The Ex Talk

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  “Shay—I wasn’t—I mean,” she says, trying to backtrack. “Shit. I’m sorry. I . . . went a little too far. You know I’ve hated corporate recruiting. And I’ve been sick of Seattle for a while.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  Ameena stares down at her drink, fiddling with the straw. “Look. Maybe you’re happy here, doing the same thing you’ve always done. Working the same place you’ve worked since college. But I always wanted to get out. Right after college—” She breaks off, as though realizing she was about to say something she didn’t want to.

  “Ameena,” TJ says quietly, covering his hand with hers. “Are you sure you—”

  She gives him a half smile, as though reassuring him that she’ll be okay after she drops whatever bomb she’s about to drop, which puts me on edge. “I’m sure.” She turns back to me. “Right out of college, I had a job offer from an environmental group in New York.”

  This is news to me. “You . . . what?”

  “Yeah.” She grimaces, maybe already regretting spilling this. “But I turned it down. You were still struggling with—with everything, and I felt awful about the idea of leaving you.”

  Her words drop like bricks to the floor of the bar.

  “I—I didn’t make you stay,” I say, unable to process what she’s saying. “I had no idea. If you’d told me, I would have encouraged you to take it!”

  The fact that she talked about this with TJ, that the two of them decided it was wise to keep this from me, at least until now—that rattles me. And of course he knows. TJ’s her number one. That’s what happens when you find that person. They’re moving to Virginia together, leaving me behind. And this time, she doesn’t have to worry about me holding her back.

  “Maybe you would have, but I’m still not sure I’d have taken it.”

  The alcohol burns going down my throat. “I’m sorry you pitied me so much that I kept you from your dream job.”

  My dad had been gone for four years at that point. I wasn’t still a mess. I wasn’t. I’d just started at Pacific Public Radio. That had made me happy.

  Hadn’t it?

  “You only had me,” Ameena says. “You only had me, and I felt . . . I don’t know, tethered to you.”

  Tethered. The word lands as harshly across TJ’s face as it does on my heart.

  “You felt tethered to me?”

  “No no no. Terrible word choice. Not tethered, I just—”

  I don’t let her finish. “I didn’t just have you,” I fire back. The tech bros at the next table are watching us, apparently more interested in this than their Tesla. “I had my mom. I had my job.” I hope by the time the words leave my lips that they’ll sound less pathetic, less plastic, but nope. They do not.

  “Right, your job. The one that consumes you, that makes you late for everything, that’s become your whole freaking personality.”

  “Ameena,” TJ starts, as though sensing she’s going too far. But her expression is intense in a way I haven’t seen before, brows drawn, jaw set. Ameena and I don’t yell. We don’t fight.

  Maybe we’ve been saving up for this one.

  “No, she needs to hear this. It’s for her own good.” Her features soften, but her words remain sharp. “I love you. I do. But have you ever thought that maybe your dad is holding you back? That you’re still at PPR to live out some dream your dad wanted, but you’ve never stopped to think about whether you still want it? You’re lying to yourself, Shay,” she continues. “You’re lying to your listeners about Dominic, and you’re lying to yourself. You’re telling yourself whatever’s happening with him isn’t real so nothing has to change.”

  But I want things to change. I think it, but I can’t bring myself to say it. That was why I took this hosting job, wasn’t it?

  “As much as I’d like to continue publicly fighting in this hipster bar that represents everything wrong with Seattle,” I say, grabbing my bag, “I’m going to go.”

  “Shay, wait,” TJ says, but it’s no use. I’m already halfway to the door.

  Fortunately, I make it outside before the tears start to fall, and I swipe them away as fast as I can, not wanting to be the woman crying in public.

  And even though I’m not supposed to, even though it probably defies the definition of casual, I text Dominic on my way back to my car.

  Can you come over? I really need to talk to someone.

  It’s a relief when his reply appears a few moments later.

  I’ll be right there.

  26

  “You didn’t have to bring anything,” I say when Dominic arrives, weekend casual in a black T-shirt and faded jeans, holding a plastic takeout bag. My stomach growls, reminding me I left Ameena’s dinner without eating anything.

  He puts on a grimace. “Shit, this is awkward. It’s not for you.”

  I pull him inside, and Steve paws at his ankles until Dominic bends down to scratch behind his ears.

  “I didn’t know if you’d eaten dinner,” he says, passing me the bag, “but I figured at the very least, you could have the leftovers tomorrow morning. Or afternoon, if you’re someone who doesn’t think leftovers taste better cold at ten a.m. on a Sunday.”

  “Wait. You are?”

  “Yeah, because I’m not a monster who wants to obliterate the flavor of restaurant food with a microwave.”

  “Cold pizza, sure. But you’re telling me you would willingly eat, like, cold lasagna? Or a cold plate of enchiladas?”

  “I would, and I have.”

  I open up the bag. “Is this Thai? From Bangkok Bistro? All is forgiven.”

  “You mentioned a couple weeks ago that it was your favorite takeout,” he says with a shrug, like it isn’t a big deal.

  He brought food for me. For us. It’s sweet, maybe too sweet for whatever this fuck buddies situation is. Then again, maybe my desperate text already blurred that line. Right now, I’m too hungry and emotional to care.

  We head into the kitchen, and I get us plates and silverware while he unpacks chicken pad thai and green curry and tom yum soup.

  “I could bathe in this soup,” I say. “Thank you for doing this. I’m starving.”

  He grazes my arm with his fingertips as I stack plates near the takeout containers. “It’s no problem.”

  Since the food is still hot, I give Dominic a quick tour of my house, pointing out all the cozy spots Steve has claimed as his own. Dominic leans against the doorway of my bedroom while I show him the walls I finally decided to paint mint last weekend, looking so natural there that I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” I ask, steering him back to the kitchen. “Water, beer, wine? I’m afraid I don’t have any Charles Shaw. A little too classy for my tastes.”

  He offers a half smile in response, but he appears unsettled. “Water’s fine,” he says. “And this is a great house. You should be proud of it. You own a house in Seattle, and you’re not even thirty. The housing market is—”

  “I am proud,” I say, cutting him off before he treads too close to any of Ameena’s talking points. As I pour him a glass of water, I realize that it’s true: I’m proud of this place I’ve managed to make my own.

  We carry our plates into the living room, where I collapse onto the couch next to him. His presence makes me feel a little less heavy than I did with Ameena. It’s too easy to kick off my shoes and cross my legs so my knees are touching his. And I wonder if it’s easy for him to place a hand on my knee, his thumb brushing back and forth. I wonder if he even knows how soothing that is.

  “Is Steve okay?” he asks. He gestures with his fork to where Steve is standing on the other side of the living room, locked in a staring contest with the wall.

  I stop myself from inhaling my soup. “Oh. That. He’s been doing this thing where he, like, glitches. That’s the only way I can thi
nk to describe it. His leg gets stuck in midscratch and he stares out into empty space for a while. Or he goes into the bathroom and stares at the wall for ten minutes. It’s absurd.”

  “Weird little dog.”

  “Perfect weird little dog,” I correct, and then call Steve over. He snaps out of his trance and jumps onto the couch between us, practically pushing me out of the way to get himself some of Dominic’s superior head scratches. Disloyal weird little dog.

  “Are you okay?” Dominic asks me between scratches. Now Steve is in a new kind of trance. “We can talk, if you want. Your text seemed a bit . . .”

  “Panicky?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  I take a long sip of water before setting it down on the coffee table. “You know how some schools do those senior superlatives? Biggest flirt, best dressed, and all that?”

  Dominic sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “I was, uh, voted most likely to succeed.”

  I whack him with a pillow. “Oh my god, of course you were. Well. So I told you my dad died senior year of high school. And unofficially, but officially enough for me to know everyone was talking about it, I became the Girl Whose Dad Died Senior Year. That’s how everyone from high school remembers me, with that sad story. I know I’m not the only person who’s ever lost a parent, but it feels like I’ve never been able to shake that label.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t pretend to know what that’s like. But why is this coming up now? What happened?”

  I explain what was supposed to be Ameena’s celebration dinner, and he sucks in a long, slow breath.

  “She can’t blame you for that,” he says. “You know that, right?”

  “Logically, yes. But . . .” I take a breath, uttering what I’ve been worried about since Ameena brought it up, or quite possibly for longer than I’d like to admit. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m too close to radio. In case you haven’t realized, it’s kind of my whole life.” It doesn’t feel like work, though, when I’m prepping for our grief show, scheduled for two Thursdays from now.

  He’s quiet for a moment. “You love hosting, though. And you’re good at it.”

  “You’re already sleeping with me. No need to butter me up.”

  “I wasn’t buttering. You really are. You have this great way of thinking on your feet, and you’re funny in this effortless way, and you’re just—you’re fun to listen to.”

  I want to bask in those compliments, but I’m stuck back at the bar with Ameena and TJ. “I do love being on the air. It’s not so much hosting as it is the fact that I’ve had the same job since I graduated from college. Is that even normal?”

  “If you find the right fit, sure.” He stares at me hard. “I’ll be your ex as long as you want me to be. I know we said six months, but I’m fully in this with you. I hope you know that.”

  “I—I didn’t,” I say. The relief is warm and immediate. “But thank you. I guess I just thought I’d have everything figured out by now. I’m almost thirty, and I don’t know if I feel any closer than when I was twenty-one or even twenty-five. There’s so much pressure to have all of this shit figured out, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I wanted the kind of marriage my parents had, and I maybe wanted a family, but that’s not something I can even wrap my mind around yet. I can only cook, like, two things competently. Most of what I eat comes from meal kits. I have a gym membership, but I never go to the gym. I work most weekends. Sometimes I feel like I’m playing at being an adult, like I’m constantly looking around, waiting for a real adult to tell me what to do if my garbage disposal starts making a weird sound or if I should be putting more money in my Roth IRA. I am just . . . I feel like a complete mess.” I laugh in spite of myself, even as tears sting behind my eyes.

  I shove up my glasses and wipe at my face, trying not to let him see. Crying in front of the guy you’re casually dating—probably also not allowed. But of course he sees, and when he pulls me close on the couch, I let him.

  “I think you’re incredible,” he says. “You’ve intimidated me ever since I started at PPR.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious.” His fingers weave through my hair, and I realize with a tightening of my heart that he’s softly untangling it. “You were so sure of yourself, spoke the language of radio so fluently, made it seem like I was an idiot for not getting it.”

  “Sorry about that,” I say, cringing.

  “I was an idiot, though,” he says. “There was plenty I didn’t know, and yet I came in with an ego just because I had some advanced degree. And besides, you’re keeping a ten-pound dog alive. I’d say that’s some measure of success. I barely remember to water my plants, and they only need to be watered once a week.”

  “Seven pounds. He has big dog energy, though.”

  He just laughs and holds me tighter, his fingers massaging my scalp. It’s cruel how good it feels—because of course it’s fleeting. I don’t know our expiration date, but sometime soon, he will no longer be mine. He’s barely mine now.

  “I thought I had things figured out, too,” he says. “Grad school, the long-term girlfriend. I thought we’d move somewhere together, that she’d be in med school and I’d be doing some noble reporting, bringing down an evil corporation, and I’d propose and we’d have the big expensive wedding.”

  “Do you wish you had that?” I ask.

  He hesitates only a moment before responding. “No. I don’t. For the first few months afterward, yes, absolutely. But it shaped me. I don’t know if I’d have finished growing up without it, without knowing that kind of heartbreak. And now it’s just something I carry with me, the same way you carry your dad.”

  I reach up a hand to stroke his cheek. The stubble is back—I missed it. He doesn’t have all the answers because no one could, but at least he makes everything feel lighter.

  I was convinced casual would be safe because he’s so unlike anyone I dated in the past, guys who seemed to have their lives figured out. It’s absurd that this guy who is supposed to be my ex could have been a great boyfriend. I thought I liked the danger of being with him, this little secret we’ve been keeping from the office for two weeks, but I might like this more.

  I need to stop thinking like that.

  “I had lunch with an old friend today, this guy Eddie,” Dominic says suddenly. “We were the only two Korean kids in our sixth-grade class, and I thought that bonded us forever, but we lost touch after high school. He’s working at some ultra-hip startup and will probably be a millionaire as soon as they get bought. He just broke up with his girlfriend, and he needed to talk to someone, too. And it was great. We might even do it again.”

  “You beat me. I’ve been meaning to ask Ruthie if she wants to grab drinks after work sometime, but I guess I’ve had . . . other things on my mind.”

  He nods, then kisses me, and I manage to yawn right in the middle of it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, covering my mouth. “I promise, making out with you isn’t boring.” I check the time on my phone—almost midnight. I didn’t realize we’d been talking for that long.

  He gestures toward the door. “Should I . . . ?”

  “No,” I say, aware I’d be breaking the rules of our arrangement but not caring. “I’d hate for you to drive back this late. Maybe you could . . . stay the night?”

  “You’re sure?” The weight of his gaze pins me to the couch.

  “You may have to fight Steve for a spot on the bed, but yes. If you want to.”

  “I’d like that,” he says. Apparently he doesn’t care, either, that we said no sleepovers.

  I have Orcas flashbacks as I hand him a spare toothbrush. Nothing I own will fit his broad frame, so he folds his clothes neatly before placing them on top of my dresser and gets in bed next to me in just his boxers.

  “I’m really tired,” I say, turning to face him. The wearines
s drags me down. Maybe I really am getting old. “It’s okay if you want to leave.”

  “You think I’m going to leave because we’re not having sex tonight?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  He looks disturbed by this. “We could be listening to Kent’s old highlight reels, and I’d still want to be here with you,” he says. “I’m here because of you.”

  But the worries pound against the walls of my brain. Now that we’ve done the casual thing, he probably wants to explore some more. It makes me a little ill, the idea of Dominic exploring other women.

  I think back to what Ameena said, about clinging to my job and my comforts so nothing has to change. That’s not true. At this point, I feel absolutely desperate for change. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have adopted Steve or started hosting or hooking up with Dominic. Keeping this casual—I’m protecting the show, yes, but more than that, I’m protecting myself.

  “This might sound ridiculous, but . . . do you want to meet my family?” Dominic asks into the almost dark. My bedside lamp is still on, and I like the way the shadows hang on his face.

  “What?”

  “They’ve been a little worried about me. On account of the whole not-having-friends thing. So they asked if I wanted to invite my cohost over for dinner.”

  “But they can’t know that we’re . . .”

  “No. They can’t.”

  Bad idea. Bad idea. And yet I can’t stop myself when an agreement tumbles out.

  “Sure,” I say. “I can’t say I’m not curious about how all of this came about.” I gesture down the length of his body, and he smirks, pouncing on me and pressing me deep into the mattress.

  All we do is kiss, pausing every so often to laugh or talk or marvel at how excellent Steve is at managing to push both of us off the bed to make room for himself. I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow, but I don’t care. Maybe I’m a masochist, liking him here in my bed and knowing we cannot be more than this. That even this is stretching the limits of what we are, and it’s only a matter of time before we snap.