Waking Up in Vegas(20)

No man in his right mind, that’s who. I like to sample everything on the menu, hit the smorgasbord, taste the rainbow. And when the only flavor you’re allowed to have is Cherry Garcia—well, good as it is, it can get pretty old, pretty fast.

Even if Cherry Garcia is built like a porn star and has the pipes of a phone-sex goddess.

“What did you just say?”

“What?”

“Did you just call me a sex goddess with the pipes of a porn star?”

Fuuuuck. And no, not quite. You have it backwards. But there is no way I said that out loud. I just tossed her a dirty look and pretended that the upcoming playlist needed my attention.

“Taaack,” she said in that confess-it-to-me-now way that only women have.

Shit. We were playing a block of songs and there was still a song and a half to go. She had time.

“I heard you.” She hopped off her stool and laughed, coming over to my side of the counter. “Is that what you really think?”

“It’s what the listeners think. So we have to deal with it.” I spun to face her, grabbing the headphones to keep one can over my ear to track when the last song was running out.

“I don’t want to deal with it.” That bit was said with a cocked eyebrow and an arm-cross. “I think we should use it.”

And that was my second gobsmacking of the morning. My usually glib tongue, the thing that got me my paycheck and my buffet of sex partners, was utterly failing me. “No.” I shook my head, and the rest of my vocabulary refused to surface.

Yay me with the banter.

“What do you mean, no?” Jen asked. “What kind of double-standard are you playing at, Tack? It’s only fine for you?”

All my words returned in a rush, making my head ring. At least, that’s the reason I gave myself, and I’m sticking with it. “That’s exactly it. Everyone knows how I am. My reputation’s been in ruins for years. You don’t want yours in the gutter, too.”

“What’s with the sudden gallantry? ‘Cause I refuse to believe it’s about me.”

Why did I feel like I’d just been lassoed? “Jensen, people think you slept with me to get your job. They ask if they did me better, would they be able to replace you.”

She barked out a laugh that had me flicking my eyes to the open doorway, expecting… well, I don’t know what, in all reality. It was just the kind of sound that brought people running.

“You actually thought they were—” Cue the frantic giggling. “Oh, that’s fabulous, Tack.” Her laughter kicked into high gear and she wrapped a hand around her stomach. Every time I thought she was done, she’d glance at me and start all over.

The last song was almost over. Damn. I quickly queued up another and lined up the commercials. No open mic when my co-host is in hysterics.

And snorting.

That was definitely attractive.

I was sticking up for her and she thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard? This was precisely why the relationships I had with women were short-lived and only from the lips down. Their minds were indecipherable. I just stared at her. She eventually wound it down, gasping and panting like she’d just run a marathon. Or had the best sex of her life.

It was my turn for the arm-cross and stink-eye. “Please share.”

She puckered her lips and blew out a long breath. Her eyes blinked brightly and I could tell she was on the verge of losing it again. “As much as I appreciate that you thought you were defending me, Tack—”

“I was defending you,” I said, even more annoyed now.

“Tack, your dick leads you around and everyone knows it.”

This was news? “I’m a guy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Duh. But do think it might be possible for you to process information with your other head for a moment here?”

“Just spill it already, Jensen.”

She did this giggle-hiccup-snort sort of thing that sounded painful. “Tack, they think everything you do is sex-related. And only sex-related. That it’s all about you, and the woman who is on the receiving end is both irrelevant and interchangeable. Do you get it now?”

“So you’re saying that’s bad?”

She mumbled something; there were a lot of words in there, but I could only pick up oh my dear God. “Tack, they think you’re a shallow man-whore. That you’re all about your magazine covers and scoring the next one-nighter.”

Truth, but boiled down like that made it sound empty and lonely. My life was anything but, and her opinion that it was left me raw. “And you know this after a week and a half in town?”

She came close enough to laugh right into my face this time. “Your reputation as a manslut is legendary in radiodom. I was warned about you before I left, Tack, by my station manager. In Kansas City.”