Charlie All Night (15 page)
Authors: Jennifer Cruise
* * *
Charlie decided that the only way to stay sane was to stay away fromAllie. The bet was an excellent
idea since he was leaving in November,
anyway, so all he had to do was avoid her for the rest of the month,
kiss her goodbye on November first, and leave her with great memories.
At least he hoped
her memories were great.
His were phenomenal.
But that way lay madness, so he deliberately shut her out of his mind
and avoided her for the rest
of the week, waving to her from the booth
and making sure any conferences they had were in public.
In his free
time, he tried to track down the drug rumor and find out who'd
sabotaged his tapes. The favorite
for the last one was Mark, and Charlie would have loved to pin the drug
charge on him, too—those were awfully expensive suits he was wearing on
a DJ's salary—but he couldn't see Mark
as the brains of a drug ring.
Actually, he couldn't see Mark as the brains of a Jell-O ring.
When Saturday came, he took a day off from detecting and went fishing
with Harry at Grady's.
It was really too late in the year to fish, but as Harry pointed out,
catching fish wasn't that important, anyway. Grady's was just a good
place to unwind. They had to take their own beer because Grady's place
was nonalcoholic, but other than that, it was a bachelor's paradise.
Grady lived outside Tuttle on several acres of deliberate wilderness in
a geodesic dome he'd built
himself. "My father thought I was nuts,"
Grady told Charlie as he showed him around. "Now I think
he kind of
likes it. My mom thinks it's great." The interior was all natural wood
and windows, and
aside from a disquieting lack of corners, it was a
very comfortable place, full of old, mismatched
furniture and
state-of-the-art computer and stereo equipment.
"Great setup," Charlie said, looking it over.
"My mom bought that stuff for me," Grady said. "She says I'm tough to
buy for, so if I want
something, she goes all out." He gazed around his
dome lovingly. "It's a great place." Then he
smiled at Charlie. "Come
out anytime. Don't wait for Harry to bring you."
"Thanks," Charlie said, but then he stopped, distracted by what he saw
out the window. Hidden
from the driveway by the dome and a stand of
trees but in clear view from Grady's back windows,
was the biggest
field of marijuana Charlie had ever seen. "Nice crop," he told Grady.
Grady shrugged. "Personal use."
You must have a habit the size of
Texas
, Charlie thought. If somebody
was dealing drugs at the station, Grady had just moved up to the
number-one suspect. But if he was doing it, what was he doing with
the
money? Aside from his stereo and computer, his place was furnished with
hand-me-downs and
Grady himself dressed like a bag lady. Charlie knew
he was going to have to investigate it, but he
hated the idea that it
might be Grady. Grady was a truly nice guy.
But nice guy or not, if he was the problem, he was going down for it.
That was what Charlie had
come for. He spared a thought for Bill who
would not be happy if his only son was busted, and then shoved the
thought aside. He really didn't believe Grady was building a drug
empire in Tuttle. Grady didn't believe in capitalism. He wasn't even
sure Grady believed in money.
Harry came in the back door with two poles. "You ready?"
"Yep," Charlie said "Lead me to them."
"Too bad Allie couldn't be here," Grady said. "She loves to fish."
"Yeah," Charlie said, shoving her firmly from his mind. "Too bad."
* * *
After a week at Harry's, Charlie was ready to crawl back to Allie onhis hands and knees.
And he'd have done it, too, if it had only been
his honor at stake.
But the honor of all mankind?
Still, watching her sit outside the booth was torture. She had her hair
yanked back in a pony tail, which made her face more moonlike than
usual, and there were bags under her eyes as if she hadn't been
sleeping, and she wasn't wearing any makeup for some reason, and he'd
never wanted a woman
more in his life. If he could have, he'd have
taken her there on the production desk.
He closed his eyes at the thought of Allie round and warm, moving under
him, his mouth on hers capturing her moans. Or Allie on top of him, her
tongue caught between her teeth as she bore down
on him, and his hand
on the back of her neck bringing her mouth down to his. Or Allie
sitting on the
edge of the desk, her legs wrapped around him, her back
arching her hips into him. Or—
The silence in his ears brought him back with a start, and he said
something inane into the mike and punched in the next three songs. Then
he took off his headphones and went out to see her.
"You look tired." He sat on the edge of the desk next to her chair,
using every ounce of self-control
he had not to touch her."You okay?"
"Yeah." She leaned back in her chair and stretched as if her muscles
ached, and he watched her breasts move under her sweater and restrained
himself from leaping on her but not from imagining leaping on
her. "I
miss you," she said, and he snapped back to attention. "I miss you in
my bed."
"I miss you, too," he told her when he had his breath back. "But I
can't climb in your bed and just
sleep with you. It drives me crazy
standing up fully clothed in public with you."
"Really?" Her face folded into a smile, and he watched the lines there
and reminded himself not to
trace them with his finger. "That's nice,"
she said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." The line of her cheek was so smooth. His hand went
out, independent of his brain, and cupped her cheek, and she leaned
into his palm, and he found himself moving toward her mouth,
the lust
to taste her as inescapable as gravity.
And then his lips were on hers, and her mouth was warm and hot and
sweet, and her lower lip slid
against his tongue, and his entire being
was in his mouth, finding her, at last.
* * *
Allie sat stunned as he kissed her, her head heavy on her neck, fallinghelplessly into him as his mouth moved on hers. His hand was gentle on
her cheek, and he breathed into her mouth and she lived in his heat,
moving her lips against his, letting the dizziness take her like a
drug. And then he touched her lips with his tongue, and the air left
her lungs as she sighed with surrender, only to gasp when he licked
farther into her mouth, tangling with her tongue. She felt his kiss
everywhere, in her breasts and her stomach and hotly between her legs,
and she pressed her mouth back against his, spurred by the moan
he made
as she invaded his mouth.
Then he pulled back, his breath coming heavily, and said, "I can't
stand this." He kissed her hard
once, quickly, and moved away from her,
back into the booth, while she leaned on the desk and
tried to breathe.
"I'm sorry," he said over the mike when the door was dosed behind him.
"I
didn't mean to. I just couldn't—"
"I'm not sorry," she told him. "But, oh, God, Charlie—"
"Go home," he said, and here was an edge in his voice. "Go home. The
rest is just music. I can't
talk to you anymore tonight. I can't talk
to anybody. Go home."
* * *
After a week and a half of sleeping without Charlie, Allie was ready tosurrender. It wasn't the sex
she missed so much, although she missed
that so much she ached with it, it was Charlie. Charlie
warm and
laughing and safe and just there. She couldn't even face Chinese food
anymore without
getting turned on and feeling lonely.
They'd fought amiably over the end of
Casablanca
for that night's
program, and then Allie left the
booth, and Charlie put "River of
Dreams" on and she watched as he cuddled Sam to his chest and
began to
feed him. Sam was growing like a horse, getting into everything, and
she'd caught Charlie lecturing him earlier about chewing on electrical
cords. They'd looked so funny, the tiny puppy looking
up earnestly from Charlie's big
hand, and Charlie scowling down at Sam, reasoning with him about
electrocution, that she had to laugh. Charlie had looked up and grinned
at her, and his grin hit her like
a punch to the stomach.
She missed him.
This was a bad emotion, so she squelched it and went back to work,
looking up again only when
Charlie introduced a play for insomniacs.
She could see Sam scampering over the console and Charlie reaching for
him, tucking the squirming puppy under his chin while he punched up the
next song. Then the Disney lullaby "Baby Mine" came up and he began to
rock and pat Sam until the puppy curled up
on his chest and went to
sleep.
Watching a man pat a puppy was no reason to fall in love.
But she did, anyway, much against her better judgment and her will and
her common sense.
Not this
,
she thought.
Not him
. But
there it was.
The phone rang and she grabbed it, grateful for anything that
distracted her from this new disaster. She didn't want to be in love
with anybody, especially not with Charlie I'm-Leaving-In-November
Tenniel, especially not like this.
"Charlie All Night," she said into the receiver, and the caller said,
"Yeah, let me talk to Charlie. I'm Doug."
The song ended and Allie said, "You have a caller. It's Doug, on one,"
and punched it in.
Charlie shifted Sam to his shoulder and spoke into the microphone.
"Hey, Doug, what's up?"
"Well, that's what I was going to ask you. We were kind of wondering
here why you keep playing
'River of Dreams' so much, and now a lullaby?
We'd heard your station was wired, but this is weird."
She saw Charlie sit up. "Wired?"
"Well, you know. What gives? You a Billy Joel freak?"
Charlie relaxed a little. "Not me. We've got a puppy here at the
station who wasn't doing too well
at eating until we put on 'River of
Dreams.' He really likes the rhythm. He's doing pretty good now,
but we
still play it once a night so he feels at home."
"You're kidding. You got a dog there?"
Allie watched Charlie look down at Samson and grin. "Well, you could
stretch it and call Sam a dog,
I guess. He's more like a Twinkie with
paws and an appetite. And he was tearing up the booth a
minute ago, so
I put the lullaby on. Knocked him right out."
"Try 'Sweet Baby James' man," Doug said. "My kid goes right to sleep
when we play that."
"Great idea." Charlie moved Sam farther up on his shoulder and patted
him as he stirred. "Maybe we should play a lullaby every night about
this time. Put any kid who's fighting it to sleep."
Charlie talked on with Doug about rock lullabies, and Allie watched
him, hopeless with love, until
a nasty thought intruded.
He'd just announced the station had a dog to the listening public.
Bill didn't know the station had a dog. Beattie didn't even know.
They were in for another meeting.
And she couldn't even go home and crawl into bed with Charlie and talk
about it.
Charlie punched up a song and continued to talk to Doug off the air,
and Allie took her glasses off
and put her head down on her desk and
tried to figure out how her life had gotten so screwed up
when she'd
been doing all the right things.
* * *
Bill tried to throw his usual fit about Sam, but Charlie knocked himoff-balance by bringing the puppy
to the meeting.
"Good little dog," Bill said gruffly when he met Sam. "Probably good
publicity. What the hell, let him stay."
"How did you know he'd say that?" Allie asked him when they'd escaped
unscathed.
"Grady tipped me off," he told her. "Evidently, Bill's a sucker for
dogs. Grady told me as long as
Sam was in the room, Bill would fold."
"Well, good for Grady," Allie said.
Charlie lifted Sam up in front of his face and said, "You're in, kid,
don't screw up," and when Sam
licked Charlie's nose, he laughed. He
laughed a lot more when Sam became the new Flavor of the
Week after his
picture showed up in the paper, and the local animal shelter called and
asked to begin
a This-Dog-Needs-A-Home segment the next week on
Charlie's show.
They did still have a few problems. Somebody was still sabotaging the
show, one night making crank
calls that tied up the phone lines, the
next swiping the ad tapes for the night. Charlie coped with all of
it
and avoided Allie like the plague, missing her so much that he couldn't
sleep at night, telling himself
that once November came and he was out
of town, she'd just be a pleasant memory.
He kept telling himself that, but he didn't believe it. And it was
getting harder and harder to stay away from her.
Charlie walked into the booth on Friday night, two days ifter he'd
blown Sam's cover, grouchy because
he was in a booth and Allie was ten
feet away on the other side of a glass wall wearing a pink sweater
that
made him crazy.
Once inside the booth, though, he stopped in his tracks. "What is that
god-awful smell?"
"Well." Harry leaned back in his chair. "It seems Mark got a dog."
"What?"
"A dog," Harry said. "At the pound. A Doberman-mix puppy. A man's dog.
Called him King."
Charlie sat down on the edge of the console. '1 don't believe this."
"And he brought King into the booth with him this morning so he could
broadcast with him. Like
we do with Samson. And after four hours, King
scratched at the door to be let out."
Charlie snorted. "King obviously has a lot of stamina. I'd have been
clawing at the door a lot sooner
if I was trapped in a booth with Mark."
"But Mark ignored him, so King... uh, pooped."
Charlie grinned. "And then?"
"Mark yelled at him and scared him." Harry fought back a grin. "So King
pooped again."
Charlie's grin widened. "Mark is an idiot."
"So then Mark waved the script at him, and King—"
"Pooped again." Charlie started to laugh.
"Then Marcia came in and threw a fit because of all the poop in the
booth and because Mark was mistreating a puppy. She gave him ten
minutes to get the booth clean, and she took the dog away
from him."
Charlie looked alarmed. "Not back to the pound?"
Harry shook his head. "Nah. She said she needed a watchdog. She took
the dog outside and calmed
it down, and then brought it back inside
with her until her show was done."
"Good for Marcia. Although I can't picture her with a dog named King."
"Dorothy," Harry said. "The dog's name is now Dorothy. Mark missed a
few details, as usual."
"You're kidding." Charlie closed his eyes. "What a dweeb. So then he
cleaned up the booth—"
Harry snorted. "Fat chance. He made Lisa do it."
"Oh, great." Charlie shook his head. "Wait'll I tell Allie. She's not
going to believe this."
"And then Lisa sprayed the place with that stinking pine
disinfectant..."
Charlie nodded. "Which explains why this place smells like-"
"—somebody pooped a pine tree" Harry finished. Sounds like a good time
to do a remote," Charlie said.
"I've been spending a lot of time out of here," Harry said. Thank God I
don't have a date tonight. This would not be in easy smell to explain."
"Pooped Fine, the cologne of Kings," Charlie said and they both
started to laugh.
Allie came into the booth, and they stopped. "What's so funny?" she
asked them. "And what is
that horrible smell?"
Harry and Charlie looked at each other for a moment and then they both
broke up again.
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