Morning Man

by Barbara Kellyn

  Dayna sat across from Tack, enjoying her vantage point as he held court in the middle of the table. “Hey kid,” he said, slinging his arm around Jared’s neck. “Did I ever tell you that when I first started in radio, I was an intern just like you?”

  Jared’s eyes lit up. “Really, Mr. Collins?”

  “Absolutely.” He reached for the beer pitcher, topping himself up before stealthily filling Jared’s glass with clandestine suds as well. “I got my foot in the door helping with station promotions.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Dayna leaned in.

  He nodded. “Oh yeah. It was this tiny AM station in Hastings. I’d do whatever they asked just for a chance to get on the air. Believe it or not, I even agreed to wear a corny mascot costume and pass out bumper stickers during barbecues.”

  That piqued her curiosity. “And what kind of costume was that?”

  He chuckled. “Let’s just say they used to call me Wiener Boy.”

  She slapped her hand on the table and fell back in her chair, nearly hysterical over the image of Tack dressed as a giant hotdog. “Wiener Boy?”

  “I knew you’d like that one.”

  “Well, you definitely have the buns for it.” She burst out laughing again.

  Jared smirked. “Gee, Mr. Collins, even I don’t think I’d dress up like food.”

  “You say that now, kid, but mark my word, if I hadn’t worn that dumb thing, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  Still snickering, Dayna wiped a tear from her eye. “So to be frank, you really relished that opportunity, huh?”

  “Funny, funny,” he sneered as he picked up his glass.

  Two servers toting four piping-hot pizzas were met with enthusiastic applause and cheers from around the table as everyone hungrily dived in. Dayna was halfway through a thick slice of sausage and mushroom when she spotted another boisterous team pouring into the bar. It took a moment for the Mix 96 logo on their jerseys to register and a millisecond longer before CJ caught her eye.

  Tack noticed her distraction and turned his head to see who’d walked in. “There goes the neighborhood,” he muttered.

  She had made a concerted effort to steer clear of CJ at home, strategically timing her entrances and exits to purposely avoid any confrontation, but she steeled herself realizing that was all about to change.

  CJ strutted with his hands on his hips, wearing a stupid grin on his scruffy, unshaven face covered in three or four days’ growth. “Hey, guys,” he called to his pals, “I just figured out where the stench of horseshit is coming from. Country One-oh-three is over here.”

  Elliott led a chorus of boos as CJ got closer to their table. Dayna glared at him. “Go away, CJ.”

  “Yeah, get lost,” Dub sniped above the hissing. “And take the rest of the Shits Ninety-six crew with you.”

  “I have as much right to come in for a beer with my buddies as the rest of you.”

  Tack examined CJ’s pathetic attempt at a beard and started to snicker. “Ya got a li’l dirt on your face there, Seacrest.”

  CJ stroked his prickly chin. “Screw you, Collins.”

  “Ooh.” He wiggled his fingers in the air. “I’m shaking.”

  “I can’t wait to beat your redneck ass on the ball field. Then we’ll see who’s the big man.”

  Tack angrily kicked back his chair and rose to his feet, sticking a finger in CJ’s face. “Or we could step outside and find out right now.”

  The guys at the table erupted in cheers, spurring on a fight. Dayna froze with panic as Tack bulldozed CJ, forcing him backward. “Let’s go,” he growled, pulling back his massive fist. “I’ve been wantin’ to do this since I met you, boy.”

  One of CJ’s Mix 96 cohorts rushed over to his aid. “Hey man, cool it, all right?”

  “I’m not afraid of you, Collins,” CJ said, attempting to sound threatening as he shrank away.

  “You should be.” Tack stared him down. “I’m gonna teach you a thing or two about bullying women. Lesson one: you pick on my girl Dayna, you deal with me.”

  CJ suddenly slipped backward. His eyes widened as he tripped over his own feet and fell splat on the floor, meeting with a burst of deafening laughter from the entire bar.

  Tack returned to an overture of applause at the table. He caught Dayna’s eye and shrugged. “Sorry, sugar. But he was asking for it.”

  Provoked by a swell of gratitude, not to mention being incredibly turned on by how totally hot he was flexing his He-Man fury, Dayna reached out for a fistful of Tack’s shirt and pulled him in for a long, wet hero’s kiss.

  Everyone around them went nuts and his eyes flew open in surprise. “I guess we just went public, huh?”

  “Cowboy, we’ve been public for weeks now.” She smiled. “It’s high time we started acting like it.”

  Then he grabbed her face and kissed her again.

  * * * *

  Later in the evening, Tack emerged from the men’s room and bumped into Liz in the corridor. “Looks like things are going pretty well between you and Dayna, hmm?”

  He grinned coyly and leaned against the wall, his eyes focused on a little knot in the woodwork. “She’s really something, ain’t she? Might be the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” He wedged his thumb into the knot-hole, mindlessly twiddling with it.

  Liz smiled, folding her arms. “Must be serious.”

  He finally brought himself to look at her. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m telling you,” he said, “I sure do like it.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk about a girl this way before,” she said as a fellow passed them by on his way to the restroom.

  He smiled. “She’s got me thinking about things I’ve never thought before, too.”

  A guffaw of disbelief escaped her. “With your dirty mind? Somehow I find that difficult to believe.”

  “I’m not talking about sex,” he said. “We haven’t even, you know…”

  Liz pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to swoon. “Catch me, I think I might faint.”

  “I’m serious,” Tack said as another guy accidentally jostled him and nodded apologetically. “We agreed not to sleep together until summer ratings end. Boss thinks it’ll mess up our on-air chemistry.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she said with mock empathy. “Suffering in agony, I’ll bet.”

  “Yeah, at first I was pretty hung up about it. But now that a few weeks have gone by, it’s like I’m on this crazy high just as long as I get to be around her.”

  “My stars, I never thought I’d see the day.” Liz smiled. “Honey, you’re in love.”

  “Surely, you’re mistaken, ma’am.” Heat spread from his neck to his face as he averted his eyes and nervously shuffled his feet.

  She shook her head from side to side. “Sorry TC, but you, my friend, are in love.”

  He hadn’t known what to label the tangle of emotion balled up inside him, but as soon his ears heard the words, his heart confirmed it. He loved Dayna. “Do me a favor and let’s just keep this on the down-low for now?”

  “Your secret’s safe with me.” She nudged him with her elbow. “But I can’t think of a single reason why you should hide this from her.”

  “I’ve got twelve thousand good reasons,” he said. “Boss put up a big bonus for us if we can keep our feet on the floor until Labor Day. Six grand apiece.”

  Liz fanned her hand in front of her face. “Whoa, that’s a lot of moolah.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And I don’t want anything taking our eyes off the prize because it’s as good as spent already. So mum’s the word until I know the time is right.”

  She pressed her lips together. “You got it.”

  There was a sudden commotion behind him as a couple of jerks got into a brief scuffle outside the men’s room. Tack looked over his shoulder and saw that one of them was CJ. The other guy cleared out quickly, leaving CJ with a smarmy grin begging to be wiped off his weasel face.

  “What the fuck a
re you looking at, Maroni?”

  “Twelve grand? Twelve grand’s keeping you from getting in the sack with Day?”

  He swung around fast, using his forearm to pin CJ against the wall. “How long were you standing back there?” he snarled.

  “Long enough.” CJ tried to wriggle away and Tack pushed harder to keep him firmly in place.

  “Long enough for what, junior?”

  “Long enough to realize that since she’s gonna keep you stalled out on the porch ’til Labor Day, I’ve still got a shot.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me. After all you’ve done to mess with Dayna’s head, you really think she’d take you back? Not in a million years.”

  “You’re forgetting that I’ve got the home court advantage,” CJ squeaked. “Ply her with drinks and a few sweet nothings and I’m in like Flynn.”

  Tack’s pulse throbbed in his straining neck. “Boy, you don’t know how close you are to becoming a permanent hole in this wall.”

  “You won’t hit me because you know she’d be upset if you did,” CJ said, suddenly more fearless. “Why would she be upset, you ask? Oh. Yeah. Maybe it’s because she still has feelings for me. And maybe that’s the real reason she’s been using the twelve grand as an excuse not to have to suck your–”

  Before either of them knew what had happened, CJ was on the ground and Tack’s knuckles were burning. “Still can’t figure what she ever saw in a son of a bitch like you,” he said, stepping over the limp body slumped against the wall.

  Chapter 12

  Betty Crocker has nothing on me, Dayna thought, delicately removing hot cake from the last round tin. When the third and final disk was freed and resting in one intact piece on the cooling rack with the other two, she finally exhaled the breath she’d been holding since they’d gone into the oven to bake. Dayna Cook, Domestic Goddess. Hell ya.

  She cleared away the broken egg shells, flour-covered measuring cups and stirring spoons before preparing for phase two: cream-cheese frosting. While she rinsed each beater under warm water, she imagined Tack’s surprise when she came to work in the morning to present him with a dazzling homemade birthday cake. If he only knew what a daunting task following a complex recipe was for someone of her limited kitchen ability, he’d have little choice but to whip her up in his arms, throw her down on the console and make her yodel like a rodeo queen.

  She returned to the cookbook and scanned the directions. Butter. Cream cheese. Confectioners’ sugar. Vanilla extract. Easy enough, she shrugged, combining the ingredients that she intended to turn into a creamy, cloud-like frosting. The electric beaters were whirring at high speed when the back door opened and CJ walked in.

  “Hey, what’s all this?” he asked, his finger poised to poke one of the cooling cakes. “Smells pretty good.”

  “Don’t touch!” she warned. “They only came out a few minutes ago.”

  He went to the fridge for his customary after-shift beer. “You want one?”

  “Sure,” she answered. “Thanks.”

  CJ twisted off both beer caps, putting her bottle down before taking several long gulps from his. “Okay,” he said, pressing his chin to his chest as he burped silently. “I’ll ask again. What’s all this for?”

  She showed him the cookbook’s glossy photo of the luxuriously rich, three-tiered red velvet cake. “It’s Tack’s birthday tomorrow.”

  “Aw, ain’t that sweet.” He clasped his chest. “Don’t forget to add a few shakes of arsenic from me,” he said, looking mighty tempted to dip into the bowl and scoop out a fingerful of frosting.

  Dayna moved it safely out of reach.

  “You know, I haven’t dismissed the idea of pressing charges for what that asshole did to me a couple weeks ago,” CJ said.

  “Come on, Ceege, you don’t want to do that. Your eye has almost completely healed,” she said. “Besides, you’ve got to know there’s no way anyone will believe it was completely unprovoked. There’s a roomful of witnesses that will vouch for Tack.”

  “Why are you automatically taking his side? He’s nothing but a big brute.”

  She smiled as she conjured up an erotic image of Tack as a savage, all beastly broad and wearing nothing but an inadequate little loincloth. “Mmm…yes, I know.”

  CJ turned up his nose. “Wasn’t so long ago you’d get that same look in your eyes thinking about me.”

  “Oh really? And just how would you know that?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I guess I don’t know that for sure. But didn’t you?”

  She picked up her beer and drank a few quenching sips. “Maybe once or twice a very long time ago.”

  “Once or twice,” he echoed glibly. “Not the way you chased me around that station like a lovesick puppy.”

  She threw the beaters into the sink and they landed in two separate kerplunky splashes. “I did not chase you.”

  “But you did ask me out first, remember?”

  She moved the bowl of frosting and then fumbled around in the drawer for a spatula. “Only because you were never going to get around to it. One of us had to shit or get off the pot.”

  “Oh, real nice, Day. You kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Tongue and all.”

  He shuddered. “Excuse me, I have to go upstairs and scrub my brain.”

  The first glop of frosting went on the bottom cake and she spread it out before squishing down the second tier on top and repeating the steps. CJ watched as she concentrated on ensuring each layer round was sitting perfectly straight and uniform.

  “He’s really going to like it,” CJ said, staring at the sweet concoction.

  She stood back and proudly admired her work. “Yeah, you think?”

  “I’d bet on it. Let’s say, oh, twelve grand?”

  “Twel–?” She shot him a stony glare. “Why’d you randomly pluck twelve grand out of the blue?”

  “Is that not the magic amount it’s gonna take to unlock your chastity belt at the end of the summer?”

  Oh God, he knows. “That’s none of your beeswax.”

  “Look, I’m not making fun,” he said. “I’m sure it’s been really difficult. After all, unless I’m missing something, the last time we were together was–”

  “December twenty-second,” she said sharply.

  CJ whistled. “No wonder you’ve been so tense. Seven, no, eight months is a long time without nookie.”

  “Unless I’m missing something, that should’ve been the last time you were with anyone too,” she said. “But of course, it wasn’t, was it?”

  “It’s different for guys. Biologically speaking, we need sex. We have millions of years of genetic programming that propels us to go out and spread our seed.”

  Without looking up, she cut the spatula down through the cream cheese frosting and began spackling the sides of the ruby red cake, trying not to overthink how CJ had spent the nights here while she was back home believing they were serious about taking their relationship to the next level. She wasn’t a fool. She fully expected that he’d let an indiscretion or two slip while they were three hundred miles apart. But not trying to hide or deny it was just cold. “You and your seed spreader need to get the hell out of here.”

  CJ pushed his hips off the counter and came over to where she stood, slithering his hand around her waist. “You know, we can go upstairs right now and I’ll help you scratch that itch.”

  She swatted him away. “Ick.”

  “I’m serious. In a few minutes, I’ll get your love plumbing all flushed out and have you feeling so much better.” He leaned down and planted a sloppy wet kiss on her bare shoulder, doing absolutely nothing erotic for her but sending a chill down her spine.

  She jabbed his collarbone with her elbow. “Cut it out, Ceege, I mean it.”

  “Cross my heart, I’ll take it to my grave. Collins will never find out.”

  Dayna rolled her eyes. “Oh, puh-lease. You’d be rubbing it in Tack’s face before your socks w
ere off.”

  His hand smoothed over her back while he whispered in her ear. “Don’t you remember how good we were together? I always gave satisfaction guaranteed service.”

  “All I remember is that it was adequate and that your satisfaction was the only thing always guaranteed,” she said. “Mine, on the other hand, seemed to be hit and miss.”

  CJ backed away, conceding defeat. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t offer.” Sulking, he went back to his beer and Dayna turned her full attention on finishing the cake, hunting for any spots in the frosting that needed to be smoothed over. “When are you moving the hell out of here so I can get on with my life?”

  “Believe me, I can’t wait to get on with my life either,” she said, feeling the corner of her eye start to twitch and shudder. “As soon as I get my share of the twelve grand, I’m outta here.”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah, it is great. It’s been a huge sacrifice but I couldn’t ask for better incentive than knowing in just a matter of weeks, I’ll finally be getting away from you for good.”

  “And then what? You’re out of your mind if you think you’re going to ride off into the sunset with Collins,” he sneered. “For some insane reason he’s stuck around this long, but trust me, once he gets what he wants, he’ll be banging the first radio-groupie-bar-slut that bats her lashes. That’s the Tack Collins way.”

  Her eye went into full spasm mode, but with sticky hands, she had to vigorously rub it against her arm until it subsided. “Go screw yourself, CJ.”

  He started to laugh. “Kind of ironic since I’m the only person standing in this kitchen who doesn’t have to do that,” he chuckled.

  “But you’ll do it anyway because no one will ever love and understand you quite like your right hand.”

  CJ gulped down the last of his beer, walked over and burped a bubble of hot, yeasty air into the side of her face. “I wouldn’t fuck you now if you got on your knees and begged me for it. Remember that when Collins dumps your sorry ass on Labor Day.”

  In bed that evening, Dayna tossed and turned. “Damn you, CJ,” she growled, rolling over and pounding her pillow hard with her fist. She hated his guts, hated sleeping on that creaky, old pull-out couch, hated living in that stupid house. She also hated worrying about what might happen after Labor Day and how sex would change things with Tack. The last few weeks had been fantastic. Even without getting naked, she’d never felt such an intimate connection with anyone. She wanted him so bad that every engorged cell in her body throbbed, but also realized that somewhere along the way, the magnetic pull she felt had stopped being merely about sexual attraction and become about something much more real. She thought about his gorgeous azure eyes, the way they lit up when he laughed, the way they naughtily twinkled when they kissed, the way they focused so intently on her as if he could read her mind.