Truly Madly Deeply: A Grumpy x Sunshine Romance (Forbidden Love Book 1)
Truly Madly Deeply: Chapter 81

“You Get What You Give”—New Radicals

If you’d ever wondered how long it took to produce a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute podcast, the (unlikely) answer was seven and a half hours.

Yup. Four days later, I finally did it. I recorded and edited a full true crime episode of Hot Girl Bummer. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I made jokes, I got serious when needed, and I dished out some not-so-known facts. During the production, there were tears, screaming, and a lot of breaking points. Tom the producer’s, mostly, but that still counted. He called me an anal-retentive perfectionist.

It was done, and it was great. Not to toot my own horn here, but I would listen the heck out of it. I was proud of myself. Proud of my achievement.

“Listen, I don’t want you to get bigheaded or anything, but I’ve edited and produced a lot of podcasts.” Tom sat back in his chair, stretching lazily. He had the whole gamer vibe down to a T. Bearded, with glasses, a baseball cap tugged on backward, and a Zelda shirt. “Yours takes the cake.”

“Really?” I clapped my hands together. “Why?”

Was I fishing? Yes. Was I in the right to? Also, yes. I’d never received any kind of feedback about my podcasting skills. Never had a chance to hone them. And I was celebrating two victories—not only had I finished a podcast, but I’d also worked on it with a man in the room. Just me and him. Zero freak-outs. No meltdowns. It wasn’t that I was trusting men more. It was that I trusted myself now. I felt safe because I knew I was with me. And I would never let myself down. Not anymore. I had my back.

“You’re a natural.” He hitched a shoulder up, laughing. “You manage to make it interesting and serious, but also know when to lighten things up. I mean, I had no idea the Scotland Yard were such badasses. The way they hunted the murderer down…” He shook his head. “Crazy.”

I darted up, licking my lips and looking around me. I had grown to love the solace of the soundproof recording room. The cool of the air-conditioning, that tangible smell of expensive equipment. “So…what now?”

“Now, I’m going to email you the finished episode, and you can post it whenever you’re ready.” He grinned. “Oh, and obviously, you need to implement everything I taught you about producing your own show, unless you wanna hire me. I charge two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”

“Hmm. Thanks, I’ll remember that for when I can afford anything beyond ramen and tap water.” I gave him a thumbs-up.

He laughed. “Now go share the link to your episode with your loved ones! You killed it, Cal.”

I slipped out of the studio, waving goodbye to Kathy at the reception on my way out. “Bye, Kath!”

“Bye, girl-who-is-sleeping-with-the-hottest-man-alive!”

We still had to work on her nickname for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her Row and I were no longer an item.

As I poured myself out onto the streets of Manhattan and made my way to the subway, my phone pinged with a new email.

From: Tom Rossman

Subject: Hot Girl Bummer, Ep1 (file attached).

My heart missed a beat. I thought about Tom’s words, about sending the podcast to the people I loved the most. Dylan, obviously. And Mom too, even though murder talk wasn’t exactly her love language. Then there were some friends. Colleagues. The neighbor down the hallway who always gave me sugar cookies. And they were all great. They were. But…

They weren’t Row.

The one person whose opinion I wanted about this was Row’s.

In fact, he was the only one whose opinion I cared about in the first place.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Not a smart thing to do when you lived in New York and the pedestrian traffic was insane. Two people immediately bumped into me, groaned, and muttered, “Tourist.” I tipped my head upward and closed my eyes, anguished.

It was Row.

I was in love with Row.

I had always been in love with Row.

From the moment I’d first met him on the edge of the community pool, and he was a scrawny thing of a kid, and I was an awkward thing of a girl.

He was the reason why I was still feeling hollow even though I had overcome my biggest fears—Allison and starting the podcast. This was why I’d had sex with him when I was a teenager, before I had gone to college. Not because I’d wanted to get rid of my virginity but because I was desperately, pathetically in love with him.

And my love for him was bigger than any fear I struggled with.

I had fed myself lies. Wicked little lies to protect myself from disappointment and heartbreak.

Loneliness is safe.

You’re not in love with Row Casablancas.

This was just a winter affair.

You can totally pull off low-waisted jeans like it’s still the early 2000s.

Lying to yourself was like indulging in an entire bottle of wine. It felt great in the short term but was totally destructive in the long term. I’d told myself I couldn’t catch feelings, couldn’t fall in love, when all this time, I was already in love. An all-consuming, radical kind of love.

Oh shit. I needed to tell him. No, I needed to woo him. To show him how much he meant to me. A simple love declaration wouldn’t do. I needed a nineties movie–inspired homage to show him I was serious. As it was, Row had made it clear he didn’t want to hear from me—or read from me—unless I was all in.

And then—eureka!—it came to me. My grand gesture.

“Yes!” I threw my arms in the air, tilting my chin up at the sky. “Yes, I now know what to do!”

“Lily, honey, step away from the…special lady.” Two obvious out-of-towners sidestepped me, throwing an assessing glance my way. But I didn’t care.

I knew what to do.

My first step was where it all had started, in Staindrop.

Where I had given my heart to a boy who had given me his all.

And had forgotten to tell him that he was the one.