Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,56

sure,” he says. He looks at his watch. “Don’t you have news to report?”

I stand up from my desk just in time for Carlos to come attach my mic pack.

“Yes, I do. It’s just I’ve got this super annoying producer bothering me.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, giving me a toothy grin before walking away.

~*~

It takes a moment for my eyes and ears to adjust to the dim lighting of the audio booth and the quietness of the space when the door shuts behind me.

“Hey,” Brady says, sitting by the huge mixing board. There are probably hundreds of dials and faders and little red pin lights running across it. I’ve often wondered how anyone could know what everything is.

“Hey,” I say, giving him a less enthusiastic smile. I’m not going to give him hope here. This lunch is actually the beginning of the end. Now I just have to get up the nerve to tell him.

I take a seat next to him, and he swivels his chair around and grabs a large white to-go box and hands it to me. I open it up to see a lovely Cobb salad, perfectly established rows of chicken, blue cheese, tomatoes, and eggs running across it. Tucked in the corner of the box is a small container of some sort of vinaigrette.

“Did I get the right thing?” Brady asks, a nervous tremor to his voice. “I neglected to ask you and didn’t realize it until I was placing the order, but you were on set.”

“No,” I say, the word coming out slightly breathy. “This is perfect.”

And it is pretty perfect. Thoughtful, even. I mean, it’s not hard to deduce since every time Brady and I have gone out, I’ve ordered a salad. But the fact that he paid attention to this small part of me makes a little pleasant warm feeling swim around in my belly.

“Thank you,” I say, as I sit back in my chair. There’s a comfort in this room, with the quietness . . . and also with the man sitting next to me. Brady is comfortable. To be honest, I’m sort of enjoying the feeling.

Brady grabs himself a box and opens it to reveal that he also got himself a salad, just like mine. No food FOMO for me.

We sit companionably as we eat our lunch, making small talk here and there, and it’s . . . nice. This time, though, that word doesn’t feel like such a bad thing. Maybe I need to just let things simmer here and not try to shut it down. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should see where this thing could go with Brady. It’s not like I can have a relationship with Henry anyway.

That feels unfair to Brady, though. How could I fully be in a relationship with him when my heart truly lies elsewhere? It’s wrong. I have to tell him. I set my mostly eaten salad to the side and turn my full focus to him.

“So, Brady,” I start.

“I was thinking,” he says at the same time.

“You go first,” I say to him, when we both chuckle after talking over each other.

“I was thinking I’d like to come see you work in the shop sometime,” he says, setting his nearly empty box on the edge of the mixing board.

I pull my chin back. “Really?” Talking shop with Brady is one way I’ve kept our conversations going. When Brady was a kid, his grandfather had a woodworking shop, and he used to hang out with him there, learning how to use all the tools.

“Yeah, I mean, if you want.”

The picture of Brady coming to the shop with me, even working side by side on one of my pieces, does interesting things to my insides. It’s a pleasant feeling, whatever it is. Of course, my fanciful brain starts conjuring up visions of my mother walking in as we’re working together. Her look of happiness as she sees me with someone—and a pretty cute someone, at that—makes me think that could be a great idea.

But then I’m using Brady again, right? I can’t be that girl. That’s not who I am. I’ve been on the other end of that—the one being used—and I can’t do that to someone else.

“I like spending time with you,” Brady says, that nervousness back in his voice. It makes him seem so much younger than he is, but he’s actually a couple of years older than me.

“I like spending time with you, too,” I say. I take