First-Time Caller (Heartstrings, #1)

by B.K. Borison

If my parents are the picture of joy, then I am the portrait of existential dread. I used to love talking to people. Hearing their stories and sharing mine. It made me feel connected.

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.

Ouchie, attacked

“I host a radio show,” Aiden says calmly. “Maya called in to ask for dating advice.” My hand clenches around the phone. “Dating advice? She’s twelve.” “She didn’t call for herself. She called for you.” He makes a small huff of amusement. “My name is Aiden Valentine and you’re live with Heartstrings, Baltimore’s romance hotline.”

Maya told me a lot of things. Her mom’s name. The preferred brand of wine her mom drinks when she sits alone on the couch, binge-watching Deadliest Catch. The way she cries if some of the crabs get stuck in the pot. I know a lot about Lucie.

I don’t want to try. All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at?

“When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them.

“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.

And I think I’ve just figured out—I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch. That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else.

✨ow✨

I wish there was a guidebook for this. An instruction manual that could tell me how to take myself apart and put everything back together so I’m good as new. I wish I knew how to make sense of my pieces.

might not be someone out there for me to fit into the life I’ve made for myself, that maybe I want too much, that I’m being too whimsical and naive, that it’s too late for me—I haven’t wanted to talk about that with anyone.

Lucie, my brain supplies instantly. Lucie and her honey voice. I’ve been hearing the ghost of her laugh since she hung up with me seven days ago. I blame sleep deprivation and the string of bad callers we’ve had since, not a single person as compelling or as honest as Lucie was.

“You got pregnant the first time you ever had sex.” She flicks up another finger. “You rarely date, and when you do, you somehow manage to find the worst men in the universe.” She wiggles a third finger. “And when your daughter tries to play wingman, your interview goes viral and the entire world decides to weigh in on your love life. Did I miss anything?”

“I bet that would be a happily ever after for you. Lube.” “I doubt it.” “They make warming lube. Lube that tastes like piña coladas.” “Please stop saying lube.”

“You’ve been doing so well. Your dad tells me you’ve gone virile.” I choke on nothing. “I’ve gone, what?”

“With a root canal?” she asks, distracted. I laugh. “I don’t think you want me in your mouth.” That statement earns her full attention. She turns to look at me slowly, arching one dark eyebrow. Her eyes are a pale green beneath her bangs. “I mean—I don’t—I don’t have any dental qualifications. To be in your mouth.” Christ. How did it get worse? I’ve somehow managed to…make it worse.

Aiden looks like a brooding Disney prince in a Carhartt hoodie. One who’s been shoved around a little bit, maybe.

And a part of me, a teeny-tiny sliver of myself, is still waiting. To bump into someone on the street or pick up the wrong coffee order. For the right person at the right time in exactly the right place. To not have to try so damn hard at any of it. It’s the romantic in me that Aiden laughed at. And maybe it’s childish or naive or whatever, but it’s me. I’m allowed to want soft, special things.

“What if they wanted you to wave a flag? Sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’?” “Is this a fantasy of yours, Aiden Valentine?” “No.” Then I think about Lucie in a bonnet, and I walk that statement back mentally.

“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 back down at her half-empty coffee mug. “That’s the sort of date I’d want.”

I curl away to avoid the flick to my arm and keep the other stuff to myself. How her eyes are the prettiest green I’ve ever seen. How the freckles across her nose are a match for the ones dusted over her shoulder—the ones I keep getting a glimpse of every time the collar of her sweater slips. How her laugh is husky and warm and makes her whole body come alive. That it starts somewhere in her belly and twirls ribbons around her, making her fucking glow. I’m noticing things I shouldn’t be noticing and I’m not as mad about it as I should

“I think books are sexy,” she says very seriously. “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.”

I want to find a date. I want someone to ease the ache of loneliness pressing down on my chest. I want a connection with someone that feels real,

“Who the fuck made you cry?” I snap.

“You can’t shove me back in the booth,” I say, on the verge of losing my fucking mind. I look over at Lucie again. She’s staring at the floor, arms curled around herself, eyes puffy. It’s breaking my heart. I clench my jaw and look back to Maggie. “Not until I know Lucie is okay.”

He made me feel stupid. That’s all.” I’m going to kill that slimy piece of shit. “Maggie,” I say slowly, my voice calm despite the rage twisting in my gut. “Don’t you have some sort of database for the people who text that phone?” Grayson looks how I feel, his shoulders hunched to his ears and his mouth twisted in a frown. “An address, perhaps?” “I have an ice pick in my car,” Hughie adds from his spot by the door. Maggie presses her hand to her chest. “Jesus Christ, Hughie.”

“Grayson is something,” he finally says. “I can see where Maya inherited her…” He hesitates and I fill in the blank. “Scheming?” Aiden scratches at his jaw. “I was going to say showmanship, but yeah. Let’s go with that.”

“Do you think I’ll find someone?” I voice the question that’s been banging around in my heart for the past decade. “Do you think I’ll get my magic?”

“Nah, Lucie.” In my dream, he brushes a kiss against my forehead. “I think you’re the magic.”

Aiden Valentine: All right, Baltimore. We have a guest in the booth tonight, his name is— Grayson Harris: Listen up, lizards. There’s a new daddy in town.

“Ah, Lucie.” Aiden smiles, his fingers fanning out wide against my back. “I’d know you anywhere.”

I could tell in the morning, with his red-rimmed eyes and his drawn face. The way he’d look at my mom when he thought no one was looking at him. Like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. Like he wouldn’t survive it if she didn’t.

“I think you’re a closet romantic,” she tells me. “Decent human being,” I correct. “Secret swoony boy,” Lucie parrots back.

“You can ignore me.” “It’s impossible to ignore you,” I murmur. “What was that?” I shake my head. “Nothing.”

I’m the clown. Lucie is as off-limits as it gets. She’s looking for romance. Happily ever after. Not a beleaguered radio show host with an attitude problem.

I need to pretend my eyes don’t catch on Lucie every time she enters a room. I think I have a crush, and that’s the last thing I fucking need.

I stand there in the middle of the bar and stare at her. Coincidentally, I realize I’m fucked. Because it would be one thing if I only enjoyed spending time with Lucie because of how her legs stretch for miles beneath the flimsy material of her skirt, or how her nose scrunches when she laughs, or how she looks at anything and everything with unflagging optimism. But it’s all of those things and a bunch of other stuff too. How smart she is. How sharp. How generous and open and lovely and kind. I like all of those things and no single part rises above or sinks below the rest.

“You’re bossy.” “I certainly can be,” I tell her.

I know I’m an affectionate drunk. Grayson calls me a cuddle monster. I think it’s my body trying to make up for the lack of touch I secretly crave.

“Good to know you’ve been thinking about it, though,” he says, his hand settling at the back of his neck. “Aiden,” I admonish. What for, I don’t know. Because he’s right. I have thought about it. Occasionally. Once or twice. Seven times, tops.

“Don’t flirt with me,” I tell him. Whatever guards Aiden usually holds around himself are softened in the early morning light spilling through the stained-glass windows at the front of my house. He watches me in amusement. “I’ve been flirting with you.” “Since when?” “Since I made a vague innuendo about oral surgery, give or take a couple of hours.”

You stop twisting your hair back in the booth and I—” “Twisting my hair?” I interrupt. “You mean braiding it?” He nods. “Yeah. Stop braiding your hair in the booth and I’ll stop flirting with you.” “Aiden, that’s not—” I take a second to collect myself. “That’s not flirting. That’s—I’m just pulling my hair back.”

“You look comfortable. It’s cute.” I scowl. “I’m not cute.” “You’re very cute.”

He blows out a breath and steps backward, the thread looped between us pulled tight. “I’m leaving now.” “I’ve heard rumors about that,” I say lightly, crossing my arms over my chest. He cracks a smile.

I clear my throat and try to do something with my face that doesn’t say, I dream about you naked now.

Yes, I’m fine. Except for the feelings I’m not supposed to be feeling and the dreams I’m not supposed to be dreaming and the excuses I’m not supposed to be making. I like Lucie. I like her so much it feels like there’s a band around my chest, constricting my breathing when she’s not around. I’m entertaining possibilities and that’s not—I need to not do that.

“You said you’d be unbiased.” “Unbiased,” he agrees. “Not stupid.”

They know. All of them know. The entire city of Baltimore has been listening to me develop an unrequited crush.

Aiden Valentine: I hope she has a good time. Jackson Clark: You’ve said that, like, sixty-seven times tonight. Aiden Valentine: Well. I hope she’s having a good time. Jackson Clark: More energy, bud. More enthusiasm.

The couch in her living room was lumpy and too small, but it’s the best sleep I’ve had in my fucking life.

“You know the night I got stood up? When I was leaving the restaurant, I actually ran into someone on the street.” “Yeah?” I ask, like I didn’t sprint over to Duck Duck Goose the second she texted me.