Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
With everything shiny and brand new, I sit at my new console with anxiety building. Each time the screen lights up with a new caller, I wonder if it’s him. If it’s the voice of the man I think is my father. Since the last call, I’ve waited for him to show up, to surprise me in the grocery store, or to call again. I keep telling myself that when he does, I’m going to ask him flat out who he is and why he keeps calling.
Bex sits down at her desk and waves. We have a good relationship and she’s fitting in well with the community. Josie has invited her to our house for Thanksgiving and warned her that it’ll be full of people, loud, but we’ll have plenty of food and we always have a good time. She told us that she’s going back to New York to see her family, thanks to the healthy dose of sponsorships Ben has secured.
My coffee’s cold, which means my hands are cold. Renovated building or not, it’s still cold outside and the brick building can only do so much against the elements.
“Remind me to have the ducts cleaned,” I tell Paige as I get up and head toward the small kitchen. I push some buttons and wait for my mug to fill. When I get back to the studio, Paige is setting up the new camera we have. While it’ll be aimed at me or whoever sits in this chair, once we move, it follows us. It’s honestly sort of freaky. However, it saves Paige or any other assistant from having to stand there the entire time. Now, she can sit at a desk—one that she decided needed to be in the same room as me—and monitor comments and continue to post on social media while the live stream is running.
I sit down, put my cans on, and look at the glowing board. Bex is in my ear, “You good?”
I nod. “I’m ready.” I take a deep breath, catch my daughter smiling at me, and press the button.
“You’re on The Love Line.”
“Liam,” the female voice sighs my name heavily. “My husband won’t talk to me in anything but movie quotes. All day. I asked him a real question this morning and he answered me in a pirate voice.”
I laugh before I can stop it. “Does he do it when it’s time to be serious?”
“No. When it’s serious he drops it and talks straight.”
“Then he’s not dodging you. He’s playing, and he trusts you enough to be a fool in front of you. Fire one back at him tonight. Bad accent and all. See what it does to his face.”
Paige has her mouth covered, trying to muffle her laughter.
I bend my arm and say, “Argh.” And then hit the button even though I’m still laughing. “You’re on The Love Line.”
“My husband retired last month, and he has reorganized my kitchen twice and he follows me from room to room narrating his whole day. I love this man. I do. I really, really do. But I need him to find a hobby before one of us doesn’t survive it.”
“I’m not sure a hobby is what he needs unless it takes him out of the house all day long,” I tell her. “Give him a mission. Something with a deadline and a result he can be proud of when he’s done. You need to direct him to a project that doesn’t involve you.”
“ . . .That’s actually good.”
“Try not to sound so surprised,” I say as I hang up. It’s like these people don’t understand I needed a project or my wife was going to boot me out of the house. They’re talking to my project.
Paige is very animated tonight, and I imagine her mom is blowing up her phone with little quips about my advice. It’s okay. I know all the women in my life are in a group chat, and I’m not invited. Hurts my feelings a bit, not gonna lie.
“You’re on The Love Line.”
“Hi, my wife and I made a deal before we married. No kids. Fifteen years in, she’s changed her mind. She wants them, bad.”
“Here’s the thing, people change. We’re allowed to change. It’s growth and it doesn’t always match how our partner’s feeling. People also stay the same and never grow or change. Neither of you is wrong, and that’s the part that hurts.”
“So what do I do?”
“You try to understand. Ask her why now? If the answer is something you can live with, you do what you need to do.”
“And if I can’t live with the answer?”
“Then you let her go so she can become the mother she wants to be. It’ll be hard to accept but you don’t want to bring a child into this world if you don’t want them. They’ll know it. You’ll know it.”