The Kiss Test Read Free Page A

your party.”
    Oh well. Even that wasn’t going to get me down. I’d see Joe later.
    Katya, a spindly, spiky-haired blonde and one of my close friends, sat down at the table with her cake. “I could barely get a break to come here. Your award’s put your time slot in demand for advertising already. The phone’s been ringing off the hook for the past twenty minutes.”
    I laughed. “Glad I could help.” I’d put up with reading Korean advertising on-air for the rest of my life, if only I could keep this feeling.
    I loved my life. It was perfect.





Chapter Two
    “Double Trouble”
    My celebration with Kevin went pretty much like I’d envisioned—Beef Chow Yuk and nakedness included. There was also the added bonus of sweet-and-sour sauce body paint, sticky but satisfying. He was happy for me to the extent an accountant could show happiness. I mean, granted, my Best Country DJ Award wasn’t as exciting as Kevin’s Best Tax Loophole Award, but he tried to work up the same enthusiasm.
    After my show the next day—a damn good show if I do say so myself—the general manager sent word for me to come to his office. I practically jogged down the hall to see Joe. I’d missed him sharing in my excitement yesterday. He was the best boss I’d ever had, besides being my mentor and good friend. You know, one of those people you can always count on. I knew he wanted to congratulate me, and I’d take all the pats on the back I could get.
    I knocked at Joe’s door. His gruff voice barked softly to enter. Joe was a huge man, probably six-eight and solid muscle, mammoth in size and girth, especially to a five-foot four-inch girl like me. He sat behind a tiny metal desk—the station owners weren’t big on esthetics—circa nineteen thirty, I think. Maybe it wasn’t really tiny but just looked that way because of Joe’s size.
    “You summoned me?” I said, drawing Joe’s attention from the papers he was inspecting.
    He glanced up and quickly removed his reading glasses before standing.
    “Margo.”
    I blinked at his somber tone. Joe tended toward cheerful and nearly effusive enthusiasm, with a soft spot for his morning girl, in my own humble opinion, and I surely expected him to be thrilled about my award. Now, he was decidedly not effusive. Or thrilled.
    “I missed you at my party yesterday,” I said. “But, I know you planned it. It was really nice. Look, I brought you the magazine the guys in IT made.”
    He ignored the magazine I tossed on the desk and looked up at me. A stab of worry went through me. Despite the huge smile I had on my face, Joe looked like someone had died.
    He motioned to the faux leather chair in front of his desk, but I shook my head. “I’ll stand, if you don’t mind,” I said, twisting my waist one way then the other, in an effort to get some of the kinks out. It would also serve as a warm-up for the Central Park run I planned to take with Katya and Adair in a couple of hours. “A shift in the studio is enough to freeze the limberest joints.”
    Joe nodded again and returned to his own seat, not quite meeting my eyes. His fingers thrummed lightly on the cover of my magazine, not really seeing it. “Well. Margo.”
    The pause became so pregnant it nearly gave birth.
    “You okay, Joe?”
    He finally looked up, meeting my eyes, his gaze serious and forbidding. For an instant, I felt a catch in the pit of my stomach. Maybe someone had died and Joe had to tell me who it was. I briefly racked my brain trying to remember who in the station I hadn’t seen this morning. Who might have been hit by one of those damned cabs that honked at nothing or who may have succumbed to some fast-acting virus spread through the subway by a bronchitic sicky. I came up with no one.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    He heaved a deep breath. “The station’s been sold.”
    “Hey, that’s great,” I said. The station had been up for sale for months with no takers, and I knew that the current powers-that-be