“Nerrrrrd,” she interjected, but Dave barreled on.
“So if you’re interested in our gal here, send us an email with your bio, photo, and likely parole date.”
Mabel gave a gusting sigh that made the hair on the back of Jake’s neck stand at attention even though it was nothing more than a voice coming from a speaker. “My special someone’s out there somewhere, and in my heart of hearts, I know he’ll get sprung early for good behavior. Aaaand after the break, we’ll run down the community events scheduled for this weekend, so stay tuned.”
A Smashing Pumpkins song kicked up, and Brandon nodded to himself. “That girl is good. They’re gonna make me so much money.”
Therewas a conversation Jake should be interested in pursuing. It’s why he was in Beaucoeur after all: to make this station profitable. Yet his brain refused to focus on the numbers.
That girl is single.
The thought materialized like the sharp clang of a bell.Single.Sure, it’d only taken listening to one show for him to develop an appreciation for her fast wit, but that was just part of his job here, right?He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sucked in a breath, picturing that empty partner office on the fifty-sixth floor of his building, waiting for him to fill it. The image helped push thoughts of Mabel’s voice from his mind, and he exhaled slowly, calm back in place.
“Everything okay?” Brandon was looking at him with curiosity.
“Yep.” Of course. He was reliable, work-first Jake Carey. The same as always.
“So who’d you leave behind in Chicago?” Brandon spoke as if Jake’s thoughts were printed above his head. “Wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”
Thumb, meet another tender spot.
“Not even a potted plant,” he said flatly. “The job keeps me busy.” Which was true, even if it wasn’t the whole story.
Brandon just sighed. “God, you workaholics wear me out. At least I’ve got an ex pestering me about shared custody of the dog.” He pinned Jake with his sharp blue eyes. “Is it worth it?”
Brandon’s suddenly serious tone was a 180 from his normal flippancy, and Jake didn’t even have to think about the answer. “For a partner’s salary? Of course it’s worth it.”
Worth not pledging a fraternity in college so he could spend all his free time taking course overloads to graduate faster. Worth not investing time in his dating life, searching for relationships with the potential for more. Worth every skipped vacation, every weekend in the office, every family holiday where he’d paid for the meal but hadn’t gotten there in time to eat it while it was hot.
Fuck, ithadto be worth it.
“What a drag.” The man across from him shook his head as he tucked his phone into his pocket. “In your next life, I recommend being born rich.”
Jake huffed a laugh. How perfectly ridiculous and perfectly Brandon. “Sure. I’ll get to work on that.”
He might not have been born rich, but he’d busted his ass, and now he had a fat 401(k), a condo with a view of Lake Michigan, and enough in savings to allow him to sleep soundly at night. A BPS partnership would be the keystone in the life he’d been building from the moment he’d realized as a teenager that he wanted more for his worn-down mom and his hungry, big-eyed sister than constant money worries and a shitty walk-up apartment in one of Chicago’s bleakest neighborhoods. And if that required spending a few months in an extended-stay hotel in downstate bumblefuck, so be it. Nothing was going to knock him off course.
“Knock, knock.”
How? How did she summon goose bumps with only a handful of words? His shoulders tightened when the woman with the sharp brain and the supple voice invaded the office. He dragged his eyes to the doorway to confirm that the blonde he’d met on Wednesday still vibrated with the same bright energy he’d first glimpsed through the studio window.
Single. The word resurfaced with another clang, and his palms started to sweat. Thankfully Brandon took up the talking banner while Jake wrestled his accelerating heartbeat under control.
“Well, hello, Morning Show Mabel.” Brandon leaned back in his chair and looked at her like a predatory cat. “What can we do for you?”
She stepped into the office, her eyes bouncing between Jake and Brandon.
“Do either of you have jumper cables in your car?” She gestured over her shoulder, presumably toward the parking lot. “The station van’s dead again, and I usually use Kirby’s cables to jump it, but he’s gone, and Dave’s at an appointment, and Skip’s on the air, and all the ad reps are out of the office doing God knows what, so which of you is gonna be my hero?”
She ended her flood of words with a smile-grimace that Brandon met with agrimace-grimace. “I’m sorry, did you say the station van’s deadagain?”
Now Mabel was full-on grimacing too, and she slanted another gaze at Jake. God, she was pretty—and that wasbeforeshe ran her tongue over her lower lip, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and resumed torturing him with her velvety voice.
“Yeah, uh, we need to jump it on occasion,” she said apologetically. “Usually after it rains. Or snows. Or if it’s unusually dewy. Did that… not come up before the sale?”
“It did not.” Brandon leveled a cool gaze at her, and she bit her lip. “Hopefully the human capital performs better under damp conditions.”
“Everything but my hair!” she chirped nervously, smoothing a hand over the golden mass hanging past her shoulders. “So, uh, cables?”
