by Snow, Nicole
She’d called asking how she could sleep at night when every time she tries, she remembers the bad man who locked her up in a basement and tried to burn her alive along with her cousin and her aunt.
God, the things that happen to people here.
The trauma in that girl’s voice, when she talked about her nightmares.
And the kindness in Blake’s as he soothed her so gently. Told her that one fine day, she’d wake up and this would be nothing but a bad memory, and she’d be too far away from it to hurt anymore.
He said she was too close to it now, it could sink its claws in, but every day was another step forward. Another step she could put between herself and the pain. The pain was stuck in place, locked in that moment, but she wasn’t.
He didn’t offer useless platitudes.
Didn’t tell her to try things that would only be a Band-Aid.
He just honored her pain. Talked to her like he knew it was real...and that it didn’t have the power over her she thought it did.
Wow.
I wonder if anyone’s ever told him the same thing.
I wonder if he needs to hear it.
I shouldn’t be wondering if he wants to hear it from me.
But tonight, as the radio show comes on right on schedule around ten, when all the good little boys and girls are in bed and there’s no one left but us late-night degenerates and night owls...
...I can already tell he’s feeling better.
The intro jingle passes and he launches in with this soothing, musical voice, starting with a rumbling “Good evening, Heart’s Edge.”
The name of the town might be a metaphor for my heart whenever I hear him—pushed to the edge, teetering on the brink of falling.
When he talks like that, he takes my breath away.
And makes me remember him lying nearly naked under my hands, his body tanned and hard and thick with corded muscle, dusted with bristles of coarse, rusty brown hair.
That’s Blake. Part Greek God, part black bear, and so much to explore.
He was striated with scars, old wounds that looked like they came from blades and other sharp edges, a few bullet nicks, though that knot on his thigh was the worst of it. His body had a sort of crude, sensuous artistry, like some kind of natural formation that time had worn into grace and beauty while still remaining feral.
Go ahead. Call me smitten.
He’s as beautiful to look at as he is to listen to with those strong thighs and thick hands, with that broad chest and—God—the tick of his pulse against his throat when he swallows because he’s struggling with his own vulnerability.
I know.
I know I have it bad.
I also know perfectly well I’m breaching every professional rule a massage therapist follows, swooning over her own freaking client when he’s under her.
But Blake isn’t exactly a traditional client. And I don’t typically meet men who make me come undone when I lay my hands on them.
“First caller, you’ve got Blake on tap. How can I help?”
I’m listening with bated breath as Blake croons from the little alarm-slash-radio speaker on my nightstand.
The girl on the line sounds anxious, insecure, very young. “Um. There’s...there’s a guy at school that I like. But...he’s a senior and I’m a sophomore.”
“That’s not such a big difference, honey. Just seems that way ’cause you’re young and grades mean more than age does,” Blake says gently. He’s got a different tone when he’s talking to kids, this sort of soft encouragement that doesn’t talk down to them. More like he’s taking their problems seriously. “Do you think he likes you, too?”
The girl lets out a nervous laugh. “I don’t think he even knows I’m alive. I just hope he’s not listening tonight.”
“I won’t ask your name, then, sweetheart,” Blake says with a low laugh. “Have you ever tried talking to him?”
“Oh God, talk? No way!” the girl squeaks.
Man, do I know how she feels.
Every time I think about trading banter with Mr. Silver Tongue again, maybe seek some common ground, I just clam up inside.
I’m not ready to quit, but this little game isn’t easy.
The more he winds me up, the scarier it gets to put myself out there.
It doesn’t hurt when a stranger rejects you, not really.
It’s a whole different thing when a man’s been under your hands, laying himself bare.
“What if he hates me?” the poor girl goes on, her voice shaky.
“Well, young lady,” Blake says, “he can’t hate you if he doesn’t know you. Anybody who’d hate you without knowing a darn thing about you ain’t worth your time. So maybe give him a chance to know you first, yeah? Find out if you two have anything in common. Then it’s all just talkin’ about things you both like, and that ain’t so hard at all.”
She hesitates. “He...he really likes comic books, and so do I.”
Blake lets out a soft, encouraging chuckle. “That’s a good start. You know his favorite superhero?”
“Yeah!” she gasps. “He likes She-Hulk. That’s one of my favorites, too!” Then she pauses, her voice dropping. “Ugh. I really hope he’s not listening. I sound like a creepy stalker.”
“C’mon now. It’s not stalking to notice stuff about your crush.”
No, it’s really not, I think, grinning to myself.
I’ve noticed too many things about Blake.
How he dotes on Andrea.
How he takes on too much, like he’s destined to carry the entire weight of his life on his shoulders without ever asking anyone to help, even just a little bit.
How he seems to be trying to atone for something, and I can’t imagine what.
I have a feeling it has to do with his dead wife.
Andrea’s mother.
Maybe he’s apologizing to his daughter all the time for being the one she was left with.
It makes me wonder what kind of woman her mother was, considering things hadn’t worked out between her and Blake.
But Blake must’ve loved her once, even if things went sour.
So what kind of woman did he love?
Enough love to have a daughter as feisty and smart as Andrea with?
I’m so caught up in it I almost miss him speaking again.
“Hey, I know the bookstore’s restocking titles tomorrow, right?” he draws. “Bet he’ll be there after school. Why don’t you show up too?”
“Eep.” The girl makes a mortified sound. “Won’t that seem weird?”
“Nah,” he says. “You’re just there to pick up a new comic or two, right?”
“R-right,” the girl says, then a bit more brightly. “Right! So I just...what? Talk to him?”
I cover my mouth, suppressing a giggle.
“That’s all it takes, sweetheart,” Blake says, his voice low thunder. “In the end, that’s all relationships are. Two people who like talking to each other more than they like talking to anybody else. Then they get to that point where they don’t need to talk at all, and it’s good to just be together without saying a single darn word.”
Okay. I can’t help a soft sigh. Or three.
I’m as bad as that high school girl. But the man has a way with words.
I’d love to find out how they fit into his life.
Talking to Blake until all hours of the night, until we don’t need words at all.
And maybe we could talk with lips, with hands, with skin...
My stomach tightens, my thighs tensing, this fierce pulse echoing in my blood. And I try to drag my mind from the gutter.
Not so easy. Not when his smooth as bourbon voice pours over me in shivers, like rough fingertips over my skin, submerging me in heat and friction from head to toe.
You ever get hot flashes before?
I know that makes no sense, but it’s like your body gets so warm it makes you shiver, and it gets your nerves all crossed so they make you feel cold while you’re still
hot.
That’s how it goes listening to Blake.
He’s sweet, sending the girl off with a little more encouragement.
“Next caller,” he says.
Only for another male voice to come over the radio, one that sounds almost like Blake’s, but darker. Slicker.
This purr, dark and heady and a little too knowingly sexual for me.
It’s sexy, kinda, but it doesn’t have Blake’s gentleness, his warmth, his honesty.
And without that, it’s nothing.
“Hey, Blake. I’ve got a question,” the man says. “What do you do when your brother’s a stubborn donkey who won’t listen when you try to make amends?”
Whatever I’m expecting, it’s not the harsh, cold “Motherfu—” that comes next. Or how Blake clears his throat, probably to stop the station from getting slapped with a fine for live vulgarity.
Oh, crud.
Eyes widening, I shift to my knees, leaning toward the radio, listening closely.
Who is this guy?
And why does Blake sound so angry?
“This isn’t funny,” Blake bites off. “Why’d you call here?”
“Because you wouldn’t pick up your phone, brother,” the stranger says.
Okay. Wow. Crap.
So his life is more complicated than I realized.
Suddenly, I wonder if I’m just making things harder for him, wanting to self-insert in his world.
Sometimes, somebody wanting to comfort you can just be too much when you need time alone to clean up your own mess.
Blake lets out a soft snarl. “You’re not broadcasting our business to the entire town. I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Too bad,” his brother says. “I have a lot to say to y—”
He’s cut off, abruptly. There’s a long pause before Blake sighs, soft and defeated. “Sorry about that, folks. Prank caller. Some people like to be knuckleheads.” He pauses, then asks, “Do we have another caller up, Mario?”
That older male voice I heard the first night answers. “Not yet. You want to go to commercial or put on some tracks?”
No, no—don’t!
Not yet, I think, and I scramble for my phone.
I’d saved the call-in number a few days ago, just in case I ever got brave.
And now I frantically tap the button before I can ask myself what I’m doing. Why I’m doing this, when just five seconds ago, I’d been questioning the wisdom of trying to get closer to Blake and possibly making things harder for him.
But I can’t stand hearing the pain in his voice. The frustration. The sheer, quiet agony. The anger.
I’ve made it my life’s work to soothe other’s pain.
I can’t not try.
So I listen with my heart in my throat as my phone rings against my ear, waiting for someone to pick up.
“Oh, wait,” the older man says on the radio. “We’ve got a new caller!”
“Great,” Blake says, though he sounds resigned for a moment before it picks up, a smooth warmth slipping into his voice again.
I hear a click, then an echo on both my phone and the radio.
“Hey, caller. What can I do for you?” Blake drawls.
“I—”
I wince, stopping as there’s a weird feedback screech, jerking the phone away from my ear.
“Ow!”
Blake lets out a startled laugh. “Darlin’, you gotta turn your radio off while we’re talking.”
Oops.
I reach over and turn the volume down to nothing on the clock radio, then murmur into the phone sheepishly. “Sorry. My bad.”
“It’s all right,” he soothes. “First-time callers do it a lot. And if you’re a first-timer...you ain’t from around here, are you?”
My turn to eep!
Does he recognize my voice?
Does he realize it’s me?
“Not from Montana, no,” I say. “I guess I blew in on the autumn wind and decided to stay for winter.”
“People do that around here a lot,” he says. “Though some people come here to run away, too.”
“I don’t know if I’m running away,” I admit. “If I’m running, then I’ve been running for a long time.”
“How long?”
I pause, then say softly, “Probably for most of my life. Ever since my dad died, I just...”
He’s silent, then prompts gently, “You just what, darlin’?”
“I think I’m scared to get attached to anything,” I say, slowly and carefully because God I don’t think I even realized it until I was saying it to him. “It’s crazy. He was everything to me, and then he just went away and didn’t come back. It still doesn’t feel real. He was overseas when he died. Like, in the back of my mind, he’s still alive, out there somewhere even though I saw his body at the funeral, flag-draped coffin and all. But that wasn’t him. It was just this show, and maybe if I keep running...maybe I’ll run away from losing someone ever again, and one day I’ll figure out where he’s hiding. Like he’s waiting for me out there somewhere. Crazy, right?”
Blake lets out a sigh, but he doesn’t sound so angry anymore.
He just sounds warm, that sigh a sweet breath of thoughtful contemplation. “How honest you want me to be with you?”
I let out a shaky laugh. Oh, shit snacks.
How did he pull all of that out of me with just a few probing questions?
How long have I been bottling it up without even realizing it?
“Hit me,” I say. “Whatever you want to say, Blake.”
“Your dad’s never gonna be dead as long as he lives in you,” Blake says, every word a rolling and hypnotic rhythm, this soothing heat like being wrapped up in his arms. “As long as you remember him. But I don’t think he’d want you to live your life chasing his memory. He’d want you to live for yourself, not for him. So if you wanna stop running, darlin’, you gotta decide what you want to run to, instead of what you want to run away from.”
Woof, that’s a lot to take in.
Even if I like easing others’ pain, even if I thought it was something that mattered to me, and it does...it’s not enough.
Not enough to live like who I am to other people, and never stop to think of who I want to be.
“I like singing. Music,” I say, blurting it out before I can stop myself. “It was just never the kind of thing that, you know, anyone believed I could do. I was never going to be some big pop star, no Milah Holly or anything, but I like writing my own songs and singing them. And...and I think if I ever slowed down, it might be for that. If I could make my life about music, I’d have no reason to run.”
“Good start, lady,” Blake says.
And God, I hope he realizes it’s me. Hope he recognizes my voice.
Because I’m living for the warm approval in every word.
The way he makes it sound like it’s not so crazy at all, and maybe it’s an attainable dream.
But, man, this is heavy.
Me, the flower child flitting around on the wind, never getting too deep, never clinging too hard.
I’m getting way too attached, and it’s scaring me.
“Maybe,” I deflect with a laugh, “I could sing a few end bumpers for your show? That jingle you’re using now stopped being cool in the seventies.”
That gets a deep chuckle, while the older man, Mario, lets out a grouchy, “Hey! We gotta go with royalty-free stuff here.”
I grin against the phone, cradling it close to me. “How about just free? I won’t charge you a bit. Just give me a chance.”
“You really wanna come play songbird for us?” Blake asks. “Dunno if I can trust you around this much equipment. You might just set something on fire. Seems to follow you around, Rabe.”
Oh, holy hell. The way he says it makes my mind substitute the word Broccoli. And I’m not even mad.
He knows.
So I laugh, covering my face with one hand. “Hey, neither of those incidents were my fault.”
“Says the woman driving a van that outlived its service miles twenty years ago. That thing’s older than you are.”
“Yeah, but...age isn’t really that big of a thing, is it? Just like you told the comic book kid.”
He doesn’t answer for a minute, and I worry I’ve misstepped. Overstepped. Over-somethinged.
I don’t know why I care so much what this man thinks.
But then he says slowly, “Nah. Age really ain’t that big a deal, sometimes. Long as everybody’s cool with each other.”
“That’s not a bad milestone,” I say. “And you know the rest...as long as they like talking to each other.”
Like I enjoy talking to you.
I’ve closed my eyes. I don’t want anything to take me away from his voice. It’s almost a flipping physical sensation.
Like curling up against the flank of a powerful lion who won’t eat your face. A tame, righteous one who’ll only lash out at pricks who deserve a nice lashing.
It’s amazing how his voice envelopes me, but with that rich thickness of a lion’s velvety fur.
Just listening to him makes me feel safe.
And a few other things.
Sometimes, there’s a certain way his voice catches. A certain rough edge that just makes my breath hitch in my throat and turns my entire body a little too buttery.
“Can’t say I’m minding certain conversations much,” he says, husky and slow. I shiver, pressing my thighs together.
I don’t think he even realizes he’s seducing me with small talk.
“You want to talk a little longer?” I ask slowly, unable to keep the breathy edge from my voice. “Maybe off air.”
“Hey,” the older man interrupts.
Dammit.
I don’t know his name, but I could kill him right now.
“This isn’t a phone sex line,” Mario says with a stressed laugh. “Tone it down, Blake. Every night we always get at least one hopeful. Mr. Silver Tongue, getting all the girls.”
Oh, I could die.
But I guess that’s the splash of cold water in the face I need.
I’m not unique.
I’m not anybody.
And Blake’s probably just as nice to everyone who calls in, letting them feel like he cares for them while he’s just being polite so people won’t get their feelings crushed.
So I won’t get my feelings hurt.