The Ex Talk

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  Whoops, FCC.

  That’s gonna cost the station.

  I find I don’t care one bit.

  “And you’re fucking good at it,” he says, and I lift my eyebrows at that. He’s the one who still works here, not me.

  “I’ve been here since college,” I say, speaking more to our audience than to him. “And so to have my dream job, to be onstage, and then to see my journalism career end so quickly . . . I wasn’t ready for it.”

  “Your journalism career isn’t over,” he says. “Not if you don’t want it to be.”

  “And I know that,” I say, because deep down, I believe him. “I think what’s been hurting the most is that after everything went to shit, you kept working here. You still had a job, a place here, but I didn’t. That’s what I can’t get past.”

  He nods, letting this sink in. “I wanted to explain. I’ve needed to explain, and I don’t blame you for not responding to my texts because I probably wouldn’t have responded to them, either.” He inches his chair closer to me, his shoe tapping mine, and it reminds me of that late night we spent at the station, creating a history for us. It was one of the first times I realized I might have feelings for him, though I was hell-bent on denying them.

  “I’m not the best in front of big groups of people. I never have been. Doing the show with you in here, that was fine, but I had the worst stage fright of my life in Austin. And that’s only a partial excuse, I realize that. You were going through shit onstage, too. You were being put through the wringer just as much as I was. But it’s the truth. Anxiety made me freeze up, and somewhere deep in that thought spiral, I worried that whatever I said would destroy my journalism career. For the longest time, I wanted to be a serious reporter, and somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that. Except when I came back to work, everything felt wrong. It killed me to accept that job, to keep coming into work every day without you here. Any marginal amount of career success I have feels lackluster if the rest of my life is off-kilter. I embarrassed you, and I’m so sorry about that. If I could go back, I’d stand behind you one hundred percent. No doubt about that.”

  He takes a breath before continuing, and I have to hold a hand to my chest again to still my thumping heart. “My first day back at work, I wanted to quit. But I knew we had a pledge drive coming up, and so I thought this might be my last chance.”

  “Your last chance for what, exactly?”

  A chat pops up on the computer screen next to us. DONATIONS GOING WILD, KEEP GOING! But we’re not doing it for them.

  Dominic’s familiar half smile curves his lips. I want to feel that half smile pressed against my neck, my throat. I want to forgive him. “You know what I said on the air,” he says.

  “Say it to me.” I shift forward so our knees are touching. “Tell me like I’m the only person here. Like there aren’t hundreds of people listening.”

  “Thousands,” he whispers, and I can’t help smiling at that. “I want to try this again. No lies, no pretending. Everything completely out in the open.”

  His fingers graze mine.

  “I have this history of telling people I love them and not hearing it back,” I say. “It’s a problem, maybe—I jump too quickly. But . . . I want to be brave this time.”

  “I do, too,” he says, and then with one swift motion, he reaches forward and unplugs both our pairs of headphones, effectively taking us off the air.

  Outside the studio, our coworkers throw their arms in the air and bang fists against the glass, but no one rushes inside.

  “I love you,” he says only to me, a hand cupping my cheek, thumb tracing along my jaw. “I’m in love with you, Shay.”

  “Dominic.” We’re breathing in time with each other now, as steady as my mother’s metronome. “I love you. I love you so much. I love your radio voice and your cast-iron skillets and the way you wrapped my dog in a T-shirt when he was scared, and I even love your Beanie Baby collection.”

  He plugs his headphones back in with one hand, still holding on to me with the other. “I fucking quit, by the way,” he says.

  And then, because I’m feeling powerful: “Fuck you, Kent.” I say it into the mic, crisp and clear, relishing the strength in my voice. “Enjoy your fucking fines!” Then I rip out the cord.

  “I love you,” I say again to Dominic, unable to stop. I grab the collar of his shirt and pull him close as his hands slide into my hair. “I love you, I love you, I—”

  His mouth meets mine, warm and sweet and certain. My past and my future—because he has always felt like home.

  And even though we’re in a soundproof both, I swear I hear people cheering.

  Epilogue

  “You can take away my EKTORP and my MALM, but you can’t take away my VITTSJÖ,” Dominic says, wrapping a protective arm around the bookshelf in his living room.

  “It doesn’t match any of my furniture!”

  “No no no,” he says. “The beauty of IKEA’s minimalist designs is that they go with everything.”

  I take a step back, assessing it, and relent. “I guess we could put it in our guest room.” It might actually look nice in there. That room could use some sprucing up.

  Dominic brightens, that lovely smile spreading across his face. He’s been doing that a lot since I asked him to move in a couple weeks ago. “Our,” he says, and it might be my new favorite word. “I like that a lot.”

  It takes us a few hours to load everything into the U-Haul, with a break for some Thai takeout we eat on the floor after realizing we maybe shouldn’t have packed up all the chairs first.

  “Ready to say goodbye to this place?” I ask as we stand in the doorway, giving it one last look. The walls are bare, everything either packed in the truck or donated to Goodwill.

  “Truthfully? I’ve been ready since I moved in.” He hooks his arm around my shoulders, drops a kiss on the top of my head. “But I’m really glad this is the reason it’s happening now.”

  In the truck, Dominic flips through the radio presets, panic flashing in his eyes when one of them turns out to be 88.3 FM. I haven’t been able to listen to PPR since I stormed the offices during their pledge drive three months ago. Not yet. It helps that Kent was let go, but there are still too many grim memories attached to it.

  So I surprise both of us when I say, “Leave it,” before he changes the station.

  “You sure?”

  I swallow around a lump in my throat and nod. It’s the top of the hour, so we listen to an NPR newsbreak. And damn if those NPR voices aren’t still the most soothing journalistic lullaby.

  A few seconds into a local story from Paul Wagner about Seattle’s housing market, I bail. “That’s about all I can handle for today,” I say, switching the station to Jumpin’ Jazz with Paloma Powers. Apparently I like jazz now. Human beings really are capable of change.

  Steve is waiting to greet us, pawing at our legs until he’s received a sufficient amount of pets. Then I give him a new chew toy to keep him occupied while we unload boxes of Dominic’s clothes, toiletries, and cookware.

  “How did you manage to sneak this in?” I ask, holding up a collectible glass box with a Beanie Baby inside. A white bear with a heart on its chest.

  “We hold on to Valentino for a few more years, and we’ve got it made.” Dominic taps the box. “This guy’s gonna put our kids through college. I can feel it.”

  After we’ve emptied the truck, I stand back and take a look at my living room—our living room. We have plenty of rearranging to keep us busy for the next few days, but I don’t hate the moving-day messiness. We swapped my TV for his larger one, draped a fringed blanket of his across the couch. One of Ameena’s Blush ’n Brush landscapes is hanging in the hallway next to a framed photo of Dominic and me hiking on Orcas Island. Even though we’ve taken plenty of photos since then and we weren’t officially together in that shot, it’s still my favo
rite one of us.

  The guest room, too, is looking much less sad. Along with the VITTSJÖ bookshelf, we added a vintage lamp from his parents’ antique shop, and we have plans to paint the whole house together once we’re a bit more settled. We might host Ameena and TJ or Dominic’s friends from college, many of whom he’s rekindled relationships with, sometime soon. There’s a novelty: guests for the guest room.

  This house used to feel like some adulthood status symbol. Maybe I didn’t have the rest of my life figured out, but I had these walls and windows, these objects without memory. That was all they were: things I hadn’t attached meaning to yet. It became a home long before Dominic and I decided to move in together, and Steve helped, but more than anything, I think I just needed time to learn to love it on my own terms. I grew into that love, into this place, and I can’t believe I wanted to rush it.

  We’re so wiped that we’re in bed by nine o’clock. Our new larger dresser will arrive next week, but for now I like the way Dominic’s clothes live next to mine. All of this is new to me, and I tell him as much when we slide beneath the sheets.

  “It’s going to be good, though,” he says. “I can’t wait to learn all the weird things you do when you’re alone.”

  “They can’t be worse than you wearing a blanket as a cape and pretending to cast spells on Steve.”

  “That was one time! And I really thought you were still in the shower.”

  I snuggle closer, laughing into his shoulder. His arms come around me, a thumb stroking the space between my shoulder blades. It hasn’t sunk in that we get to fall asleep together like this every night, that I’ll wake up next to him every morning.

  “I love you in this house,” I say. “I’ve thought so since the first time you came over. I was too scared to say anything, but you just felt so right here. It was the worst, feeling all those things and not knowing if you were feeling them, too.”

  He grasps me tighter. “I was. I was feeling them so much that it killed me to leave. It killed me to leave every time.”

  Even now, hearing that does something to my heart. “Can you believe we hated each other a year ago?”

  “I think you mean a year ago, we were on our third or fourth date. I believe that was the one where I demonstrated some of my raw sexual energy.”

  “I might need a refresher,” I say, but he’s already rolling me on top of him, his hands on my hips, and together we discover maybe we weren’t that exhausted after all.

  * * *

  —

  The doorbell rings at ten thirty the next morning, while Dominic’s in the kitchen breaking in one of his new cast-iron skillets. A spinach and red pepper frittata. I’ve already canceled my meal delivery service.

  “Sorry I’m early, I was just so excited,” Ruthie says when I answer the door. She sniffs the air. “That smells amazing.”

  “Hey, Ruthie,” Dominic calls. “Help yourself.”

  The three of us settle in at the kitchen table, catching up. Ruthie’s working in public relations and loving it, which is a huge relief.

  “But I’m still not sure if it’s my forever job,” she says.

  I lift my glass of orange juice. “Join the club.”

  “You’re going to find something,” Dominic says with a squeeze of my shoulder. “It’s okay to want to wait for the right thing.”

  And I know he’s right. That’s what I’m doing: taking this time to explore in a way I’ve never done before.

  “You two seem to be nesting quite nicely.” Ruthie stands up, craning her neck to look down the hall. “But are you gonna make me beg to see it?”

  Dominic and I exchange a glance, his mouth slipping into a half smile. “Okay,” he says, and we lead Ruthie into the room that used to be my office. The one I used probably less frequently than the guest room.

  Her hand flies to her mouth. “Holy shit, it’s beautiful.”

  There are twin microphones at the desk, giant headphones connected to a brand-new recording system. Acoustic panels on the walls for soundproofing.

  Our own little studio.

  Dominic ducks out to grab a few glasses of water and the notes we’ve spent the past month working on. Ruthie makes herself comfortable in the chair closest to the computer.

  “Are we ready?” she asks.

  I take a deep breath, my gaze snagging on Dominic’s. The determination on his face makes me brave, and the warmth in his eyes makes me certain. I am. I’m ready because this has always been in my blood. Because for me, radio has never been about the hashtags or the rankings or the fame. It’s always been about the people.

  “Yes,” I say, and then I hit record.

  Relationship Goals, Episode 1

  Transcript

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: So I think we have to start with an apology.

  DOMINIC YUN: We’ve been doing a lot of apologizing lately. I think we’ve gotten pretty creative with it, yeah?

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: That’s true. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept another apology from someone unless it’s done on the air during a public radio pledge drive. It’s just not going to feel authentic.

  DOMINIC YUN: But in all honesty, we’re truly sorry to anyone who listened to The Ex Talk and thought we were together. We were part of the lie from the beginning, and we deeply apologize for that.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: The honest truth, since we’re all about honesty now, is that we kind of crashed and burned on public radio. And I realized I’d spent all my life on public radio, when our show had the most success as a podcast. Shout-out to our new distributor, Audiophile, who approached us with this idea for a new show. So this is Relationship Goals, and we’re going to focus on all kinds of interesting relationships, not just romantic ones. We’re going to try really hard to make it up to everyone who was a fan of the first show.

  DOMINIC YUN: In case you want a status update on our relationship, we’ve been together for real for three months, ever since that pledge drive.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: And it’s going well. Dominic actually moved in yesterday.

  DOMINIC YUN: It’s your typical coworkers turned enemies turned fake exes turned cohosts turned real romantic partners kind of love story.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: I know, I know, it’s a little overdone.

  DOMINIC YUN: And we can swear!

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Fuck yes we can! And we have a familiar name helping us behind the scenes. Ruthie, you want to say hi?

  RUTHIE LIAO: Hi, guys!

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Ruthie’s our fantastic producer, and you may remember her from both The Ex Talk and Puget Sounds, a local show she and I worked on back at Pacific Public Radio. She doesn’t like being on the radio, so—

  RUTHIE LIAO: Bye, guys!

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: We’re trying to view this podcast as more of a hobby than a job, which means, yes, I’m still job hunting. Storytelling was always what I loved most about radio, and I’m curious about exploring it in other mediums. I’ve been taking classes, doing research . . . you know, just trying to figure out what to do with my adult life.

  DOMINIC YUN: And I’ve been doing some work for a startup that’s building a new platform for nonprofit fundraising.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: He’s great at it.

  DOMINIC YUN: You are such a suck-up.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: A cute suck-up?

  DOMINIC YUN: Obviously.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Public radio will always have a place in my heart, but we’re both really excited about this new venture. We hope you stick with us.

  DOMINIC YUN: We’re not sure where it’ll go from here, but I think it’s going to be a pretty good story.

  SHAY GOLDSTEIN: And now, a word from our sponsors.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For a long time, I wanted to write a novel about public radio, and I absolutely couldn’t have done it alone. My agen
t, Laura Bradford, gave me some early encouragement and spot-on advice, and continues to be a stellar advocate. Thank you for helping me find my dream career. It feels surreal that I get to write books for a living.

  I’m so grateful to have found the perfect home for The Ex Talk at Berkley and with Kristine Swartz. Kristine, your enthusiasm and expert editorial guidance have made this process so much fun! Thank you for loving my messy cohosts as much as I do. Thank you to art director Vi-An Nguyen for this stunning cover—I’m obsessed! Thank you, too, to the rest of the fantastic Berkley team: Jessica Brock, Jessica Plummer, and Megha Jain.

  Erin Hennessey and Joanne Silberner—this book would not exist if you hadn’t taken a chance on me ten years ago and encouraged me with your knowledge of public radio. Erin, you had coffee with me and told me all about KPLU when you knew next to nothing about me. Joanne, you were the highlight of my senior year at the University of Washington. I am wildly lucky to have learned from you both. Many thanks to the other journalists I had the pleasure of working with at KUOW, KPLU (now KNKX), and the Seattle Times.

  Tara Tsai, you are my favorite person to talk to about romance novels and podcasts. Rachel Griffin, thank you for your compassion and for somehow always knowing the right thing to say. Kelsey Rodkey, thank you for the perfect title and for telling me to stop apologizing. Much love to everyone who read this book in part or in whole at various stages of its life: Carlyn Greenwald, Marisa Kanter, Haley Neil, Monica Gomez-Hira, Claire Ahn, Sonia Hartl, Annette Christie, Auriane Desombre, Susan Lee, and Andrea Contos. I never truly felt like I belonged until I met other writers, and in that vein I am also so grateful to Joy McCullough, Kit Frick, Gloria Chao, and Rosie Danan.

  The readers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and bookstagrammers who’ve shouted about my books for the past few years—“thank you” will never be enough. Your creativity and generosity floor me on a daily basis. Every post, every photo means the world to me. To my family and especially to Ivan, thank you for being so excited about this one. Journalism and radio have been part of our story almost since the beginning, which makes it kind of perfect that my radio book is a romance.