Despite my shitty mood, a smile spreads over my face.
I love Three Single Guys. The concept sounds stupid. Why should three men who aren’t even in a relationship be able to dole out dating advice? But the guys are actually really helpful. They all have their own specialities: before Luke divorced his ex-wife, they got a ton of couple’s counselling, so he knows a lot about relationship psychology; Josh is so direct he’s almost rude, so he has no problems telling listeners if they need to dump their partners; and Zack answers all of the sex questions. Plus, their chemistry together is incredible. They always start off each episode with a few minutes of banter, talking about their weeks — but my favourite part is when they answer listener emails.
“Okay,” Josh’s low voice says as I hit the last stretch of my run. “Here’s an email that I think must be meant for Zack. It’s from the pseudonym ‘Moist in the Midlands’。”
“Oh, this’ll be good,” Zack answers. “Hit me.”
Josh clears his throat. “‘The last few times me and my girlfriend have slept together’， he reads aloud, ‘she’s squirted. I think it’s great, but she’s horrifically embarrassed every time it happens, and it’s really affecting our life in the bedroom. How do I convince her that it’s normal… and that I actually really like it?’”
“Drink that shit up,” Zack says immediately. “You gotta get in there and SWALLOW, man. You can’t just tell her you think it’s hot, you gotta show her. So get between her legs and go down like you’re at a damn watermelon eating contest. Trust me, she’s gonna know you think it’s hot when you’re licking her clean like she’s a melting ice cream cone.”
I burst out laughing in the middle of the park. A passing woman pushing a pram gives me a nervous look and switches to the other side of the path. I try to push down my laughter, jogging over to a nearby bench to cool down. My phone has been dinging steadily through my run, so I pull it out and flick through the messages as I start stretching out my thighs.
They’re all from Zack.
ZACK: Yo L you up??
ZACK: we’re at the studio atm, but we’re getting lunch soon. Come join if you wanna talk about last night
I’m about to swipe the messages away, but then another text pops up.
ZACK: we’re worried about you. Don’t like to see you cry :（
Guilt twists me. Of course they’re worried about me. I cried all over them like a little baby. They’ve never seen me like that before. I usually try so hard to be in control.
I have to apologise.
Sighing, I start typing back a message.
SIX
ZACK
“I’ve been dating my three lovely boyfriends for almost a year now,” Josh reads into the mic, his eyes scanning the email on his phone. I yawn, trying to stay awake. “And it’s going great. The only problem is, it’s almost impossible for all four of us to spend time together because of our schedules. We’ve got a baby girl, and I really want her to get quality time with all of her dads. How do we handle our clashing timetables? From Beth Ellis in London.”
“Dude, that’s such a mood,” I say into the mic. “We ain’t shared a girl in a couple of years, but back when we were all dating Monica, we used to share an online calendar, so we could see when everyone was free.”
Luke nods. “And we tried to be as flexible as possible, trading shifts at work and such. Honestly, the best thing you can do is—”
My phone bleeps in my jacket.
Luke sighs loudly, and Josh closes his eyes. I swear, fumbling to unzip my pocket.
We’ve been in the recording studio since nine this morning, and we have almost no usable footage. Three Single Guys releases eight episodes a month; one a week, with an extra weekly bonus episode available for people who pay to subscribe. Normally, we try to get the recording out of the way during the weekend, and spend the rest of the week editing and doing admin. But today, nothing is coming out right.
First, we couldn’t find any of our mic covers. Then we recorded a full hour of footage, before realising that Luke’s mic wasn’t even on. Then we somehow lost the listener questions that Josh had spent all week selecting and filing. And now we can’t get through a damn sentence without stumbling over our words, or dropping something, or saying something stupid.
None of us can focus, and we all know why. It’s Layla.
I hook my phone out of my pocket, checking the screen. Layla’s face pops up.