Two of a Kind (Fool's Gold #11)(65)

“Because they don’t always like you back?”

“Sure. Or the timing’s wrong. Or she’s with someone else.”

The teen’s grin turned cocky. “If a girl doesn’t want me, then there’s something wrong with her.”

“You’ve got attitude,” he said, chuckling. “I’ll give you that.” He looked around at the various booths. “You want any books?”

“No. I don’t read books. Not paper ones. I read them on my laptop. Felicia bought me a couple the other night.”

Great. So if books weren’t interesting, what was he supposed to do with Carter? He glanced at his watch and held in a groan. It was barely noon. How was he supposed to fill a whole day?

“Any suggestions for the afternoon?” he asked.

Carter finished his lemonade, then nodded. “Sure. We can have lunch, then you can show me around the radio station.”

“You’re interested in the station?”

“I’ve never seen one before. I want to see where you work.”

Something he’d never considered. “Okay,” Gideon said. “Let’s go get lunch.”

* * *

AFTER THEY’D GRABBED pizza from a vendor, Gideon drove them out of town and to the radio station. As it was the weekend, the regular office staff were off.

“Not many people are in today,” he said. “On weekends we run the station with a computer.”

Carter followed him to the door. Gideon unlocked it and they stepped inside.

“You mean there’s no people?”

“There’s one guy to make sure the computer works. I usually hire college kids who can use the time to study. Watching a computer do its thing isn’t that interesting.”

Gideon led the way back to the engineering booth. A blond-haired guy looked up and grinned. He stood as Gideon and Carter stepped into the room.

“Jess, this is, ah, my son, Carter. Carter, this is Jess.”

“Nice to meet you,” Carter said politely.

“You, too.”

“I’m showing him the station.”

Jess nodded. “Not much to see these days. Most radio stations are run by a computer. No people required. Except for me. I make sure it all doesn’t break down.” His grin returned. “Like I’d know how to fix it. I’m really here to call in the tech experts if something goes wrong.”

Carter glanced at all the equipment. “So the computer says what songs play?”

“More than songs. Commercials, too. Weather, even local news can be synced in. I recorded a bunch of announcements about the festival yesterday, and they’ll play all day.” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “New York Times bestselling author Liz Sutton will be signing at three today, outside Morgan’s Books.” Jess shrugged. “Stuff like that.”

Carter glanced at Gideon. “Do you ever do recordings?”

Jess chuckled. “He’s the man. Nearly every local customer wants Gideon to do the commercials. Chicks dig his voice.” He paused. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, boss.”

Gideon waved away the comment. “It doesn’t matter because you’re exaggerating. Half the people at the station work on commercials.”

“But I thought everything was on the computer,” Carter said.

“We buy blocks of on-air material,” Gideon told him. He walked over to the computer and showed him the information on the monitor. It showed where they were in the program, what was playing now and what was in queue.

“We can insert our own commercials into what we’ve bought. We can do local news, too. The whole system uses the atomic clock so the timing is perfect. No one can tell what’s done by us and what’s bought.”

Carter frowned. “Is that good or not?”

“Some days I’m not sure. There’s no way for a small station like this one to survive with live broadcasts. They’re expensive to produce.”

“At night, is it you or a recording?”

Jess grinned. “It’s Gideon. The boss does his own shows the old-fashioned way. You should show Carter what’s what.”

“Sure.”

They walked to the booth in the back, the one that no one else used because the equipment was so old. Carter slipped inside and sat at Gideon’s chair. “Look at all this,” he said.

The this was a stack of CDs. Some were compilations, others complete albums. Everything was numbered and neatly organized.

Gideon pulled a second chair. “I have a database I use to keep track of everything. I plan some playlists in advance, but not always. Sometimes it’s a mood thing. People call in with requests.”

Carter picked up the headphones, then put them down. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing.

Gideon grinned. “A record player.”

“You have records?”

“You don’t have to sound so shocked. Yes, I have records.” He pointed to the wall behind them.

Carter spun in the chair. “Whoa. Look at them.”

Gideon followed his gaze. The record collection filled a specially built case that nearly covered the wall. He would guess he had close to a thousand records, some collected when he was a kid, some bought in the past couple of years at estate sales and auctions.