Caught in the Act Read online

  Of course, he did. We’ve been playing this song and dance for years.

  Some of the calls—or the catching, if you will—were pretty tame. Some even, really quick and to the point. Others, you needed a finger on the dump button, ready to bleep out every explicative known to man. Thank God for delayed broadcasting, especially during this segment. Heaven help the radio personality who misses those curse words.

  Caught in the Act keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure.

  “She still on the line?” I ask, instead of elaborating on the antsy bit.

  Johnson’s laugh is dry, but with a smile on his worn mug. “You really think she’s not going through with this. How many have we lost in the time we’ve done Caught?”

  “Like…three.”

  “Exactly. She’s not going to be number four. And yes, she’s still on the line.”

  “Good.” I roll my chair closer to the table again. “Let’s do this then.” I readjust my headphones and open Kensley’s line again as I start in on the segment. “Gotta love Zedd and Maren Morris. Honestly? I didn’t think she’d make the country-pop switch, but girl’s got pipes. If you missed it earlier, we’re getting ready to see if Mark is cheating on his girl. Now, Kensley, you there?” I’m pretty damn sure I haven’t asked that question to any other caller as many times as I did her. Hell, I wanted to catch Mark for her. I wanted her to—

  Shit.

  What was it about this girl that had me curious? On my toes?

  Had me wanting to know if her face was as sweet as her voice?

  Hell, I want Mark to be a cheating douchebag.

  But then what the hell am I going to do?

  Oh, so here are those counseling numbers and this last number, well, that’s mine. I’d be happy to do some one-on-one with you…

  I suddenly feel like those women who’d been in love with my voice, well before my face was paired with the timbre tones. I’m jonesing for a girl who is asking for help, and I have no idea what she looks like—if she’s a blonde or brunette, has brown eyes or striking blue ones. She could be bucked-toothed with a crooked nose, maybe a blue eye and a green one—even though that would be pretty fucking cool—and again, honesty time, even if she is smokin’, WHAT. WAS. I. GOING. TO. DO?

  Stalk her on Facebook and find a way to see her in person? Talk her up?

  Oh, hey, you were with your ex for eight years, have two kids with him, and I’m sure you have trust issues but yeah, I like your voice. Want to hang?

  Goddamn, I need a girl.

  That’s the only explanation as to why I’m curious about this voice on my phone line.

  I need a woman to talk to. Someone to chill and relax with.

  And yeah, sex up. When was the last time I got laid? Too damn long, that was when.

  Snap, snap.

  I look up to see Johnson’s fingers in the air and a pointed look on his face. Shit. Talk about an awkward pause on radio.

  “Sorry, let’s get Mark on the line.” I tap my fingers on the desk as the call rings over the airwaves. Waiting. Waiting…

  “Hello?”

  Dude even sounds like a jackass.

  I lean forward, getting comfortable, “Hey, is this Mark?”

  “This is.” He sounds impatient. I mean, sure, it’s only nine in the morning, but that’s normal business hours or, at the very least, waking hours for the typical nine-to-fiver.

  I’m trying to keep an open mind with this guy, but for whatever reason, I just can’t. I can’t get back into that easy mindset I usually have with these calls. My first call this morning was so ridiculously fucked up, it was damn near laughable, but this one? This call? This Kensley?

  Yeah.

  No laughing matter.

  He has kids.

  That’s the reason why I’m so fucking irate with him, I decide. There can’t be another reason.

  “Yeah, hey. My name’s Ryan and I’m with Bishop Luxury, and I wanted to congratulate you on winning—”

  “I didn’t sign up for anything.”

  “No, no. I know. Your company put you in the drawing—”

  “My company?”

  Shit. I should have gotten more information from Kensley. I usually do; I usually enter the call with a list of best friends’ names, and work details, and close family members.

  I got none of that today. Nothing but he was a douche with daughters, who went on “trips” for his marketing business.

  Fuck me.

  I maybe screwed this up.

  Shit…!

  I have no choice but try to rush into it, try to hook him still. “Yes. You’ve won an all-expense paid, all-inclusive stay at our newest luxury resort, in our high-end honeymoon suite, with an all-romance package. No cost to you.”

  “Really.” He doesn’t exactly sound like he’s buying it, but hopefully I can keep him around.

  “Really!” I’m still fighting to keep him and hope that I’ve said enough to convince him this isn’t a scam. “It’s completely free for you and one guest.”

  “Okay…” He still doesn’t sound convinced, but at least he’s on-board.

  “Great. I can get started on this reservation; I have your information, I’ll just need the name of your guest, if you could supply that.”

  “Yeah, alright. Cool. Sure. How about…”

  And there it is.

  That fucking pause as the douche has to go through his black book of names.

  “Let’s put down Britt.”

  “You fucker.” And, on cue, there’s Kensley.

  Johnson chuckles across from me, on top of the dump feature and bleeping out Kensley’s word choice.

  Me? I’m in shock at this girl’s mouth.

  I thought her earlier accidental shit was funny, but her calling her boyfriend a fucker? Yeah, that one takes the cake.

  “Wait, what?” Mark says, the dumbstruck dick-face.

  “Yeah. Hey, it’s—”

  I cut her off. “I gotta tell you, Mark, you’re on the radio. I’m Liam with 100.8 and you’ve been blasted on Caught in the Act. The person on the line is Kensley. You know. The mother of your children.” I may have said that last line a little bit harsher than necessary.

  “I can explain.”

  “Please do.” No longer able to sit, I stand and adjust my mic before crossing my arms.

  “Oh yes,” Kensley says through my headphones. “Explain. Explain your business trips. Your move. The fact you can’t talk to your daughter for five fucking minutes before bed.”

  Johnson’s still smirking at Kensley’s mouth and I can’t help but smirk a little bit too.

  “Look. Kensley. Leigh, babe.”

  I can’t help it. I roll my eyes.

  “Don’t ‘Leigh, babe’ me.” Kensley’s voice is strong and pissed.

  Another honest moment? This isn’t a chick I’d want to piss off, if the tone of her voice is any indication.

  She.

  Is.

  Pissed.

  Hell, most of the callers are, but when paired to that uncertain, quiet voice from eight minutes ago? Completely different woman, right here.

  “Britt’s a co-worker.”

  “Mm. Sure.”

  “She is. She’s going through a tough time right now—”

  “So you’re going to take her on a romantic getaway?” I butt in, needing to know. These assholes all say the same damn thing. “Relax her in that honeymoon suite? Maybe in the hot tub, a nice back rub and foot rub. You into those, Mark?” I’m known for answering these douche-waffles with innuendos. I’ve been told to tone them down, but I’m pissed for Kensley—odd, because this call is no different, no fucking different, than any other I take, but hell if I know why she’s different.

  “Well, no, I was going to give it to her.”

  “You were clearly told this was a romantic stay for two,” Kenlsey says. “What’s she having a hard time with? Her pants?”

  Johnson coughs.

  “Kensley…”

  “No
, Mark. Don’t Kensley me. We have daughters! Daughters you don’t even want to talk to! Why? Why, Mark?”

  “You want to know?”

  “Of course she fu—freaking wants to know.” I grimace at my near slip, which only makes Johnson actually laugh.

  “Fine,” Mark answers, his voice changing from placating to full-on asshole. “You don’t give me what I need.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Any other woman—and it’s a line I’ve heard a time or two—and that would come out in a screech. Not so with Kensley. She still just sounds pissed.

  “Well, because you had to go and air this shit on the radio—”

  “Because you won’t fucking talk to me!”

  “You don’t do enough in the bed,” he starts, just as I’m starting to get the feeling that this isn’t going to be good.

  Kensley’s gasp is audible.

  “Your tits sag and your pussy—”

  “Johnson, off,” I cut in. I know Johnson’s on top of his bleeper, but this is not going to end well.

  Fuck, it didn’t even start well.

  “And with that,” I talk over the still arguing Mark and Kensley, praying that we can cut this shit down during our broadcast delay, “how about some Drake. We’ll be back, San Diego.”

  Quickly, I go into Drake’s latest hit. I can still hear Kensley and Mark going at one another through my headphones. “You able to cut that down?” I ask Johnson, who doesn’t even look up as he nods.

  “Workin’ on it.”

  I turn my attention back to the call, just in time for Mark to tell Kensley some more not-so-very nice things.

  “You just lay like a fucking beached whale with your fucking gaping pussy.”

  Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t listen to this. “Mark, I think you’ve said enough.”

  “What the fuck do you care? You like to ruin relationships?”

  I point to myself, as if he can see. “I didn’t ruin anything. You’re the one running around on your woman, on the mother of your children.” I may have taken psych, but I was no counselor and honestly, had no business sharing my opinion, but damn.

  “Shut the fuck up. You don’t know—”

  “I know enough. Look, I’m supposed to offer you counseling but my guess is Kensley’s—”

  “I can speak for myself,” her voice comes through, and it’s lost some of that hard edge. “If I didn’t give you what you needed, why the hell did you keep sleeping with me? Why did you stay? You didn’t want me to have your last name; why did you stay?”

  “My family likes you.”

  “Well, fuck your family. Look, I’ll absolve you of me. You don’t need to be with me and my loose fucking self.” I can hear the start of tears in her voice and damn, if that doesn’t kill me a little inside. “Me and the girls are leaving. You can take your fancy house and you can have your fancy cars, but you will not get your beautiful daughters.”

  “And the baby?” It was the first time he’s sounded interested in what Kensley has to say, but did she not just say she was taking both girls?

  “You don’t want the girls, but you want to stick around for the baby?”

  “If it’s a boy—”

  “Fuck you, Marcus. Fuck. You.”

  “You’re pregnant?” I cut in, confused.

  “Yes. Twenty-three weeks. Five-ish months.”

  Now, I had a sister, and from my sister, I had a nephew. I knew you could find out the baby’s gender around the five months mark. So why—

  “You only told me two months ago!” Mark had the audacity to sound pissed at her.

  “Because I had my suspicions about you stepping out on me.”

  “Well, is it a boy?” Again, with Mark’s ill-placed curiosity.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, fucking find out.”

  “If you don’t want our girls, I’m not letting you have our son!”

  “You guys,” I cut in, as badly as I want to keep nosing in on their business. “I can offer you the counseling. You don’t have to do it together, but I think you both might need people to talk to.”

  “The girls and I are leaving,” Kensley repeated. “You will not have to worry about us anymore, Mark. I will be damned if you try to take my girls from me; I’ll have my lawyer contact yours.”

  Mark’s answering retort is done in a sneer. “You don’t have a lawyer.”

  “Well, I’ll find one, and it will be the best damn lawyer.”

  “You can’t afford the best damn lawyer on your own.”

  Goddamn, I really don’t like this guy.

  “Watch me.”

  The telltale sound of a phone hanging up echoes into my headphones. “Kens?”

  “Thanks a lot, asshole,” Mark swears, before a second phone hangs up.

  I huff out a breath, staring at the crisscrossed pattern on my mic for a full twenty seconds before looking back up and over at Johnson. “Well, you fix that mess?”

  “Our show will live to see another day.”

  I nod a few times slowly, my mind in a different place. “Good. Good.” Then, suddenly exhausted, I plop back down in my chair—almost missing it as it rolls backward.

  “That was fun.” There may be a bite of sarcasm in my tone. I try focusing on my screen, but my mind can’t move away from Kensley and her soft voice.

  Kensley and her nervousness.

  Kensley and her fierceness.

  Then, finally, Kensley with the tears in her voice.

  “You still got her number?” I ask suddenly, my eyes still locked on my computer screen. Slowly, I lift my gaze. “She didn’t take the counseling numbers,” I add.

  It wasn’t the first time we had to make a call-back. Part of our contract with doing the Caught segment was the offering of numbers. I had to truly give the numbers.

  Had to.

  And I hadn’t.

  I had to call back Kensley.

  …I had to keep it at the counseling numbers though. I couldn’t be infatuated with this voice. I couldn’t be the crazy radio guy who offered the heartbroken caller a shoulder to lean on.

  Because that would be freaky.

  Awkward.

  Crazy.

  But I could plug her number into Facebook.

  Stalker level 101, sure, but I had to know…

  Did her face match her voice?

  What the hell was Mark giving up?

  So, yeah, it wasn’t the first time I had to call back a number, but it was the first time that I had a healthy dose of curiosity, too, and was going to go against every moral I had.

  I was going to check this girl out.

  Chapter Two

  Liam

  I didn’t call her back right away.

  I mean, I had a show to finish; a good forty minutes’ worth of music to play.

  But I did have to call her before I left for the day, and I wanted to do it before the next jockey came in, so, after sending the station into my second-to-last music section, I drop my headphones to my shoulders and dial Kensley’s number into the ancient desktop phone, on a line that isn’t connected to the airwaves.

  Now, I’m leaning into the table—it’s my go-to position if I’m not standing—and rest my forehead in my hand, looking down at the table as the phone rings in my ear.

  I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to see Johnson’s knowing smirk.

  I’m thinking hard about this girl.

  About the call.

  About the douche who is now her ex.

  Hell, I hope he’s now an ex.

  Not for my own pleasure, of course, but for Kensley’s sanity.

  Who the hell tells those things to the mother of their children? And, on what he should have assumed was live radio?

  The phone continues to ring.

  And ring.

  Does the girl not have voicemail, even?

  I glance to the callboard, seeing that the call is now at the fifty-second mark. I’m going to have to let this go and write up
a quick report that the counseling numbers weren’t given due to hang-ups and inability to call back.

  Just as I pull the phone away from my ear though, I hear the line pick up.

  Voicemail?

  Kensley?

  “Hello?” The answer is breathless, but the voice definitely belongs to Kensley.

  “Hey,” I start, and suddenly have nothing to say.

  No, I have a lot to say, I just can’t figure out how to get it out.

  “Who is this?”

  Shaking my head mentally, I try again. “Sorry. This is Liam. From the radio.” Smooth.

  There’s a pause before, “Oh.”

  “You hung up before I could give you those numbers,” I say, going with the easy thing. I pull back the paper with said numbers. It sits on my table, untouched, every day; hell, I say the numbers so often, they’re practically etched in my head. But I need something to do.

  So, I pick up a pen and start to doodle.

  Scratch my pen back and forth over the corner.

  Random circles.

  …and maybe a series of seven numbers, too.

  “Yeah, I won’t be needing them. There’s nothing to fix.” Her voice is that strong, take-no-bull one from before. “We’re good. But thank you.” My pen stops.

  We’re good?

  She was good?

  With the shit he told her?

  “Look,” I cut in, dropping my pen to the table top, “it’s none of my business, but what he said to you is not good. I mean, I get wanting to fix things for your kids but—”

  “No, you’re right,” she interrupts, “it isn’t your business, but by we I meant my girls and I.”

  The relief I feel spreads through my chest. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’s good.”

  “Thank you, Liam.” It’s the first time she’s said my name and I can’t explain what it does to me. “It’s been…fun,” she finishes, the sarcasm more than evident in her voice, and it doesn’t take a genius to know she’s about to hang up on me.

  “Wait. Kensley,” I rush out, then drop my hand to my lap, and hang my head low. Fuck. I’m going to do it. I’m three seconds away from saying something.

  I still have time to stop.

  I don’t have to say anything.

  “Hmm?”

  But God, her voice. It sends chills through me; there’s something about this girl.