So, yeah. Between the eighteen-hour workdays, and getting systematically railed by my three fake boyfriends, I’m pretty busy. By the time Mother’s Day rolls around, it’s actually pretty anticlimactic. By Sunday, there’s nothing left for me to do. Everyone has already bought their gifts. Everything has been shipped. The few stragglers who forgot to get presents are frantically ordering gift cards online, but that just generates them an email code, so I don’t have to actually do anything. When I wake up on Sunday morning, I snuggle in bed and enjoy my newfound freedom for a whole thirty minutes.
Then I start to get antsy. I get up and clean my bathroom and kitchen. I rearrange my wardrobe into rainbow order, then decide it looks stupid, and reorganise it by clothing type. I draft three new email campaigns. I do all the pampering things I’ve been neglecting during the last week: painting my nails, shaving my legs, embalming myself in lotion like a dead pharaoh. I even go to the effort to curl my hair, and experiment with a glittery green smokey eye that looks so hideous I have to remove it immediately.
By evening, I’m just lying like a starfish on my bed, all soft and exfoliated and manicured, bored out of my skull. I check my phone over and over, but aside from a good-morning text from Zack, no one has messaged me at all today. I’ve been waiting for over a week to finally have some time off, and now that the day has come, I’m lying here watching the clock on my bedroom wall tick away the seconds.
Screw this. I do not have three fake boyfriends so that not even one of them can admire my freshly shaved legs.
Jumping out of bed, I pull open my wardrobe and pick out one of my favourite pieces of lingerie. It’s an Anna Bardet: a pale pink corset with white ribbons and a built-in garter belt. I get dressed quickly, slick on some lipstick, then toss my coat over my underwear like a hooker, buttoning it carefully shut. Grabbing my keys, I slip into my shoes and head across the corridor to apartment 6B.
The guys’ flat is dark when I unlock the door and step inside. Which is odd. What are they all doing on a Sunday night? And why wouldn’t they invite me?
“Hello?” I call into the empty room. “Is anybody there?”
There’s no response. I flick on the light, and my eyes land on a pile of torn pink wrapping paper and tangled silver ribbon spread haphazardly across the coffee table. It looks like someone was trying to wrap a gift in a hurry.
Crap. I sag in the doorway, suddenly remembering a conversation I had with Zack on Friday night. He told me that he and Luke were planning on visiting their families this weekend. I was knee-deep in emails about late postage, so I’d just nodded and then immediately forgotten. I guess the boys are all out tonight, taking their mums for extravagant Mother’s Day dinners, like good children. And here I am, standing in their flat in my undies, like an idiot.
Well. I guess it’s Netflix, a bottle of wine, and an early night for me, then.
I’m about to turn and leave when I hear a low sigh echo from somewhere in the flat. I squint around, suddenly noticing a crack of light outlining Josh’s bedroom door.
I perk back up. Kicking off my shoes, I pad up to his door and knock. “Josh?”
There’s no response.
“Josh? Can I come in?”
There’s a cut-off sigh, then a hitched breath. It almost sounds like someone crying. Alarm rushes through me, and I shove open the door.
Josh is sitting hunched at his desk, his head in his hands. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a loose, worn T-shirt with a hole in the sleeve.
“I’m busy,” he intones, not looking up. His voice sounds weirdly choked.
I frown, glancing around. The lights are all off. “Josh? Why are you sitting in the dark?” He doesn’t move. His shoulders are heaving with uneven breaths. “Josh—”
“I said I’m busy,” he snaps, his head finally jerking up. “Layla, I don’t have time for this right now.”
I stare at him. Josh and I have bickered plenty over the last three years, but he’s never snapped at me before.
“... Josh?” I say softly. “Has something happened?”
He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “Shit. Sorry, L. You can come in. I just…” He turns back to his laptop. The screen glows, illuminating his face in electric blue. He swallows thickly. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
I pause, then step inside the room, looking around.
I’ve never been inside Josh’s bedroom before. He’s a lot more private than Zack and Luke, so when I stay over, I sleep in their beds instead. I imagined his room to be as pristine and bare as an IKEA catalogue, but it’s actually a lot more cluttered than I expected. His double bed is covered with rumpled navy sheets. A handful of colourful festival lanyards are hanging on his door handle, and his walls are dotted with signed convention posters. One entire wall is lined with bookshelves, stuffed with thick-looking books. As I step closer, I realise they’re textbooks, with titles like Attachment Theory in Relationships and How to Solve Conflict and Appease the Inner Child.
I point at them. “Hang on. Do you actually know what you’re doing?”
He follows my gaze, running a hand through his ruffled hair. “Hm?”
“You say on your show that you’re not qualified,” I point out. “You have more textbooks than most people would need to buy for a five-year psych degree.”
“Well,” he says after a moment. “I want to help people. I can’t do that if I’m giving bad advice.”
I turn to look at him. He looks exhausted. His face is pale, and there are dark circles curving under his eyes. “You really care about this, don’t you?”
“What?”
“The show. I assumed you were more focussed on the business side. You’re usually so busy with emails and finances and marketing.” I tilt my head, studying him. “But you’re not, are you? You care about the listeners. You want them to improve their lives.”
He doesn’t say anything, his lips thinning. Everything starts to fall into place. No wonder Josh is so emotionally invested in the show succeeding. And no wonder he’s so adamant about impressing Buzztone. If he were doing Three Single Guys for money, the boys would have gone solo a long time ago. But he wants the marketing reach a production company can give him. He wants to reach people.
I’m pretty sure Zack just does the podcast for fun. Luke is a teacher at heart, so of course he likes giving advice. But Josh actually cares about helping people.
My heart thuds. I cross the room and cup his cheeks, stroking my thumbs over his cheekbones. His eyes flicker shut.
“What are you working on?” I ask.
“Just going through some emails.”
I glance over his shoulder at his laptop screen. As usual, his inbox is overflowing. I scan the subject lines.
My wife wants to get a divorce. I’m still so in love with her.
I want my parents to come to my wedding, but they don’t believe in gay marriage.
I just found out my husband got a vasectomy and didn’t tell me. I can’t stop crying. I’ve been trying to have a baby for years. Is this the end?
Josh is drafting a reply to that one in another window.
Hello. I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. I can’t imagine the pain you’re in. We won’t be able to address this on the show, as our advice segments for the next few weeks are full — but I thought I’d message you privately with some suggestions on how to address your relationship, and a few recommended resources…
It suddenly hits me that he has to do this every single day. Every day, hundreds of people are messaging him, unloading on him, begging him for help. And he tries to help every single one of them. Even the emails he can’t read aloud on the podcast, he answers privately.
It must be exhausting.
I lean over him and shut the laptop. “You don’t need to do this now.”
“Our numbers are up,” he says dully. “We can’t lose momentum.”
“Don’t act like you’re doing this for the numbers. You’re not doing marketing or social media, you’re answering emails.” He doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “You don’t record for another week,” I remind him, wrapping my arms around his neck and sliding into his lap.
He clears his throat and shifts. “No, but these people can’t wait another week. They have problems now.”
“They’ll cope. You’re a podcast host, not a mental health professional.”
“I just need—”
I cut him off. “No. You’re shaking, Josh. Look.”
FORTY-THREE
LAYLA