male, but he shows up past nine thirty a couple of days, he’s mostly unshaven, and when he smiles—which is rare—it barely touches his eyes. His Koosh ball is immobile on his desk, lonely and sad.

Truthfully, I’m not doing great, either. I’m crashing hard, a combination of overworking myself, prepping for PodCon, and checking my phone for nonexistent texts from him and Ameena.

I’ve gotten back into the habit of staying late at work, not wanting to risk ending up alone in the elevator again. So when he approaches me at my desk at six thirty on Wednesday and grazes my shoulder with his fingertips after I thought everyone else had gone home for the day, I nearly scream.

“Shit, I thought you’d left,” I say, holding a hand to my heart. “You have some seriously light footsteps.”

“Sorry.” He leans against his desk. And he really does sound sorry.

“I know our desks are close,” I say. “But sometimes I like to pretend there’s an invisible line between them, and you just crossed into my bubble. I like my bubble.”