The Ex Talk(97)

Emma offers an apologetic but still peppy shrug.

I barely have a chance to take in the station foyer with its warm hominess and vinyl-record-covered walls before Kent sprints toward me.

“Shay!” he says, so falsely cheery that it churns my stomach. “We were wondering if you’d show up. I know it’s a little unconventional, but social media is blowing up. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s really big of you to put all of this behind you and—”

“I’m not here for you.” God, it feels incredible to interrupt him. I gesture to the hall. “And as much as I used to love this place, I’m not here for the station. I’m here for Dominic, and that’s it. Then I’m gone.”

Kent’s mouth tightens, and he gives me a curt nod. Marlene’s long skirts flutter as she steps in front of him, and when our eyes meet, a brief understanding passes over her face. “Go,” she urges me, and I dip my head in gratitude.

My former coworkers seem to have realized what’s happening, and they join us in the hall, staring, openmouthed, as I make my way to the place I used to feel most myself. Deep breaths. One foot in front of the other. I can do this.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them, there he is, standing in the middle of the studio like he’s delivering a filibuster. His clothes are crisp but his hair is rumpled, just like I imagined it. Dark scruff along his jaw, studio headphones clamped over his ears. Beautiful and sexy and sweet and kind. The guy I was scared of falling too hard for.

When his eyes lock on me, his face completely changes. A smile spreads from one corner of his mouth to the other, drawing out his dimple, and then he’s full-on grinning. His dark eyes brighten, and his posture seems to dip with relief. That shift is incredible to watch.

He heads for the door, and he must forget that he’s wearing headphones because the cord tugs him back toward the table. It’s adorable, watching him fiddle with it, trying to untangle himself.

“Get her mic’d up,” someone is saying. I don’t even know who.

And then I am being shoved into the studio with the man who just poured his heart out to me on live radio. Headphones are plugged in and wrangled onto my ears, and did they always feel this heavy?

“We’re on a newsbreak,” Jason Burns says in our ears. “You have four minutes before you go live again.”

“Hi,” Dominic says. The word is a breathy exhale.

“Hi.”

I thought I’d run toward him, that he’d scoop me into his arms, kiss me passionately. That the outside world would fall away, fade out, end credits.

Except none of that happens. My feet turn to concrete. We stare each other down, as though we’re both unsure what to do now.

“You look—you look great,” he says, his voice a little hoarse. I should have brought lozenges.

“Thanks,” I say, self-consciously running a hand through my hair again. “You—um. You do, too.”

We still have so much to say, but now that I’m here with him, I don’t know where to begin. Sure, I dreamed of us reconciling, but I never imagined it happening quite like this, with Dominic standing here like he has no idea what to do with his hands.

“You’ve been . . . okay?” I say. “Since the show went off the air?”

He nods, but then grimaces. “Work has been . . . you know. Fine. But I have to be honest. I’ve been fucking miserable.”

And that makes me crack a smile—not because he was miserable, but because I’ve felt the same.

“Me too,” I say in a small voice.

“Thirty-second warning,” someone says.

“I have to go back on the air,” he says.

Shit. Shit. We’ve barely even had a conversation.

“Are you—” He swallows. “You want to come on the air with me?”

We started this on the air. I want to finish it—whatever that conclusion is—on the air, too. “Yes,” I say quietly.

The rest of PPR has gathered outside the studio, and Kent is scrolling through a tablet. I have to focus anywhere but on him.

“I’m back with Shay Goldstein,” Dominic says when the RECORDING sign goes on, and woof, the nostalgia hits me with such force that I have to slide into a chair.

“Hi.” I wave, though I know no one can see me.

Dominic sits down next to me. “So I’ve kind of been spilling my feelings here for the past two and a half hours.”

“I’ve heard.” I force a laugh. “I don’t know why I’m laughing, actually.”

“It’s kind of funny,” he concedes. “We were able to lie that we were exes because we argued so much. Then we fell for each other. And then we hid it from ourselves for a while, and when we finally admitted it to each other, we had to hide it from the audience. But then everything blew up, and now . . . now I don’t know what we are.”

“When you went silent onstage in Austin, and then when you disappeared afterward . . .” I shake my head, still unable to block out that humiliation. “I’d never felt like that before. ‘Embarrassed’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’ve spent the past month trying to figure out if I’m supposed to work in radio, but being back here . . . I might be done with the station, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped fucking loving it.”