Page 33 of Silver Fox's Secret Baby

She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair. “Don’t forget to shake the bag around in the mic for effect.”

“Oh, yes, how could I?” I speak. I hold the bag up to the mic and shuffle it around, so it picks up the sound of papers shuffling around inside.

Harley giggles. Oh, how I love to make her laugh. It warms the coil in my belly every time.

I pinch a piece of paper in my hands and withdraw it. “Drum roll, please.”

Harley hits the table with her hands as I unfold the paper.

The second I see the word “love” on the paper, the blood drains out of my face.

“You good?”

I realize I’ve been staring at the paper for a couple of seconds and that’s a couple of seconds too long for radio. “Um…”

“Don’t keep us on the edge of our seats,” Harley encourages. “Read it.”

I take a deep breath. “The question is…” My eyes land in hers almost by accident. Almost. “Do you believe in love?”

All at once, she understands my silence. Harley’s eyes widen, her mouth sealed shut.

What happened between us…that wasn’t love. But it wasn’t an absence of love altogether.

“Well…uh…” Harley forces a laugh. “Can’t say we’ve ever had that one.” She repositions herself in her chair. “Been dreading it, honestly. Dre made me put it in.”

Dre grins and gives a thumbs up from the board.

“We can pick another one,” I say, hurriedly returning the paper to the grab bag.

“No, we can’t. Not how the bag works.” Harley sighs and leans forward, clasping her hands on the table as if we’re about to start a business transaction rather than a conversation. “Well, Grant.” Her warm brown eyes are giving me a fever just by looking at me. “Do you believe in love?”

I half-laugh and rub my hand over my chin in thought. I cleaned up my beard this morning knowing I was going to see Harley. Wanted to make a good impression. “What kind of love are we talking about?”

“Romantic,” she answers plainly. Whether or not she meant it to be implicit in the question doesn’t matter. That’s what she wants to know about.

“Well, at the risk of sounding like a misanthrope,” I say and then give a small shrug, “I think any kind of romantic love is a farce.”

Harley is quiet and then smiles brightly. “Well, that’s something we can agree on.”

I’m relieved. Or am I?

“Tell me more about that, Grant.”

“What do you want to know?”

Harley gesticulates, a pen in her hand. “You know, just tell me more. Why do you think that?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“But I’m the interviewer!” she says with a grin.

I try to laugh but it just comes out limp like a balloon losing air. “Let me just say that I don’t think that means we shouldn’t try and connect with people. You know, dating and–”

“Sex.”

She’s knocked the wind right out of me with just one word. Now I know she’s thinking about it at the same moment I am, the amazing way our bodies came together. She’s putting a spotlight on it. “Are you allowed to say sex on public radio?”

“This is talk radio. The lines are blurred.”

---