Page 36 of Just Another Silly Love Song

“Well, they paid me three hundred dollars to do that.”

“Like when you were out at that Toyota dealership giving out free hot dogs?”

“Exactly. Same thing. Those are paid personal appearances.” I pointed to her phone. “Anything else or is that it?”

Grandma Joyce shook her head. “I can’t see anything now. An advertisement just popped up for hemorrhoid cream.” She sighed, tapping her phone a bunch of times. “Forget it.” She slipped the phone back in her purse. “Anyway, I still think Kyle is right. There’s probably way more to Ben than meets the eye.”

“If you say so.”

I suspected something completely different.

Kyle was trying to make Ben look good in order to motivate me to continue with the morning show. He obviously saw the desperation in my face and was scared I was going to quit, which had crossed my mind more than a few times.

But with no other radio jobs available in the area at the moment, I didn’t have a choice.

I had to stick it out until something better came along.

I just didn’t know how much more I could take of Dr. Tough Love.

Chapter Nine

LORI

“Good morning, San Diego!” Ben said. “It’s another day with Dr. Tough Love. Are you ready to do this?Icertainly am. Give us a call and let us know what’s on your mind. Do you have relationship problems? Something going on with your significant other or immediate family member that needs to be addressed? Maybe you have a beef with a coworker. We’re here for you, whatever your . . .” He glanced across at me, probably wondering if I would say something if he used the wordwoesagain. “. . . whatever yourtrials and tribulations may be!”

I smirked. “Or woes. People have got lots of woes.”

Ben chuckled. “And that’s the effervescent voice of my trusty sidekick—”

“Cohost.”

“Lori Martin.”

“Who’s here to give us the female perspective on things since—”

“That’s the only valid perspective in the world.” I smiled at him. “It’s good to be here again. I had no idea my voice was effervescent.”

“I was going to say prepubescent, but I’m trying to score a free mocha from you tomorrow since you didn’t bring me one today, either.”

“I’ll bring you one when you behave. Yesterday you were a bad boy and quite frankly, you’re already off to a rocky start today.”

“Okay, no mocha for me yet, but someone did leave this dog bone in my cubicle.” He reached over and grabbed the dog bone, holding it up for me to see. “Care to explain?”

I nodded, doing my best to keep a straight face, even though I was snickering inside. “Yup. That’s a dog bone all right. I’m sorry, what was the question?”

“How did it get on my desk?”

“You just told us—someone left it there. You don’t look happy about it. Do you prefer a different flavor?”

Ben sighed. “I’ll get you back.”

I smirked. “I look forward to it. How about we take a call?”

“Good idea. By the way, thanks to everyone who left comments on social media yesterday even though we dropped the ball and couldn’t get to all of them. However, I did pull a couple of questions from our Facebook and Instagram pages. We’ll read those later, but we’ve already got a few people waiting for us, so let’s go to the phones. Jarod in El Cajon, welcome to the show.”

“Hey, Dr. Tough Love. I caught my girlfriend with my phone in her hand when I came out of the shower yesterday. I’m trying to figure out exactly what to do about it.”

“You have a major boundary issue, Jarod. Your girlfriend overstepped it, there’s no doubt about it. What was she looking for?”