Bonham (Pushing Daisies Book 3) by Heather Young-Nichols (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📗

“Jurnie,” I called out. Her head snapped my way as her phone came down. Then she took off in a jog, her skirt swishing across her legs. I’d thought about going to her, but watching her come to me was too good to pass up.

When she got close enough she jumped. I dropped my phone as I caught her, my hands wrapping around her upper thighs, dangerously close to her panty-covered ass. Jurnie’s mouth crashed into mine as I stumbled back to make sure we didn’t fall.

Thank fuck this girl was wearing a skirt. I wouldn’t do anything inappropriate, given our location, but feeling that soft skin beneath my hands was like heaven.

“I’m sorry,” she said the second she came up for air.

“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who’s sorry, baby. It honestly didn’t register because that woman didn’t affect me at all. I just… I wasn’t fucking thinking.”

She shook her head. “We’re fine. No more apologies for this. It’s behind us. I vocalized what I need and you said you’re going to do it. That’s how this is supposed to work. Just like if there’s something you need me to do, I’ll do it.” She wrapped me in a tight hug. “Oh, shoot. Put me down. I’m probably getting heavy.”

“Please. You’re light.”

Still, she shimmied out of my arms and wrapped hers around my waist. This was almost as good.

“You’re here.” Jurnie pulled me over to one of the benches so we could sit.

“I had to see you. Had to make this right. Hearing you on the radio was a fluke. One that worked out perfectly. I have to go back this afternoon for the show tonight, though.”

She tilted her head and looked at me with disbelief. “You planned to take two planes in a day to come see me?”

“Baby, I’d take ten planes in a day to see you,” I said. Our fingers intertwined as we faced each other. “What time are you done?”

“Now. I’ll go tell them I have to leave. I haven’t missed a minute since I started other than that one time and right now they aren’t really sure what to do with me. They won’t care. We can get lunch and get naked if we can find a place before I take you back to the airport.”

“Uh. If you’re offering to get naked, I have the apartment.” I’d never turn that down. “What do you mean they don’t know what to do with you?”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath. “I talked to them today to see if there’s a way to switch me from the accounting department to something more radio-based. They said yes, but we aren’t sure what that looks like yet. Which is why Ned and Brian were trying to figure out what I’d be good at.”

“That’s awesome, Jurnie. Really. But if you’re going to be in radio, we’re going to have to work on your music education.”

She giggled. “That’s very true.” After she snuggled her face into my neck, she said, “I’m just so happy you’re here, even if it’s only for a few hours.”

“Me too.” I rubbed a hand up and down her back. “But let’s get out of here then. We have precious few minutes together.”

“I’ll go tell them.”

“Shit. I just had the best idea,” I told her when she pulled me up and began dragging me with her. “If they’re looking for something for you to do, what about broadcasting from the tour?”

She stopped and turned to me. “What?”

“Yeah. No other radio station has that. You could come on tour and, I don’t know, do radio stuff. Report in. We could figure it out. That way, we could be together and you’d bring something to the station no one else can.”

“Is that even possible?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Let me call Mack.”

It was a quick call with Mack and thankfully, he had everyone right there to agree to it. If Courting Chaos didn’t want her to talk about them, that was fine. She wouldn’t have to. But this could actually work. He told me to give the station manager his number and they’d work it out.

Bless my family for understanding how important this was to me without me saying.

Inside the radio station, it took almost no time for the manager, along with Ned and Brian, to agree to this. Jurnie would be a feature on their show in the morning. She’d have to call in during concerts with another DJ, do blog posts about life on the road, vlog posts showing what it’s like, and basically do whatever she could to make a name for herself.

Jurnie was bouncing in her seat with excitement.

Graham had Mack’s information and was going to call him as soon as we were done. They’d figure out when Jurnie was going to join us because he had to see about a budget.

“Budget?” I asked.

“Yeah, I mean if she’s doing this for work, we need to discuss her travel costs. It’s an unpaid internship but that’s here at the studio. She’ll have traveling costs. If you were one of the DJs on the payroll doing this, most would expect food, lodging, etc. We’ll need to figure out how long we can send you within our budget.”

“Don’t worry about that,” we both said at the same time. We laughed.

“But really,” Jurnie said. “This is an internship. It’s not paid and I understand that. I’ll work that all out myself.”

And if she didn’t or her parents scoffed, she had me. Having her there wouldn’t be much more expensive anyway. I’d pay for her plane ticket.

“All right,” Graham said as he nodded. “Then we’ll just have to get things set up. I think you’d be good to go in a few days.” He glanced at me. “I’d tell her she could go with you right now, but we’ll have to get her tech going and she needs to learn how to use it. How about in two or