Just as I call out his name, the cabbie reaches over, switching it off. The taxi driver looks at me in the rearview mirror, “Sorry Miss, that’s a bit much for me. The wife would skin me alive for listening to something like that with a lady in the car.”
I nod absently, the ice in my gut rushing through my entire body. Why is there a recording of our conversations? What’s this shit about a personal collection?
I thought those were private, just Derrick and me. I guess he never said that, but obviously I assumed. Why wouldn’t they be? And why would he play them on the air?
Oh god, I’ve been getting played this entire time. The thought hits me like a grenade in the stomach, and the shakes start. I’m barely keeping it together when the taxi pulls up to Elise’s apartment and she’s outside waiting for me.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you already know. What the fuck is happening, Kat?”
Her matter of fact tone gives me some stability, and I hug myself, shaking my head. “I don’t know. That’s us, our private conversations. Why?”
Elise gives the cab driver his fare, and leads me into her place. “I don’t know what’s going on, but that shit’s not okay.”
“Why would he even record them in the first place?” I ask softly, hurt and confused. “I . . . they weren’t meant for the public, they were me baring my heart to him.”
Elise looks at me with pity, then sighs. “Well I could see why he would, they’re pretty fucking hot. Maybe he was just recording them for later . . . spank bank type deal?”
I snort, if Derrick needed spank bank material all he had to do was give me a call, the way we’ve gotten it on over the past few weeks. “He never told me he was recording me, us. Oh god, Elise! He played it on the air, everyone heard me have an orgasm and tell how hungry for his cock I am. He said my name!”
The last fact saps the last of my reserve and I dissolve into tears. Elise does what she can as she gathers me up, pulling me into a hug. I collapse on the couch and she covers me with a blanket, mistaking my shivers of heartbreak as cold. “It’ll be okay, Kat. I listened to the first couple before calling you, he said your name, but there’s gotta be what, a million ‘Kats’? Nobody can prove it was you.”
She rushes into the kitchen, making me a cup of coffee but I just hold it, not able to take a sip with my heart in my throat.
“People will know,” I whisper. “God, he’s been to my place, I’ve been to his. Kevin knows I’ve been with him . . . it’ll get out, Elise. If Kevin knows, he’ll make sure of it. It’ll get out, and I’ll be ruined.”
Elise slips an arm around my shoulders, hugging me from the side. “You need to call him. Figure out what the hell is going on!”
I sigh, looking into the black mirror that is the surface of my coffee. “You’re right. Maybe there’s some reason . . ..” I look up at Elise again, but the truth is clearly written on her face. “Guess not, huh?”
Elise shakes her head. “Damn it, Kat. I’m so sorry. I pushed you into this, I really thought he was a good guy with all the things you said about him.”
“I felt like I had a good feel on him from our dates and his show too, but I guess that’s all façade. Love Whisperer, my ass. God, I should’ve known better, hell I do know better! Guys are always out for themselves and a piece of ass. But he made me believe, and I played right into his hands. This hurts so much worse than before, because he made me . . . hope.” The tears come, hot and burning as they roll down my face, and I cry my heartbreak out for Elise, who strokes my hair and kisses my forehead.
“I promise you Kat, I don’t care if the whole gender of men is going to hell, I’m right here with you.”
“I guess I need to get this over with,” I whisper. I reach into my bag, grabbing my phone. It hurts to see his name in my recent contacts, surrounded with little heart-eyed face emojis, but I need to get this over with before I lose my nerve. And I need answers.
The call rings . . . and rings . . . and rings. “Hey, you’ve reached Derrick King, leave me a message. Or, as this is the twenty first century, send me a text. Bye.”
The phone beeps, and I clear my throat before speaking, but my voice is still wavering. “Derrick, it’s Kat. You need to call me.”
As I hang up, I look at the time and I realize the show is over. He should be able to pick up his phone if he wanted to, just like he has countless times before. He’s avoiding my call. Ignoring me after what he’s done. He doesn’t have the balls to face me.
The ice in my veins freezes. He’d systematically broken down all my defenses from the beginning, one by one pecking away at them to get me to open up to him, and make me think he was one of the good guys. But he lied. This is so much worse than Kevin or my other boyfriends cheating on me, this is a public betrayal at a foundational level. I loved him, truly and deeply, and I thought he loved me. But obviously not if he can air our private life without even asking me. Fuck, he even joked and laughed about it, like it was no big deal.
I don’t know why he’d do this, but fuck him if he thinks I’m some fuck toy he can screw around with.
I’m done with him, done with men.
Forever.
I turn my phone off and hug Elise in tight as the tears roll down my face. I’ll cry out every last tear so that there’s nothing left and then I’ll turn my heart off and never risk loving some backstabbing asshole again.
I’m done, my heart shattered into unfixable shards in my chest.
Chapter 23
Derrick
The sun is just creeping over the horizon when I can sneak out of the hospital and down to my car to grab my phone.
It was a long night. Once Dad was transferred, he’d woken up a little, but was disoriented. I was uncomfortable leaving him alone, even with nurses twenty feet away and watching the monitors.
I stayed by his bedside until he fell into a fitful sleep. I drifted off soon after, uncomfortably perched in a chair beside him until the shift-change nurse woke us both to take his vitals.
Turning on my phone, I see it’s been blowing up all night. I’ve got several missed calls from Jacob, one from Kat . . . but more worrisome, at least two dozen calls from Susannah and the station number.
I rub the back of my neck, not sure what I’m going to do. I knew I’d likely get shit for bailing on the show with no notice, but what the hell did they want me to do? My dad was having a heart attack.
If Susannah couldn’t handle things, there’s plenty of archived shows they could air if need be. We already do that on our two-night off each week and listeners seem to like the classics. If Suz was in a lurch, she could’ve just punched play on one of those.
Yeah, shitty on my part to duck like I did, but a necessary deal when there’s a medical emergency. I decide to give Jacob a call first. He doesn’t call often so it must have been important for him to call multiple times. Kat was probably just checking in to tell me everything was going okay and she was being safe. I won’t wake her up with the bad news just yet.
Besides, Jacob will want to know. He and Dad got pretty friendly back in my college days, and Jacob really took a liking to my father, often hanging out at the house when the lifestyle of being a superstar student-athlete with a professional future got to be a bit too much to deal with.
I hit dial and lean against my car, yawning as the cold morning air wakes me up.
As soon as Jacob picks up the line however, all sleepiness is driven from me when he yells. “What the fuck, man?!”
“Hey bro, I know it’s early as fuck, you just don’t normally call multiple times like that. Besides, aren’t you usually up at this hour?”
“What the hell are you doing? The show last night? How could you do that to that girl?”
Oh hell, what happened on the show? Did the guest go apeshit or something? “Do what? I’m at the hospital with dad. He had a heart attack, man. He’s gonna be okay but if you’re in town or close, I’m sure he’d love it if you could come see him.”
<
br /> Jacob quiets, and when he speaks up, he sounds more like his normal self. “Holy shit man, is he okay?”
I sigh, purging some of the fear that’s been roiling in my gut all night. “Yeah, it was some scary shit there for a bit, but he called in time. He knew right away something was wrong, so he got help within minutes. It was serious, but he’s gonna be okay.”
“I get that, and I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I gotta ask. What about the show last night? You didn’t air the recordings?”
“Recordings?” I ask, confused. “What recordings? I ran out the door as soon as Dad called, figured Susannah would handle it.”
I’m getting an ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach as the silence on the other end of the line stretches out, and I’m nervous as hell waiting for an answer. “Fuck, Derrick. Susannah, she played . . ..”
“What?” I ask, nearly panic stricken at this point. I don’t need this shit, I so don’t need this shit right now. “Just say it.”
“She spent most of the first two hours playing recordings of you and Kat for the audience to comment on. It sounded like you were in the studio, talking with her, answering her questions and even laughed and said ‘let’s hear it.’ Then, after that, it was you and Kat. Uh, getting down and dirty.”
“What are you talking about? Are you sure, did you hear it yourself? How in the fuck are there even recordings of that?”
“You didn’t record them? I mean, that doesn’t sound like something you’d do, but how else?”
I feel the world start to spin, and I lean against my car, planting my hand on the roof to make sure I don’t pass out. “No, I didn’t record them. How bad was it?”
“It was bad. I’m not gonna repeat it all to you, you should know, but it was bad. I mean, I’ve seen pornos that had less explicit dialogue.”
Oh dear god. “What? How do those even exist!? I didn’t record them. I have to go, Jacob. I have to find Kat, find out what the fuck happened. Can you come to the hospital and sit with dad for a little bit?”
“I’ll be there this afternoon. The team’s doing okay, I can take a day off for personal time. Hell, training staff keeps telling me to rest my shoulder anyway. I’m on my way, brother. Go get your woman and fix this. From what it sounds like, you might want a lawyer. If you do, I know a guy.”
“Uh, right. We’ll figure that out later though. Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I hang up and run back upstairs to Dad’s room, trying to figure out what to do as my mind races. Susannah could totally use sound bites of me on-air to make it sound like I was in the studio. We do that all the time for popular jokes so we can replay them and laugh at ourselves. But this is wholly different, she made it sound like I agreed with airing my own sex tapes, for fucks sake. She might have ruined everything . . . with work, and more importantly, with Kat.
“Derrick?”
I stop, realizing I’ve been pacing the floor and turn to see Dad. He’s woken up, looking better than he did last night, but he’s worried. “Everything okay?” I ask him.
He reaches over, and uses the buttons on his bed to elevate himself to a near-seated position. “Son, you look worse than me, like the world just came crashing down on your head. What’s going on? Besides the obvious.”
I come over to his bed, feeling like I really shouldn’t be burdening him. But, looking in his eyes, I realize that maybe that’s exactly what he needs right now. To not feel like a burden himself, but to be able to be that strong man who helped me so many times before in my life. “I don’t know what happened but I think my entire relationship with Kat just got really messed up last night.”
“Kat’s the young woman you told me about,” Dad says, nodding. “The one you say you want to marry?”
I nod, swallowing. “And work, but I don’t care about work . . . just Kat.” I give him the fast and dirty of what I know, which admittedly isn’t much. I try to leave out some of the graphic details, as if it were just a little dirty talk. “And then last night Susannah apparently aired some recordings of my chats with Kat. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Dad nods, speaking slowly in that way he does when he’s handing out his wisdom and wants to make sure you hear his best advice in your heart, not just your ears. “You love her?”
I nod. “Yes, of course. I love her so much.”
“I know I raised you better than to disrespect any woman like that, so I won’t even ask if you had anything to do with it.”
It’s a statement, but there’s a threat in his tone and I can tell he’s fishing for me to put his mind at ease. “Stay in bed, old man. I swear I had nothing to do with this, I’m just as horrified and pissed as she probably is. I never recorded any of it. How it got recorded, I have no idea.”
He nods, his eyes flinty with furious anger and righteous determination. “Then you need to go fix this. I’ll be fine right here in this bed, I ain’t going nowhere. Make your mom and me proud, son, just like you always have.”
“Thanks, Dad. Jacob said he’d stop by this afternoon though. He’s going to take a personal day and sit with you as long as you want.”
I lean in and give him another hug, knowing that I could’ve lost him yesterday and I’m so damn thankful for the man he is and the man he taught me how to be. Whatever the hell just happened, I’m going full throttle to fix this shit.
Chapter 24
Kat
The knock on the door comes at a time when the last thing I want is more people around, but Elise is having nothing of it. “I already called them. Jess heard the show anyway, so she’s not going to take no for an answer.”
She’s right, my mother and sister come into Elise’s apartment like a pair of Tasmanian devils, whirling around and searching for me. “Kat?” Jess says, before seeing me curled up on the couch underneath Elise’s comforter. “There you are. Good. I’ve got that ginger beer you like, those flannel pajamas from your third drawer down in your dresser, and my samurai sword.”
“You’ve got a samurai sword?” Elise asks.
“Not really, but I do have a big ass chef’s knife back at home if I need to go get it. Just as good,” Jess replies.
“That won’t be necessary,” I grumble, smiling some at her being so protective. “But thanks for the PJs.”
“Of course,” she says, handing me the threadbare but much-loved Elmo pajamas.
“Sis, if I give one of my clients a call, he knows some guys that could pay him a little visit and rough him up.”
“No,” I mumble around a mouthful of ice cream. “Please no.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she says, sipping at the ginger beer, “but if you don’t rip him a new one, I’m doing it for you!
Mom butts in, getting down to business. “Katrina, I don’t want to put you down, but have you thought that maybe there’s an explanation for this?” she asks. “I mean, I’ve never talked to Derrick but from everything you said, he seems like a good man. While his show’s not Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, why would he do it? Seems like he’d be just as embarrassed as you. I can’t imagine his employers liked that going on the air either.”
“Wait, you listen to The Love Whisperer?” Elise asks. “Oh my god, I’m so glad my parents don’t have satellite radio.”
“Mom,” Jess says, shaking her head. “Mom, I love you, but even I’ve got to say you’re being a little too naive here. Come on, the recordings were phone calls and video chats, not police wiretapping or some spy cam action.”
“But Derrick broke the law if he recorded them, right?” Mom asks. “I mean, you can’t just broadcast someone’s sex life without their consent, can you?”
Elise shrugs. “Gray area right now. Recording a call one-sided is legal in this state. Trust me, I know all about that one with my job. Beats me if the content matters.”
“Besides,” Elise says, “he gave his permission to broadcast. Kat, I know you missed that part, but I heard it.”
I sniffle, tears threatening again. “Ca
n we just change the subject please?”
Mom nods, hugging me again. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
I lean against her, drawing scant comfort from her presence but at least there’s something. “Remember when you said that even with the pain of it ending with Dad, you wouldn’t trade the good days?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I would,” I declare miserably. “It’s not just the good days, it was the hope that maybe I was wrong, that I could have what you and Jess have. This isn’t about us being over, this is about my hope being dashed beyond recognition. I’m not doing this anymore, ever again.”
Before anyone can say anything, I get up, wrapping up in Elise’s comforter and shuffling off to the bedroom. She’s got a big bed, and between the comforter I’ve already got and her fluffy blanket she’s got here, I quickly get a good misery nest wormed up and snuggle in deep, hiding in my cocoon. I have a half-formed thought that instead of eventually emerging a beautiful butterfly, I’m going to come out of this a hardened bitch. But maybe that’s safer in the end.
There’s no way I’m going to sleep, even if I couldn’t still hear them talking.
“Has she even talked to him yet?” Jess asks Elise quietly. “I mean, all jokes aside, I’d like to hear this excuse.”
“Maybe screaming and cussing him out would help?” Elise asks. “I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right? Sorry, she hasn’t even turned her phone back on after that call to him when she realized that he ignored her.”
Mom sounds bleakly hopeful. “Maybe he’s called by now?”
Elise lowers her voice, but I can still hear her. “No. I turned it back on when I forced her into the shower this morning. He still hadn’t called and I deleted a bunch of texts from people at work who heard about it. Oh, and Kevin sent her stupid shit that makes me want to slap his fucking face. I’m planning on dealing with his ass soon enough.”
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