Pull You In (Rivers Brothers 3)

"The market has shifted," Fiona told me, waving a hand. "I've been working on trying to move with the times for a while now. But Rush's job was never going to make the cut."

"Maybe his line wouldn't have gone so dead if..."

I couldn't bring myself to say it, to keep replaying it again and again and again. I'd finally been able to go the bulk of my day without having another panic attack over the whole thing.

"If you didn't really like how Rush gives the weather report?" Fee suggested, making a laugh bubble up and burst out. Fiona always was, and always would be, the queen of euphemisms.

"Yes, that," I agreed.

"All that raining. And earthquakes...."

"Fee."

"Oh, we're all girls here. I still call Hunter at work and phone smex him up. Keeps things fun. It's not a big deal. Or abnormal. If it was that freakish, we wouldn't have the booming business we have here."

"You never called in," I told her.

"I mean, no. But before Hunt, I was so wrapped up in my own fuckupedness—and, yes, that is the technical term—to invite any sort of intimacy with the opposite sex. OR any person at all, period. If I didn't grow up like I did, if I didn't have the trauma associated with that like I did, maybe I would have craved that connection. Plenty of women have called Rush."

I never wanted to think about the other callers. I knew they existed. Obviously. Or his job would have been gone a long time ago. But acknowledging it took away from the fantasy world I had built. Where it was something more than a job for him, where we had an actual connection instead of a business arrangement.

But they existed.

Were they women like me? Shy and lonely and desperate for even a vague facsimile of connection?

Were they just horny women who were too busy to go out to find men?

Women fresh off divorces, looking to dip their toes back into dating, but wanting to build their confidence first.

It didn't matter now.

His line was shut down.

The website had been revamped to remove all traces of a male phone sex line.

His desk had been taken over by a woman who used it to do live videos where she sat and ate whatever foods the callers requested.

"If they are going to pay me to eat a giant plate of pasta, I am going to take them for every penny they are willing to throw at me," Raina, the new girl, had said on her first day. "I mean, it combines two of my favorite things. Money and food. If I could just find someone to pay me to eat pasta while I binge-watch Youtube videos about van-life, I would be the happiest woman in the world."

Rush's mug was even gone from the drainboard in the kitchen.

It was like he'd never existed.

Fiona had been quick to fill the hole he'd left behind, but I still felt the void. Around the office that seemed to be missing the balance that the light, masculine presence of Rush provided. But it was more than that.

As much as I hated to admit it, there was a void in my life as well.

I tried to convince myself that nothing had changed, nothing was actually missing.

But that simply wasn't the truth.

I don't know if I was ever aware how much of my day had started to revolve around my calls with Rush. I guess because they started so suddenly, they were sporadic for so long. It was easy to miss how I began to look forward to the call.

But with a little space, I could be more objective.

I would get home from work, go through the motions of my evening.

Talk to my mom while I straightened up. Run errands. Prep food and clothes for the next day. Then, finally, I would dive deep into a book until my eyes got blurry.

Then I would go through the motions of getting ready for sleep, climb into bed, turn off all the lights, and make my call.

It was what, I could now see, I was waiting for all day.

I'd always known I had been codependent in my close relationships. Obviously, with my mom. Then, in a lesser way, with my ex.

I guess I hadn't been self-realized enough to know—or didn't want to see—that I had become dependent on Rush.

But there it was.

All the classic signs.

The low self-esteem he helped build up, the reactivity that happened when I obsessed over a turn of phrase he used that likely meant nothing, the dysfunctional communication—meaning none from me in this case—, and intimacy issues that I convinced myself he was helping but when I knew it very well was likely only making it worse.

Losing those calls was like losing a support system I hadn't been aware I'd been so dependent upon.