I pass through the cool marble lobby and take stock of my surroundings once again, now more aware that I’m in a place I’m not prepared for.

After clearing everything up with Jess, I realized, yes - just like I’d assumed, the nature podcast did, indeed, record out of a small community college downtown, where LA Public Radio had a satellite office for some of the smaller podcasts they were associated with. LAPR did not have offices in a high-rise in one of downtown’s trendiest neighborhoods, and the host and executive producer was not a sexy, slightly older man with eight-pack abs rippling through the t-shirt he wore to the office.

Today when I walk through the lobby, I know where I am and where I’m going. This is a place that boasts wealth, objects and furniture selected by someone who wanted to be surrounded by beautiful things.

Clearly, Ryan is accustomed to being around beautiful things.

The elevator is made of glass and exposed to the outside world, the wall adjacent to it also made of glass and steel. The air smells like money, mint and fresh leather, and my stomach flips, my shoes clicking on the marble floor when I get off at the main Dirty After Dark offices.

I spot a familiar face in Matt, the receptionist, and stride over to him with as much confidence as I can muster - shoulders back, chin up, and my purse swung snugly over my shoulder.

“Hey, I remember you,” Matt says as I approach his desk. The office is as quirky as I remember it, but again, seeing it now is a different experience. The pink sofa suddenly feels a little bit more suggestive. The vintage anatomy posters aren’t there for instruction, or if they are, it isn’t purely theoretical. Anyone utilizing those for instruction could use a laser pointer to give a practical lesson.

“Yes,” I say, “I’m here for my first day.”

“Ryan and Kayla are actually recording now, trying to get some content in before a meeting. Have you met Kay yet?”

Matt comes around to the other side of his desk and starts leading me down to the offices with a wave of his hand.

“No, not yet,” I say, following behind quickly. “So far I’ve just met Ryan and you. But Kay is like his right-hand, right?”

“Exactly,” Matt says. “They’ve been together for a long time. They had the show back in New York, and they came here together. I’m pretty sure they met in college. She’s a sweetheart. You’re going to adore her.” We pass the threshold from the hallway into an open-air space with bright, floor to ceiling windows and about eight or ten low-wall cubicles in the center. On the far right wall of the space is a line of offices where I assume the producers work from, and on the left is a door out to a terrace overlooking the Hollywood Hills. The space is bright and airy, with tall potted plants in every corner; it’s fresh and full of life.

“Well, this is you,” Matt says, bringing me over to a cubicle outside Ryan’s office. “You can make yourself comfy here.” He clasps his hands behind his back as I shift past him, placing my bag down on the desk and slipping off my raincoat.

“This is great. I feel at home here already.” I look around the desk to see all the things I’ll need to be a successful intern: paper, pens, of course a computer, and then, in the corner of the desk, a phone with an earpiece shaped like a banana.

“You don’t want to just sit here waiting for something to do, do you?” Matt asks with a little glimmer in his eye.

“I’ll do whatever’s needed of me. I’m the intern, right? I’m here to do the stuff no one else wants to. Not in a bad way, of course,” I add quickly.

“No, trust me,” he says, “you don’t want to just sit here screwing around on the internet until someone comes up with something better to do. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll be plenty busy, but a lot of the interns here tend to be a little bit...disappointing.”

“Oh?” I say, folding my hands in my lap. “That’s literally the last thing I want for myself.”

“That’s the last thing Ryan wants for you, too. He and Kay have very high hopes for you. Come on. You’re coming with me. Leave your stuff.”

“Where are we going?” We proceed back around the cubicles and through the hallway, to the recording booth where Ryan and Kayla are sitting.

“I thought you might want to sit in on a recording session,” Matt says. “Their recording light is on right now, but they’ll take a coffee break soon. When the light goes off, just go on in. And for the time being,” he adds, “just hang tight. This isn’t a one-sided window with a mirror on the other side. It’s not an interrogation room. They can see you just as well as you can see them.”

My stomach flutters when I see Ryan on the other side of the glass, his lips teasing the microphone as he dispenses his wisdom to a needy caller. His eyes flicker over to mine and he pauses, smiling and waving to me through the glass.

He’s wearing a tight pair of dark jeans that I can see through the glass desk he has set up in the studio for his laptop, matched with a simple black t-shirt, stretching across the muscles in his arms and upper chest.

Flipping his recording device off, the red light above the studio dimms and flicks off, and he waves me into the room.

This is where the action happens. I stepped inside the glass box full of technology, Kayla, and the sexist man I’ve ever seen.

“It’s your first day, right?” Ryan pushes the microphone away from his face and leans back in his chair, studying me, on hand on the armrest of his chair, two fingers on the other pinching his bottom lip.

“Yes,” I respond eagerly. “I hope it’s okay that I’m in here. Matt brought me over.”

“Of course,” Kayla says. “And don’t worry about his stupid question. I know it’s your first day. He wasn’t in yesterday. Do you even work here anymore, Ryan?”

“My work is taking me bi-coastal,” Ryan explains. “I had a few meetings in New York over the past few days, so I was over there for a bit.”

“You’re from New York, aren’t you?” I ask, settling down in a chair against the wall.

“That’s right,” he says, nodding. “I see you’ve done your homework.”

My cheeks flush and I shake my head, looking down at my hands.

“I have now,” I reply. “I know everything there is to know about the show. And believe me, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I just wasn’t very aware of the show before a few days ago. I mean, after I met you I realized I’d seen your face around town.”

“Interesting.” Ryan flips back on the recording switch and smolders into the microphone. “We have a really good question today from someone who actually wrote into us. Imagine that, someone who took the time to write an email. Rare these days. So this writer says he has been married for twenty years and his wife came to him saying she wanted to have a three-way. The guy is uncertain about what to do. So, what do you guys think?”

Ryan looks between me and Kayla, his eyes flashing in the dim lights of the studio.

“We need more information,” Kayla offers. She has kind eyes, and the kind of LA look you see on TV, with tattoos and vintage glasses. “Is the three-way with another woman, or with a man? This is key. Is this a transition into her becoming a hotwife, or is this a one-time thing? So many questions, and we have all night.”

“We have another person with us in the studio today,” Ryan says, throwing a glance over at me. “Welcome Sara, our new intern. Sara, say hello to everyone. Don’t be shy.”

“Hey,” I squeak out. I wave, even though the caller can’t see me, and I roll my eyes at myself.

“Do you have any ideas for this person?” Ryan says skeptically.

“I think he should do it,” I say, making my back straight in my chair. “Why not? They’ve been married for twenty years, and if he’s writing in to ask, that means he’s clearly considering it. I think if he didn’t want to do it, he would have pretended his wife never came to him with the question.”

“That’s a good point,” Ryan says. “Let’s try to get this guy on the phone. He lives in New York, and it’s lunch time there.”

I straighten up and look around the studio. Getting someone on the phone - this is part of an intern’s job, isn’t it? Where’s the phone? What do I do?

Kayla hits a few buttons and a phone line lights up.

“You’re on the air with Dirty After Dark,” Ryan says into his microphone, his voice deep and sexy. If this is how he spoke to a middle-aged man, I wonder how he speaks when he’s alone with a young woman.

“Ryan Hart?” the man on the other end of the line gushes. “Oh, sorry, just one second. I’m on the subway. I just need to get off.” A few honks of car horns and shouting comes through the phone. “Okay, I’m back. Thank you so much for calling me!”

“Of course,” Ryan says. “Your question was very interesting to us, and we felt that we needed a little bit more information.”

“Okay, what would you like to know?”

“So, you said that your wife wants to have a three-way,” Kayla chimes in, “would this be with another man or another woman?”

“Oh, well...I have to tell you guys something. This is a bit awkward. Did you guys announce my name on the air by any chance?”

“Nope,” Ryan says, sitting back in his chair and laughing. He rolls in neck around his shoulders, and my cheeks flush as I catch a look at his shoulders in his tight tee. “We’ll edit out where you’re from, too.”

“Alight,” the man says. “Well, I don’t know how to say this exactly, but it was because of me that my wife wants to have the three-way.”

My ears perk up and everyone in the room shoots glances at each other. I sit forward in my chair a little, putting my elbows on the tops of my thighs. I think I see Ryan cast a glance over at my legs, but he quickly trains his eyes back onto his microphone, bringing it a little closer to those sexy lips.

“How’d that happen, my man?”

“Well, we were at this party for my firm...I’m an attorney...and I drunkenly told her that one of my colleagues thinks she’s hot. A MILF. And what’s even worse, I didn’t get mad at him. I actually was a little bit turned on by it.”

“You want your wife to have sex with another man.” Kayla takes a sip of her iced coffee and nods slowly, closing her eyes sagely, knowingly, as though she deals with this kind of thing all the time.

“Yes!” the man on the other end of the line says. “Is that completely insane?”

“No,” Ryan says frankly. “It’s not insane. This is absolutely more common than you’d think.”

I can feel the heat in my face grow down to my neck. I’ve never heard anything like this before - a guy who wants to have his wife have sex with someone else? I always thought infidelity was one of the most awful things that could affect a marriage. But again, I have a lot to learn.

“It is?” I say, drawing my lips into a tight line as soon as I say it. “Sorry. I meant to keep that comment to myself.”

“Our new intern,” Ryan says, clapping quietly. “But yes, it is more common than you’d think. So man, it sounds like this is a win-win for you. You get to see your wife with another guy, and she gets to...well, have sex with a new guy. After twenty years of marriage, you sure you’re okay with that?”

The man on the other end of the line audibly sighs. “I can’t say for sure I won’t be jealous, but it’s really something I’d like to explore. And I definitely don’t regret telling my wife about it, even though I did let it slip out when I was a little bit intoxicated.”

“For me, the best thing in this whole situation is that your wife actually seems into it. She took your input, and found a way to compromise,” Kayla says

“I agree,” Ryan says. “You’ve got to decide for yourself if this is something you’d like to do, but I think you should go for it.”

“Thank you, Ryan. I’ll tell my wife that I spoke to you. She’s a huge fan of yours.”

“Thanks for writing in, man.”

The phone clicks off, and Ryan hits the recording switch.