Page 31 of Coming Home

It paid the bills. It utilized a quiet skill I apparently possessed. And, most importantly, it had absolutely nothing to do with water. That was its primary qualification.

But sitting in that small, padded booth, reading someone else's prose into a sensitive microphone in a soundproofed room, I never felt the thing I used to feel standing on a starting block. That full-body electric current. That exquisite, terrifying sense of being exactly where you were supposed to be, doing exactly what God built your body to do. Voice work was a graceful job. Swimming had been a religion. I was smart enough to know the difference, and too tired to mourn the loss out loud.

The immediate problem, however, wasn't my existential career crisis. The immediate problem was the man in the waiting room drawing female attention the way a lit match draws moths in the dark.

I watched it happen from the safety of the corridor with a mix of disbelief and a hot, sudden prickle of irritation.

Every single woman in the studio was suddenly finding an urgent excuse to walk past the reception desk. Two young production assistants had refilled their water bottles four separate times, which meant they were either severely dehydrated or severely distracted by the broad shoulders occupying the vinyl chair. A sound technician who clearly did not work on this floor appeared with a clipboard and no apparent purpose, positioning herself near the coffee machine with a direct, uninterrupted sightline to Ralph's face.

Ralph was either oblivious or infuriatingly good at pretending to be, which, when a man looks like that, amounts to the exact same thing. He sat with his long legs stretched out across the walkway, reading something on his screen, his glasses pushed up into his thick hair, unaware he was causing a minor productivity crisis in a building he'd been inside for a grand total of twelve minutes.

I was not going to acknowledge the tiny flare of possessiveness tightening in my chest. I was not going to examine why it bothered me to see their eyes on him. I was going to walk into my recording session, breathe, and focus on my work.

Nadia intercepted me six feet from the heavy booth door.

She came around the corner at full speed, her colorful lanyard swinging, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, and stopped dead the moment she spotted Ralph through the glass partition. She grabbed my upper arm, her fingers sinking in, and hauled me into a recessed doorway.

"You know Ralph Brandt," she whispered, which for Nadia meant everyone within thirty feet now knew it too. "You know the Ralph Brandt and you didn't think to mention it to me?"

"It wasn't relevant to the copy, Nadia."

"A man who looks like he belongs on a classical monument is always relevant, Emma. Always. In every human context. At all times."

"He's an old family friend," I murmured, my cheeks warming.

"An old family friend." She peered around the corner again, her eyes narrowing. "An old family friend only? How well do you know him, exactly? Don't tell me he's the friend you mentioned…oh goodness!"

I hesitated—just a fraction of a second too long, my eyes darting away.

Nadia's eyes blew wide, a gasp escaping her. "Emma."

"Yes. I'm staying with him," I said quickly, the words rushing out the way you rip tape off raw skin. Just get it over with. Deal with the sting later. "I'm staying in his guest room because he's incredibly stubborn. It's a whole situation."

Nadia grabbed both my shoulders, her expression dead serious. "Wait. You live with him? In his house?"

"It's not like that."

"It's exactly like something, and I require the fine print immediately."

"After the broadcast."

"I'm holding you to that. I'm literally engraving it into my memory." She mimed scribbling furiously on her open palm. "Post-broadcast. Full, unvarnished debrief. No omissions."

"Fine."

"Also, he's looking at you through the glass right now. And he does not look like an old family friend."

I refused to turn around. I simply couldn't. I walked into the recording booth with my chin held high and my face burning, refusing to glance back at the lobby.

The booth was tiny, dim, and heavily padded. Sound went in and never came back, and the dead air left me alone with the rasp of my own breath. I settled into the chair, slid the heavy headphones over my ears, adjusted the microphone, and read through the script once. It was beautiful.

Nadia had written most of it, and her innate empathy bled through the words, warm where a reader needed comfort, practical where she needed a plan, never once talking down to her.

Real advice for real women dealing with chronic illness. Managing the crushing weight of fatigue.

Navigating medication side effects that steal your sense of self. The small, private acts of survival nobody ever puts on a motivational poster.

The recording light glowed a sharp, bleeding red. I closed my eyes, leaned into the mic, and began to read.