Quickly brushing past him, I headed for a dense part of the tree line that descended down toward the main trail we used to get up here. It was a little steep, causing my hiking boots to catch on some of the pebbles crumbling away from the face of the rockhead. I caught myself on a nearby tree, stopping right before face planting into the dirt.
Nearly out of breath, I pressed the walkie’s button. “Hello?”
“Marlow?” Came Blake’s familiar voice.
I swallowed thickly. “Hey. Did you get my note?”
“Yes. Sorry. I got distracted and completely forgot to check the schedule or else I would’ve reminded you.”
The tension in my chest melted away entirely, leaving me feeling like my entire body was turning to Jello. I leaned back against the tree just in time for my legs to give out and slowly sink myself down against the foot of it. The bark bit through my t-shirt, scraping me to hell. Barely any pain was coming through the sheer relief flooding through my system.
He wasn’t mad... apologizing to me for my own fuck up, even.
He was too good for me.
“No, I’m sorry. I was the dumbass who signed up for it without realizing what I was doing.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Wait, really?” His laugh was cut off too prematurely, quickly followed by, “How in the world did you manage that?”
Rolling the radio’s antenna along the bridge of my nose, tracing it up to where my temples were, I contemplated tellingthe truth. While we were on a private line, it wasn’t at all secure or secret.
If Talos was smart, like he’d proven to be in the past, he would’ve taken Ivan’s radio from him and hopped right on this channel to monitor why the fuck the director of the entire property was personally calling up to talk to me.
IfIwere in his shoes, I’d do the same.
It wasn’t being nosey, it was being concerned. None of which I blamed Blake’s second for. He was a good man with a healthy amount of worry for his boss. Obviously, if I was taking up enough of Blake’s time, to the point where I was getting personal calls from him, that was something to feel uneasy over.
Pressing the radio’s button, I said, “Well, Friday was kind of... a tough day for me.”
There was another long pause of silence on the other end. “I’m sorry.”
Smiling, I pressed the button again. “No worries. Just means you owe me three bread pudding cups.”
He laughed again into the receiver. “Is that your tax?”
“Yup.” Among other things, but I wasn’t about to get into that over a semi-private radio channel. “Anyway, how did the first day go?”
“Amazing. The kids did great. You should’ve seen them.”
“Wish I could’ve. Maybe next time.”
“They’ll still be here by the time you get back.”
Was that an invite?
I flexed my hand around the walkie. Blake wasn’t granting anyone permission over to that side of the property. For good reason, of course.
And yet... was that strict rule being lifted for me?
Because he wanted to spend more time with me?
During all of this back-and-forth with him, I was trying not to get my hopes up about anything. Mainly because mitigating thedistress of leaving him and this place behind was already going to be hard enough. Adding more fondness to tether me here was turning this into a recipe for self-flagellation.
“I was actually toying with the idea of coming up there tomorrow.”
I reeled back my hand to stare down at the radio. There was no way I heard that right. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. My granddad offered to run the show tomorrow so I can actually get a full night’s sleep. He’s been picking on the circles under my eyes all day. But... I was thinking about doing something else instead.”
