The Ex Talk(82)

He rolls his eyes like I am the densest human on earth, and maybe I am. “Yeah. You.”

A dam inside me breaks. Everything I’ve been holding in crashes out in one big emotional flood. I have been so tired—of making excuses, of lying, of trying to convince myself I can ignore these feelings for him.

“Oh,” I say, feeling like a complete idiot. “Wow, you are really hard to read.”

That makes him laugh, but it’s a nervous laugh. His fingers make their way to my knee, thumb rubbing a slow circle.

“I brought you to meet my family,” he continues. “You’re the first person I’ve been with since Mia. The only person other than Mia. I’ve been giving you sign after sign.”

“I told you how I tend to get too attached. And I’m older than you, and I didn’t know if you wanted something serious. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, I guess. I told myself that if we were just casual, then it wouldn’t hurt to hear that you didn’t want to be together for real.”

“Shay. I showed you my fucking Beanie Babies.”

I can’t help laughing at that. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It would really help if you told me you like me, too.”

I bite back a smile and scoot closer, leaning in to cup his face with my palm. “Dominic. I like you so much. I thought it was obvious. I like that the person you show me isn’t the same as the one everyone else sees. You probably already know that I’m ridiculously attracted to you. And you care so deeply about the things in your life that are important to you—work, your family, Steve Rogers Goldstein.”

“And Shay Goldstein,” he says, adding to the list, and I might never want to leave this bench.

“It felt too real, being there at your house.” I run my thumb along the stubble on his cheek. “That was why I had to end it. I didn’t want to be there and not be your girlfriend.”

One corner of his mouth quirks upward. I’ve missed his dimple. “You want to be my girlfriend.”

“More than I want Ira Glass to personally ask me if I’ll replace him on This American Life.”

He breaks into a real, full grin then. And we’re kissing, and it’s like I’ve lived my whole life without chocolate and only now, at age twenty-nine, am discovering its sweetness.

His hands come up to my hair, messing up my ponytail. “God, I missed you,” he says as I settle against his chest, pressing my ear to his strong, steady heartbeat.





30




Breaking news: Texas is hot. Texas in June deserves its own circle of hell. My poor Pacific Northwest body wasn’t made for this.

It’s been two weeks of keeping the kind of secret that makes me smile at random times: while spreading peanut butter onto a morning bagel, while brushing my teeth, while sitting in traffic on my way home.

Because most of the time, I am going home to him.

It’s an early flight, and we luck out that Ruthie and Kent are on a later one. While I downloaded plenty of extra podcasts, I must end up passing out as soon as we get up in the air. When my eyes flutter open, the pilot is letting us know we’ve landed in Austin, where the local time is 1:40 p.m. and the weather is an incomprehensible ninety-five degrees.

“Were you watching me?” I ask Dominic as I return my seat to its upright position.

“You mumble in your sleep.”

“I do not.”

“It’s cute,” he says with a guilty half smile.

“I’m sure it would be, but I don’t do it.”

Because our live taping isn’t until tomorrow afternoon, we check into our hotel, where the station booked two rooms for us, though of course we didn’t tell them we’d only need one. Then we spend the day exploring Austin, since neither of us has been here before. We try the city’s best barbecue, and then when we’re hungry again a few hours later, stop at another place that claims to have the best barbecue, until we’re certain we can’t look at another pork product for as long as we live.

We hold hands as we walk down Sixth Street, taking in the dive bars and historic buildings. Bands are setting up, music pouring out of live venues. I’m positive we’re not at risk of anyone recognizing us in such a big city, but we wear sunglasses just in case, and Dominic sports a Chicago Cubs baseball cap.

It feels like we’re a real couple.

We stop for a while at a bar with outdoor seating, which is much rarer—and possibly less exciting for the locals—here than in Seattle. Here, life can be less complicated. Here, I can stop thinking about not having reconciled with Ameena and her first week of work and TJ packing up their apartment. He’ll meet her in Virginia next week, and while they’ll both be back for my mother’s wedding, I’m not sure when I’ll see them again after that.

“I had this idea,” Dominic says when we’re on our second beer, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts. “So the whole appeal of the show is that we’re exes. We can’t suddenly start dating.”

“Perish the thought.”

“So . . . what if we got back together?”

I pause with my glass halfway to my mouth. “Like, publicly?”

He nods. “Think about it. It would be a real testament to the power radio has to connect us. The listeners would love it.”