More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I’d been too shocked at his language to come up with an appropriate excuse.
“What else would this conversation be about?” “I don’t know.” I poke at my baked good. “I thought you wanted to get breakfast. Catch up. Do things that friends do.” “It’s convenient how you remember we’re friends when you’re trying to wiggle out of something.” “I’m not wiggling,” I mutter, petulant. “You’re absolutely wiggling.
And what I wanted was a cruffin, but they sold out an hour ago.” There’s a heavy pause. An implication that if we had met at seven thirty like he suggested, he would happily be eating his baked good of choice. I clear my throat and tear my croissant in half. “Apologies for your lost cruffin.” “Accepted.” Jackson snatches the discarded half of my croissant.
I dunk my croissant into my coffee. Some of it sloshes over the edge of my chipped mug to the weathered tabletop. I feel more emotionally connected to that spilled coffee than to any of the people who have called in to the radio station in the last three months.
Maggie has been waiting for a call from the FCC. The only reason she thinks we might get away with it is because it was after ten p.m. And I interrupted halfway through with an emergency weather update.” Interrupted is a polite way to describe how he burst into the booth, ripped the microphone from in front of me, and started talking about low-pressure systems. I rub my hand over my jaw. “You said there were storms rolling in. There weren’t any storms.” “Because I lied,” he whisper-yells. “You made me lie about the weather, Aiden.”
It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging. I don’t know how to be a hopeful person anymore. It’s easier not to be.
The cupid with the demonic eyes glares at me, swinging back and forth wildly. It’s bow and arrow points right between my eyebrows. Poetic.
The guy who snorted when Maggie suggested he do a bit on horoscopes?” “Well, horoscopes are ridiculous.” Jackson rolls his eyes. “Typical Taurus.”
Aiden Valentine: Flowers die. Everything dies. Caller: I thought this was a romance hotline.
I feel like we’re at the climax of one of those wildly violent movies my dad always had on when I was a kid. The villain has a cute, fluffy dog dangling off the edge of a skyscraper. I don’t know if I’m the villain or the dog.
My eye twitches. I’m the villain. I am definitely the villain and this is my origin story.
“My name is Aiden Valentine and you’re live with Heartstrings, Baltimore’s romance hotline.”
“All right, Baltimore. Stick with me. We’ll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.” “We will possibly be back after these messages from his sponsors,” Lucie tacks on, sounding grumpy but resigned. “One of us will absolutely be back after these messages from our sponsors.”
Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just…happens? I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or…or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want…I want the magic.”
“When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.
I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.”
“I want goose bumps. I want to be wanted. All this time and I—I haven’t given up. I guess I’m just waiting for it to find me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been having trouble with dating? Me”—he rocks me back and forth again—“the platonic love of your life.”
I also don’t usually have my love life a topic of regional conversation, but I suppose we’re all trying new things today.
“Wouldn’t have killed you to mention the shop!” Dan yells from somewhere near his office.
Smug bastard is riding the high of chocolate fudge icing.
“Was it when I threw the mug? I didn’t use any profanity this week.”
The woman who once hurled an orange down the hallway at me when I told her she had shitty taste in ballpoint pens gives me a wide and toothy grin, her eyes crinkled in delight. “Fuck,” I whisper. “You’re terrifying.” She chuckles. “I know.”
Caller: I just think I’m a good candidate, is all I’m saying. Aiden Valentine: For what? Caller: Dating Lucie. Aiden Valentine: [sighs] Aiden Valentine: You and the rest of Baltimore. Caller: She sounded hot on the phone, you know? Aiden Valentine: That doesn’t explain why you think you’re a good candidate. Caller: Some women say I have a magical di— [dial tone]
“No. I don’t know how much you think radio hosts make, but it’s not enough to bribe someone.”
“Judas,” I whisper at him.
“You’ve been carrying a big hurt around in your heart and I didn’t notice.” I soften. “I don’t think I knew about the big hurt in my heart,” I tell him quietly. “Not until I started talking.”
I drag her chair toward me until we’re pressed together shoulder to wrist, her outer thigh tucked tight to mine beneath the desk. Her chin tips up as she stares at me with a dumbfounded look, her bangs in her face. “Did you just manhandle me?” “I manhandled the chair,” I tell her.
“Is this a fantasy of yours, Aiden Valentine?”
“I like that. Thinking that I’m worth paying attention to. Something ordinary made extraordinary by the person you’re sharing it with.”
She looks at Maya. “Do you find anyone sexy yet, or is that a thirteen-year-old thing?”
“No one at school has quite lived up to Aragorn yet.” God, I love this kid. I lean over and press a smacking kiss to her temple. “I hate to break it to you, kid, but no one ever will.” Patty holds up a fist in solidarity as she drifts back to the coffee machine. “The truth,” she yells over her shoulder. Maya’s shoulders slump. “That’s a bummer.”
Twenty-nine years and the closest I’ve come to romantic love is the way I feel about the armchair in the romance section at Patty’s.
“We listen to your show every night. We even have a text chain about it.” That’s a big deal. It took them roughly three years to get the hang of group messages.
All three of them frown. Harvey props his hands on his hips. “That’s insulting, Lu. I’m insulted.” “I’m also insulted,” Dan adds. Angelo narrows his eyes. “Consider the three of us thoroughly insulted.”
“We won’t take your car here. I can refer you to another shop in the city, but just so you know, what you’re doing is an insult to historic vehicles and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself.”
“I have an ice pick in my car,” Hughie adds from his spot by the door.
Underwhelmed and dissatisfied. Print it on my tombstone.
“Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.”
“Ah, Lucie.” Aiden smiles, his fingers fanning out wide against my back. “I’d know you anywhere.”
“It’s an interesting choice,” she says as I hand her a beer. “To only feature ‘Thong Song.’ ”
I slap our hands together again. “Stop giving me high fives.” “Can’t help it,” I mumble.
“Lucie,” I whisper back. “Don’t make me publicly dance to ‘Thong Song.’ ”
my nerves settle when Oliver laughs so hard he snorts, some of his fancy wine ending up on his fancy shirt.
“Put that away,”
“Because you said it was your favorite,” I admit. “And I want your favorite to be my favorite.”
An unopened box on the bottom shelf of my medicine cabinet that I bought with a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream at the corner bodega on a whim two days ago.
My hands squeeze. “I’m about to be really rude, to be honest.” She tears the wrapper with her teeth and rolls the condom over me.
“This doesn’t feel rude at all,” she whispers into my ear.
moving through my house like the Ghost of Satisfied Sexual Adventures Past. The Ghost of Horny Present? I don’t know.
