Marrying Mister Perfect (34 page)

Through the glass, his producer spun his hand
in the wrap-it-up signal and Craig’s eyes flicked automatically to
the clock—his last thirty seconds of air time for the next two
months. An unidentifiable pang tightened his chest, but he shook it
off.

“Keep submitting your guesses at K-Rock dot
com and Marta at Midnight—who will be Marta in the Morning until I
get back—will read them on the air.”
To make sure she doesn’t
forget whose show this really is.
“Until then, this is Your
Favorite Bad Influence, Craig Corrow, reminding you to be naughty,
boys and girls, and keep listening to 105.6 KRRK, K-Rock in San
Diego, your station for classic rock.”

He tapped a key on the console and Ozzy
screamed, “All aboard,” as the distinctive opening strains of
Crazy Train
blared through his headphones. The light over
the mic went dark and Craig tipped off his headphones, hooking them
over the mic and rolling his chair back. Edwin, his mostly mute
producer, threw him a thumbs up through the glass, already packing
up for the change-over as the All Request Lunch crew prepared to
take over the studio.

Craig normally bounded out of his chair, high
on the adrenaline from the show, but today he lingered, keenly
aware that there was a chance—however slight—that Marta would kill
it while he was gone and he wouldn’t have a job to come back to. He
liked K-Rock. The two years he’d spent here had been decent
enough—though he’d never really gotten close to anyone at work.
He’d always known that this was just a stepping stone for him. He
was too ambitious to spend his entire life as a radio personality,
no matter how widely syndicated. Craig wanted more. He’d bided his
time, building his name and his audience but when the chance had
come to get his face in front of a national audience—even if it
meant going radio silent for eight weeks—the decision had been a
no-brainer. Network television trumped a moderately sized classic
rock station in San Diego any day.

Those two words—
network
television—
stomped on any nostalgia he might feel for leaving
K-Rock and Craig bounded out of his chair, turning his cell back on
as he gathered up his empty coffee mug and tablet. Hooking the mug
over one finger and tucking the tablet under his arm, he shoved
open the door with his shoulder and strode into the hall, thumbing
through the messages on his phone, nodding but not pausing as his
coworkers called out cheerful—but not overly
personal—farewells.

The first two messages were from his
agent—doubtless having another panic attack at the risk of leaving
his established audience to go play the villain on the latest
iteration of reality dating bullshit. Craig paid him to worry so he
didn’t have to, but the man needed to get onboard. The contracts
were signed, pre-taping complete. He was leaving tonight to go to
the Romancing Miss Right mansion for the duration, so it was too
late for second thoughts, even if he was inclined to have them,
which he wasn’t.

The third message was from his mom, reminding
him that he was supposed to come over for lunch before he left and
Craig shot her a quick text to confirm that he wouldn’t miss it
before tossing his phone, tablet, mug, and the limited contents of
his desk into his backpack. Hooking the bag over his shoulder and
grabbing his leather jacket, he strode past a life-sized poster of
himself smoldering over a pair of mirrored sunglasses while leaning
against his Harley with the words
Be Bad
splashed across his
ankles. He left the building without a backward glance.
Onward
and upward
.

He unlocked the storage compartment on his
bike and exchanged the backpack for his helmet, propping it against
the seat as he shrugged into his jacket.

“Craig!”

He spun back to face the front of the
building and groaned aloud as Marta at Midnight bounded toward him,
as eager as a puppy. “Marta. Hey. Did I forget to leave you the
keys to the liquor cabinet or something?”

Marta giggled a little too enthusiastically
for the lackluster joke. She had the kind of fierce, ever-present
smile that couldn’t quite conceal the rabid opportunism beneath.
She wanted the brass ring just as badly as he did. If she’d been
more naturally talented, he would have been worried for his job. As
it was, he was more worried she would lose half his audience and
he’d never get it back.

“I just wanted to wish you good luck,” she
exclaimed, beaming at him as if she wouldn’t crawl over his rotting
corpse for a permanent shot at the drive-time gig.

Gotta love showbiz. Everyone’s so
sincere.
“Thanks. You too.”

“You sure I can’t convince you to tell me
where you’re going?”

“Sorry. Confidentiality clauses. You know how
it is.” He shrugged, sweat beginning to slither down his spine
beneath his jacket. He needed the leathers for protection against
the wind—and road rash if he took a spill—but San Diego in
September was too damn hot to be wearing them if he was just
standing around in the sun talking to Marta at Midnight. “I should
hit the road.”

Her eyes gleamed feverishly at the hint that
he’d landed some gig that required confidentiality clauses, but she
didn’t argue as he straddled the bike.

“Take care of my baby.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Marta saluted and watched
him affix his helmet and start the engine. She watched him drive
away, probably to convince herself that he really had left and
dropped the first big opportunity of her career right in her
lap.

If things went well, she could keep
drive-time radio. He was on to network television.

The drive to his mom’s house didn’t take
long. Her neighborhood was safe and relatively clean, but beyond
that offered nothing in the way of luxury. The houses were small
and close together, the tidy yards a testament to the fierce pride
of the owners rather than the dedication of expensive landscaping
services. Her two-bedroom hacienda-style cottage was two years past
needing a coat of paint, but the leaking roof had been a higher
priority when he’d gotten his last bonus check from the
station.

Craig parked his bike beside the Ford Focus
he’d bought her when he got his first job. He’d wanted it to be a
Mercedes—after raising him on her own, she deserved one—but radio
personalities weren’t paid like movie stars and the Focus had been
all he could afford. The front door opened as he was coming up the
walk.

“Eight weeks to confess all your sins?” his
mother called out archly as he approached, proving she’d caught the
end of his show.

“Just the major ones.” He grinned and bent to
fold her into a hug.

Most days Elaine Corrow looked closer to
forty than her actual fifty, but today she appeared faded and
tired. Given the fact that she worked nights at the local hospital
as a pharmacy tech and would normally be sleeping at this hour,
Craig tried not to read too much into her apparent exhaustion. If
the next few months went the way he hoped, he’d be able to pay for
her to quit her job and go lounge on a beach in Cabo until she
couldn’t even remember what a night shift felt like.

“Are you all packed?” she asked as she
stepped out of his arms, leading the way down the narrow hall to
the eat-in kitchen where all of his home-cooked favorites were
spread out in a gluttonous buffet.

“All set.” He grabbed a plate and began
piling meatloaf and lasagna and mousaka side by side. “They fly me
up to LA tonight and tomorrow we meet the girl.”

“Have they told you who she is yet?”

“Does it matter?” He handed her the plate and
began serving an even more heaping one for himself.

“I hope it’s Natalie. Or Ally. Anyone but
that Marcy. She seemed so… I don’t know. Cold or something.”

“Mom. It doesn’t matter who she is. I’m not
going on the show to fall in love.”

She settled across from him at the narrow
Ikea table. “I know, I know. It’s for your career, but if you were
to find someone special, think what a bonus that would be.”

“I’m not the guy who gets the girl, Mom. I’m
the bad boy America will love to hate. That’s what’s going to get
me national exposure. Falling in love isn’t going to turn me into
the next Carson Daly. The next Dick Clark. The next David Letterman
or Stephen Colbert. I’m not going to be a radio personality
forever. This show is the fast track to national exposure.”

“Even if it means toying with some poor
girl’s emotions to get there?”

“She knows what she’s signing up for. And if
she doesn’t then she’s a moron. I’ve studied these shows. I’m going
to be the one everyone is talking about—and that isn’t the guy that
gets the girl. But I’m not going to lie to her.” He laughed, brief
and abrupt. “That’s why I’m going to lose. Dating is all lies and
I’m not going to play their game.”

“How did I raise such a cynic?”

He shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“My son, the heartless wretch.”

“Your son, the
famous
heartless
wretch.”

Her lips pursed with disapproval, but there
was a smile lurking beneath. He’d been working for that smile for
as long as he could remember, trying to coax it out of her, and it
still felt like a victory every time. Soon, hopefully, the smile
wouldn’t be so slow to appear. She’d be lounging on a Mexican
beach, beaming at everyone who wandered by and bragging about her
wildly famous son. Soon.

ROMANCING MISS RIGHT
– COMING MARCH 5,
2015