One Thing I Know

by Kara Isaac

  “I should have been braver back then. Done things differently. If I had, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.”

  Donna put her hands on Rachel’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “But then I never would have met Rob. And who knows what would have happened with your father.” Her aunt’s voice rose. “We did what we needed to do. And I will never, ever apologize for that.”

  “I know.” Rachel had revisited the scenario a thousand times in her head. The pressure had been unimaginable. The alternative options nonexistent.

  The door to the green room opened and Lucas stuck his head out. “Hey, Donna. I thought that was your voice. Lacey’s here. She says we’re about to start.”

  “Great!” Donna’s face transformed. “We’re going to have such a great night.” She patted Lucas’s arm as she passed him by.

  Lucas paused, looking at Rachel. “You okay?”

  Rachel pasted on her own smile. “Yes, fine.” She ducked past his arm and into the room where a sound tech had just handed Donna a microphone.

  On the other side of the green room wall, what had been a muffled roar had ramped up as the emcee worked the crowd. Rachel checked her watch. Only a couple of minutes before they’d be summoned onto the stage.

  Lacey was obviously thinking the same thing as she opened the opposite door and gestured at them to move into the staging area. Rachel followed Donna through, Lucas following her.

  “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t this nervous when I was a lineman at State.” Lucas murmured the words into her ear as he palmed his mic from hand to hand. It was almost impossible to hear him over the sound of female hysteria and the emcee.

  “Please, give a warm Chicago welcome for Dr. Donna Somerville and Lucas Grant.” The words rolled across the room and the crowd went into a complete frenzy.

  Donna headed up the steps and then Lucas bounded up after her.

  “You need to go and be one of the roamers.” Lacey tugged on Rachel’s arm and handed her a microphone.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t do big event stuff. You know that.”

  “Please.” Lacey chucked her a black T-shirt. “We’re down a couple and the whole middle left block is uncovered. It’s easy. You just hand the microphone to the person asking the question and then take it back.”

  I wish I’d been braver back then. The words she’d uttered less than five minutes ago rang in her ears. She couldn’t change anything about back then, but maybe, just maybe, she could start being a little bit brave now.

  • • •

  I WILL never, ever apologize for that. At least Lucas was pretty sure those were the adamant words Donna had been saying as he’d opened the door. Even if he hadn’t heard them exactly, there was something about the vehemence in her words that signaled she and Rachel had been talking about something important.

  The heat from the stage lights plastered his shirt to his skin, but Donna talked about her latest book as effortlessly as if she were having coffee with some friends. An exceptionally large and adoring group of friends. So far, Lucas had managed to avoid all the eyes staring at him by focusing his gaze slightly above their heads. He wasn’t going to be able to get away with that for much longer.

  “So, Lucas. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up on this stage.”

  Lucas looked at Donna, who grinned back at him. That was not on the run sheet. The run sheet had them going from Donna’s book sales pitch to the Q&A. Not a soliloquy from him.

  He tipped his gaze down to all the eyes staring at him and a trickle of sweat rolled down his back.

  “We love you, Lucas!” The scream came from somewhere to his left and was almost immediately drowned out by a loud cheer.

  Awkward. He lifted his mic. At that moment he’d rather it were a live grenade. He cleared his throat. “Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming out tonight.” His voice boomed across the room. No turning back now. “Anyone here from the mighty state of Wisconsin?”

  More screaming. This was unreal. He gave the room a short wave. More screaming.

  “Looks like you have some fans.” Donna’s voice was tinged with amusement and the screaming got even more piercing.

  “So for those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Lucas Grant. I host a sports call-in show on WFM Madison, and for reasons that I’m not entirely sure of, Dr. Donna thought we should share a stage.”

  Donna lifted her microphone. “What Lucas means to say is he aspires to host a sports show, but unfortunately for him he often finds his lines clogged with ladies seeking relationship advice. Isn’t that right, Lucas?”

  He couldn’t even get a response out as a combination of laughter and cheering rolled across the room.

  “So, do y’all want to know why I invited Lucas here? Apart from the obvious reason.” Donna said this with a wink, and Lucas wasn’t sure whether to be offended or complimented. “Well, you’re all about to find out. It’s time for Q and A.”

  The emcee spoke from beside Donna. “Ladies—and I think I may have spotted one sole terrified-looking gentleman somewhere in the room—there are staff in black T-shirts roaming the floor. If you have a question, stick your hand up and they’ll bring you a microphone. I apologize in advance if time constraints mean we aren’t able to get to all of you with questions. You can also Tweet us using the hashtag feelingsandfootball, and we’ll see if the technology allows us to answer some of those Tweets as they come rolling in.”

  The two screens lit up on either side of the stage with Twitter live feeds, but no hands went up. How many people would really be brave enough to ask a question in front of two thousand strangers? Maybe this would be a lot shorter than he’d anticipated.

  Then a hand went up and a black-shirted helper hustled to give a redhead a microphone. “My question is for Lucas. Are you single?”

  A burst of applause.

  Really? They paid to come here for this? Sighing, he lifted the microphone to his lips. “I am. Yes.”

  More applause. This was going to be a long night.

  “When was your last serious relationship?”

  Seriously? “It’s been a few years.”

  A few more hands went up and the redhead reluctantly relinquished the microphone.

  “Can you tell us about your ideal woman?”

  Lucas scanned the crowd to try and figure out where the voice was coming from but couldn’t.

  “Is that a question for me?” Donna raised her mic with a grin and the crowd laughed, along with a few calls of “Lucas!”

  “Lucas, dear. For some reason they don’t seem to want to know what my ideal woman is. Though I have plenty of great ideas.”

  Lucas barely smothered his sigh as he spoke into his microphone. “I don’t have one. I figure I’ll know her when I meet her.”

  “But surely you must have things you look for?”

  He scanned the room but still couldn’t work out where the questioner was.

  “My bottom lines are honesty and integrity. Look.” He settled back into the chair. Clearly he was going to have to do some talking if he wanted to avoid all the awkward personal questions. “If you want my opinion, which, apparently, some of you do, here it is. I think lots of women miss something great because you have this ideal man in your head and you won’t give anyone else a chance. You decide you don’t want bald or facial hair or a blue-collar guy or someone who’s divorced or the guy who earns less than you or the guy with a few extra pounds. And great guys pass you by because you’re looking for the perfect guy who doesn’t exist.”

  Silence filled the room for a second, then Donna lifted her microphone. “Lucas, I’m pretty sure you just quoted one of my books right there.”

  “Will you kick me off the stage if I admit I’ve never read one of your books?”

  “Would you admit it if you had?”

  “Probably not.” The room burst into laughter and he felt himself relax a little more. He could do this. Just keep his gaze on the
back wall and pretend it was radio.

  “Okay, next question,” the emcee said.

  “My question is for Lucas.”

  Again? This time it was a blonde near the front. “What are you looking for in a relationship?”

  “Someone who likes to talk about sports. Football. Or basketball. Or baseball. Surely, there’s someone in this room who would like to put the ‘football’ into Feelings and Football. Anyone?”

  Resounding silence.

  “Poor Lucas. We should move on before he never comes back to one of these things again. And that would be a shame when we’ve just spent so much money plastering him on banners the size of Texas. Yes, over there.” Donna pointed to their right and Lucas shifted to see who she was indicating.

  Someone looking an awful lot like Rachel was holding the microphone while a woman spoke into her ear. Maybe she had a look-alike, because she hadn’t been wearing a black T-shirt when he last saw her.

  Rachel, or Rachel’s doppelganger, tried to give the woman the microphone, but the woman shook her head and pushed it back to her. Rachel held it out again. The woman pushed it back toward her. Did he even want to know what this question was going to be? Clearly it was something for him. Again.

  “What’s the lady’s question, Rachel?” Donna spoke. “Everyone, this is my lovely assistant.”

  Rachel sighed into the microphone. “For Lucas. Again. Hypothetically, are you open to a woman asking you out on a date or do you think a man should be the one to make the first move?”

  “Hypothetically, are you asking me on a date?” He didn’t know where the impulse came from to tease her, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “You wish.”

  Lucas didn’t know how to respond to that. He cleared his throat. “Hypothetically speaking, I couldn’t care less. But I am old-fashioned about proposing. Unless, hypothetically speaking, you would like to.”

  Rachel shook her head at him. But she was smiling. So he considered it a victory.

  - 9 -

  “Lucas, my man. Another big night. Good luck!” Bill Robson’s firm hand clapped on Lucas’s shoulder as he walked the hallway to the studio.

  “Thank you, sir.” Lucas tried to choke down the gurgle in his stomach. Nothing quite like having the usually invisible owner of the station roaming the deserted building at seven thirty p.m. to pile the pressure on.

  The Chicago event had been christened a raging success, and the station had gone nuts. Marketing had plastered the county with Feelings and Football billboards. Just yesterday he’d almost driven into the back of a bus when he’d seen his face staring back at him. He’d put his foot down, though, when they wanted to create life-size cutouts to put in bookstores. There were some things that were sacred, and walking into Barnes & Noble without running into a cardboard version of yourself was one of them.

  On the upside, he’d had the afternoon free to clear out his gutters. No need to worry about having to prep some filler topics when there was no possibility of the phone lines drying up. The nights since the Chicago event had been crazy. They’d even fielded calls from outside of Wisconsin, which he was pretty sure was a first. He’d hardly been able to talk about sports at all, even though he’d instructed Ethan to stick to the sports callers and keep the relationship callers for tonight. Tonight would be the first night when Donna would do a phone-in for the entire show. He felt his shoulders bunch up just at the thought.

  They’d never done a whole show remotely. A whole four hours on the phone. No being able to catch her eye. Read each other’s expressions and body language. No scrawled notes. What if they disagreed? What if it was too much for her? Maybe they should have built up to it. He’d been doing radio for a decade and still found it demanding. Did she have any idea what she’d signed up for?

  Last week’s ratings had been through the roof with minimal promo work, so this time the show had been promoted all week on and off air. He sucked in a deep breath as he opened the studio door. He couldn’t exactly pretend he hadn’t heard the whispers, either. That this might be his big break. That if he made the most of it, the big guys might come knocking with his dream. Syndication. To be heard from coast to coast. To have the kind of clout he needed to talk about sports and things that brought men together and leave the emotions and relationships to people way more qualified.

  Yet . . . if he managed to help keep one marriage together, help one woman turn down the guy trying to wheedle his way into her bed without any commitment, maybe there was an upside to all the feelings stuff. Stop one guy from turning into my father. He shooed the thought back into the recesses of his mind. Not here, not now. After everything his old man had destroyed, he wasn’t going to let him distract him when he’d finally reached the cusp of his dream.

  “Hey.” Ethan was already in the production booth. “Ready for another big night?”

  “As ready as I can be.”

  His producer tilted back in his seat. “You’ve never really told me about Chicago. How was it? How was Lacey?”

  “Lacey? She’s just what you said. A great publicist.”

  “That all?” A speculative smile was on Ethan’s mug.

  “What do you mean?

  “Oh come on, Lucas. The woman is hot.”

  Lucas sighed. He had zero patience for his producer behaving like a frat boy. “Ethan. If you want to make a play for Lacey, then find a reason to come to one of the events and do it. As far as I’m concerned, Lacey is a great publicist and she’d probably kick your butt if she heard you talking about her like that.” He’d met many beautiful and ambitious women just like Lacey O’Connor in his line of work and never been attracted to any of them.

  Ethan tilted farther back in his chair. “So if it’s not Lacey, then who is it?”

  “Who’s what?”

  “You’ve had a weird look on your face every day since Chicago. Like you are thinking about someone. I’d assumed it was Lacey, but if it’s not, then . . .” Ethan thought for a second, then grinned. “Is it the assistant? I mean she’s not quite Lacey’s caliber, but I can see how she might have some appeal. In an ice queen kind of way.”

  Lucas was silent. If he let Ethan bait him, he’d probably say something he’d regret. And it wasn’t like anything had happened with Rachel. They’d had a disconcerting moment. That was all. He may have mildly flirted with her from onstage. But it didn’t really count when it was for show in front of two thousand people.

  And when they’d all gone out for a drink afterward, she’d made her excuses and gone up to her room as soon as she’d finished hers. Hardly the sign of someone interested in him.

  “Sorry, dude.” Ethan said the words genuinely.

  “For what?”

  “I didn’t realize things between you were that serious.”

  “What do you mean? There’s no ‘thing’ between us.”

  Ethan shook his head. “You may want to believe that, but we have worked together for two years. And you have never looked like that before when I’ve mentioned any other woman. Ever.”

  • • •

  “AND THAT’S a wrap.” Ethan’s voice came across the line, the sound of an advertisement for a motor vehicle dealer in the background. “Good work, team.”

  Rachel sagged down onto her bed, knocking off her glass of water in three gulps. In the last half hour Ethan had piled call after call through, trying to make a dent in the backlog.

  “You still there?” Lucas’s voice came down the line. His horrible, perfect-for-radio, soothing voice.

  “Yup.” Rachel’s voice had started taking on a croaking quality three hours in. By the last couple of calls, she was struggling to put the oomph behind her words that radio required.

  “How’s the throat?” Lucas’s words were slightly muffled, like he was talking through a mouthful of food.

  “Okay. Do you think it went okay?” The words wheezed down the line. Lucas had been amazing tonight. Fair, just, brutally honest, but kind with a couple of people who had got
ten themselves into a whole pile of trouble. Compassionate with callers who were struggling to pick up the pieces of their broken hearts. The man was wasted on sports, no matter how much he preferred them.

  He was the kind of guy that any woman would want to come home to. Hear her name on his lips as they caught up on their day.

  Stop it, Rachel!

  “It was great. Going by the way Ethan’s been flapping his arms at me all night, I’d say ratings are through the roof.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Rachel was struggling to hold onto her Donna voice. Not even the water seeming to help her dry and rasping throat.

  “So how’s the book tour going this week?” The sound of cellophane tearing came across the line. Her stomach rumbled. Reminding her that she’d skipped dinner because of nerves.

  “Good.” Rachel had lost track of the number of people who had asked Donna today if she was going to be coming back with Lucas. But no need to tell him that. “How are you feeling about joining it properly next weekend?”

  “I still can’t believe Ethan roped me into this.” Lucas paused. “Actually, while I’m thinking about it, would you be able to give me Rachel’s number?”

  Rachel almost lost the ability to breathe. “Rachel, my assistant Rachel?” Something had seemed to flash between them in the green room, but she’d been telling herself that she was imagining it.

  “Yes. She mentioned that she looks after your social media pages and the station PR people were wanting to talk to her about doing some cross-promotion on Facebook or something. I mean I could talk to her about it in LA next weekend, but I thought it might make sense to put them in touch sooner.”

  Of course they did. Lucas didn’t want her number personally. Which was a good thing. It was.

  If she were actually her aunt, no doubt she’d razz him about what he actually wanted her number for, but she wasn’t that much of a sucker. “Um, sure, of course.” She rattled off her number. “Okay, I should go now. It’s late. Good night, Lucas.” She hung up before he could answer and dropped her phone on the bed before striding into the bathroom. Trying to shake off the disappointment that had hit at the news that he only wanted her for her Facebook log-on.