Page 30 of You Spin Me

“How the heck did you know that?”

“I don’t know. Why can I remember half the stuff Shakespeare wrote? Shit sticks in my head.”

Delilah zooms past on my left. “Miss Jessica! You said a bad word.”

“Whoops.” I clamp a hand over my mouth. “Sorry, Delilah.”

Stopping, she turns around to point at me. “You owe me a quarter.”

“Okay.”

“Watch me go real fast.”

“Okay, but not too fast.”

“I won’t. If I do, Mommy yells at me.”

As she peels off, I say, “Smart kid.”

Bella laughs. “Too smart for me most of the time. So what did you win?”

“Oh, like a ten-dollar gift certificate to Tower Records. But this is the important thing—I asked the kid who answered the phone to thank the DJ for keeping me awake during my drive home from Chichester, and he said, why don’t you thank him yourself.” I pause and catch her eye. “We’ve been talking every night since. I mean every night that he works. So, like, five nights a week.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. At first, he said he’d worry if I didn’t call in when I got home from the commute. Now it’s, like, what we do. Sometimes we end up talking for an hour or more.”

“While he’s on the air?”

“Kind of. He talks to me while the music or prerecorded stuff is on.”

“It’s impressive that he can keep it all straight.”

“I guess he’s been doing it for a while.”

“Wait. WBAR? Are you talking about Callihan?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god, I love that guy. His voice is so mellow.” She arches a brow. “Sexy, even.”

Not sure what else to say or why I’m even telling her this, I just shove my hands in my coat pockets.

“Is he—I mean, has he asked you out?”

“No. I’m not sure it’s like that. Every once in a while he’ll sound like he’s flirting, but mostly he sounds… interested. Curious. Like he actually wants to know what I think about shit. Shit, I mean stuff.”

She elbows me. “Now you owemea quarter.”

“Get real. If we played that game, you’d owe me fifty bucks by now.”

“Don’t tell Delilah.”

I hook elbows with her. “I won’t. I’ll keep your naughty side a secret.”

“Thanks.” Her head whips up. “Dammit, she fell.”

Since she isn’t crying, I bellow, “Down goes Frazier!”

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