So why does it feel like progress?
Later that night, I’m lying in bed with my laptop, staring at the audiobook library I’ve accumulated. Seventeen titles, all narrated by Golda Adler. All purchased in a moment of desperation after getting destroyed by firefighters.
I click on “A Lady’s Secret”—one I haven’t listened to yet—and her voice fills my bedroom.
“Lady Margaret had always prided herself on her composure, but as the mysterious stranger approached across the ballroom, she found her carefully constructed walls beginning to crumble...”
Fuck. Did she know? When she asked about audiobooks, there was something in her tone. Like she was testing me. Like maybe she figured out that I’m the idiot buying romance novels just to hear her voice.
“Romance is popular right now,” she’d said. And then that look, like she was amused by something.
Christ, what if she knows? What if she’s sitting at home right now thinking about the pathetic professional athlete who asked her about “historical fiction” like some kind of literary scholar?
I should probably delete these. All of them. Move on with my life like a normal person.
Instead, I close my eyes and let her voice wash over me, telling me about ballrooms and mysterious strangers and women whose walls are crumbling.
My phone buzzes. Text from Elliot.
Brody says you talked to her after practice. How’d that go?
Disaster. Think she might know about the audiobooks.
What?? How?
Asked too many questions about voice work. Sounded suspicious when she answered.
You’re being paranoid. She probably just thinks you’re interested in her career.
Pretty sure I sounded like a creep.
You always sound like a creep. That’s your baseline.
Thanks for the pep talk.
Did you learn anything about her as a person?
I think about it. Single parenting. Expensive equipment. Wanting Tyson to be confident.
She’s doing it alone. The whole parenting thing. Says it’s hard.
See? Progress. You learned something real.
I guess.
Trust me. Keep having actual conversations. Stop overthinking.
Easy for her to say. She’s not the one lying here listening to romance novels and wondering if she’s blown her cover.
On my laptop, Lady Margaret is discovering that the mysterious stranger has “eyes like midnight storms” and a “touch that promised both salvation and ruin.”
I reach for the volume button to turn it down, but Golda’s voice stops me.
“The Duke had become obsessed, though he would never admit it aloud. Each night, he found himself seeking out her letters, her poetry, anything that contained her words. He told himself it was merely curiosity, but deep in his heart, he knew the truth—he was collecting pieces of her voice like a man possessed.”
My hand freezes halfway to the laptop.
“His friends mocked him for his sudden interest in literature. ‘Since when do you read poetry, Ashworth?’ they would ask. But he could hardly explain that he cared nothing for the verses themselves. It was her voice that mattered, the way she breathed life into each word, made even the simplest phrases sound like secrets meant only for him.”
