P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street Read Online Free

hair, plump freckled cheeks, and dangerously skinny arms.
    Off-camera, Kevin asked, “Do you have any experience with acting?”
    “Well, I did some musicals in Duluth, sir.”
    “Sir?” Kevin laughed. “You don’t need to call me ‘sir.’ You can call me ‘Kevin.’”
    “Yes, sir,” Dawn said. Then she realized what she just did and blushed.
    Harold shook his head. “She’s a child. She will be eaten alive.”
    Kevin seemed to realize this, and he asked, “Why would you audition for a reality show? You seem like a good girl.”
    “Well… Kevin,” Dawn said, touching the pink barrette in her hair. “I love these dating shows, and Atomic Love was my favorite.”
    “Because of Patrick’s band? The Nuclear Kings?”
    Dawn shook her head. “No. I don’t like hard-rock music, but Patrick seemed so kind. He was so much nicer than all the other guys on dating shows. And I just love all the romance of it. I saw there was an audition, and I asked my parents what they thought of it. They told me I should go for it!”
    Kevin laughed. “You are adorable! I love that you asked your parents. I’ve never heard of that one before.”
    Dawn sat up straighter in her chair. “But I’m not a goody two-shoes!” she protested. Then she pulled the barrette out of her hair and shook out some strands. “I can be romantic, too, especially for a nice guy like Patrick!”
    “If you’re for real,” Kevin continued, “you’re in, as long as you can prove you’re old enough to drink.”
    Then Dawn’s interview wrapped up. Dawn seemed so sweet that I wanted to step in front of the camera and stop the filming, but her passion for Patrick Price struck me as stalker-ish.
    Tina from Miami followed up, and with her dark hair and dark tan, she was everything Dawn wasn’t. She stared into the camera as if she wanted to give it a sloppy kiss at best or flash it at worst. When she wasn’t flirting with Kevin in Spanish, she prefaced nearly every story she had with, “Oh, I did that for Playboy ” and concluded with, “I cannot tell you how much I love sex!” Then she would smooth her brunette hair, giggle, and twitch her hips in the seat. I wondered what she could do for the show that could be aired before a network audience.
    We heard Cookie before we saw her sit down. She was chattering in a Texas twang about what she’d like to do to Patrick if she got five minutes alone with him. Then she plopped down. The card on her chest said she was twenty-nine, which was generously low. I put her at about thirty-five, a good-looking thirty-five, but certainly not twenty-nine.
    As soon as Cookie started talking into the camera, Harold asked me to turn down the television. “I saw the Nuclear Kings on their first tour when they came through Houston!” she proclaimed. “When they opened for the Smashing Pumpkins! I was there from the beginning!” She kept whipping around her jet-black hair, like a pony would with its tail.
    Off camera, Kevin prodded Cookie to talk about her favorite Nuclear Kings song. She didn’t miss a beat before saying, “‘High Tide.’ Easy.” She started tapping out the drumbeat from the song on the arms of her chair.
    Shane joined in, tapping on the armchair of Harold’s sofa. He said, “She has rhythm.”
    I was impressed. “High Tide” was from the second Nuclear Kings album and wasn’t even a single. She wasn’t fronting. She was a genuine fan. Unfortunately, that also put her in my log as a possible stalker. Surely a stalker would know every Nuclear Kings song: even the obscure ones.
    Then I heard Kevin shout “There’s our pro!” as an auburn-haired, blue-eyed woman whose card read “Lorelai: LA, 25” sat down. “So, are you ready for another reality merry-go-round?” he asked.
    She laughed. “It’s all in good fun. Pays better than the work I’ve been getting lately.”
    “But you had a speaking part in a movie, right? What was that movie, again?”
    “I was a bank teller in