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.”