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The tension I’d been holding in my shoulders melted away when I heard her. I wasn’t going to think about that too much.

“Hey, yeah, this is fine,” I said.

“Everything okay?”

Now that we were talking, I felt foolish for needing to talk to her.

“I’m fine.”

“You know, Hunter, you’ve said that to me a bunch of times and I haven’t believed you once. If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, that’s okay. But don’t lie and say you’re fine.”

Fuck.

“Parent stuff. That’s what’s going on.”

“Okay. Anything specific?”

I decided to go lay in bed while I talked to her, curling on my side and propping myself up with my pillows so I was comfortable.

“No. Just the usual. It hits me hard randomly. And I didn’t have anyone else to talk to.” I hated admitting that so much. It made me sound pathetic. I should just hang up on her and forget all about this.

“You can talk to me, Hunter. I’m here.”

Her voice was deep and soothing, and I wanted to ask her if she’d ever considered narrating audiobooks or doing a soothing podcast or something. Her voice just put me at ease.

“Maybe I don’t want to talk. Maybe I want to listen to you talk. Tell me something. Anything.”

I could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re probably going to regret asking me that. You know I’m a yapper.”

“Then go ahead. Yap away. I’m giving you carte blanche.”

She laughed. “Ohhh, fancy.”

“Seriously. You can talk about anything you want.” I adjusted my pillow so my neck was supported.

“Wanna hear about some of my funniest fire calls?” I’d want to hear about her boring ones too. Anything. She could say anything.

“Absolutely.”

Stace launched into her story and within a few minutes had me laughing so hard that tears were running down my face and I could barely breathe. I couldn’t recall that last time that had happened to me.

“So then the cat escaped and ran up the tree again and refused to come down. It was like being in a cliché movie about firefighters that night. Finally, I got her down with a lot of begging and some treats. Someone took a video of it and I went a little viral online for that one.” I could hear her rolling her eyes.

“Oh I bet you hated it,” I said.

“Shut up,” she said through a smile. I liked that I could hear her smiles now, even if I couldn’t see them.

“Someone as social as you likes attention. There’s nothing wrong with that. I wish more people would admit they crave attention when they do things to get it.”

“People usually see it as a negative,” Stace said.

“I know. But I feel like it’s a need, like everything else. Sure, some people take it to an extreme, but what’s wrong with wanting to be seen? To be acknowledged? That’s a basic human impulse.” I hadn’t meant to get all philosophical on her, but I was feeling raw and vulnerable, and my filter was off. I braced myself for her to laugh, or to make fun of me for getting too deep.

“Huh. I guess I’ve never thought of it that way, but it’s true.”

Oh.

“Do you think about that when you make your hair tutorials?” she asked, and I heard a snuffling noise that had to be Buck. I imagined we were on her couch together with the dog laying half on each of us.