The Kiss Test Read Online Free Page A

big difference.”
    “And the difference would be?”
    “This wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything wrong!”
    If I ever needed defending, I’d go to Katya. She should have been a lawyer. Or an animal rights activist. She was passionate about protesting mistreatment and upholding the downtrodden. Not that I fit that description. I might be down, but I wasn’t trodden yet.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I agreed, “except study the wrong language in high school. And be born on the wrong side of the world.”
    “That wasn’t your fault either,” Katya repeated, and I had to smile despite my depression.
    “Of course not,” Adair agreed, blowing his brow-line with the fan.
    “Geez, you guys. Lighten up. It’s just a job.” I said it like I meant it. And, I suppose, underneath it all, I really did. I knew I’d find another job. At least I was pretty sure I would. It wasn’t like there were a glut of country stations in New York City. None to be exact. The closest one was in New Jersey. Maybe they had an opening for a morning girl.
    I shuddered a bit. Did any self-respecting New Yorker actually commute to Jersey to work?
    I picked up the pace a bit. I needed my pulse rate up, a sheen of sweat on my skin. I needed to find the “zone.” I needed to forget my troubles for a few minutes at least. My friends ran silently beside me for several minutes, keeping pace easily, until finally Adair protested.
    “Margo, honey, I bought this fan at the dime store. It doesn’t do high speed.”
    “Sorry,” I muttered, slowing a bit to avoid being the sole cause of Adair’s profuse, fabric-dissolving perspiration.
    For a moment I was distracted by the comical sight of my fan-toting friend. A small man in stature, only an inch taller than me, Adair was bigger than life in personality. He dressed to the nines even in the casual atmosphere at WKUP and made an entrance everywhere he went. Running in the park was occasion enough to demonstrate his fashion sense. Made the rest of us running in old T-shirts and no-name-brand shorts look bad.
    “Hey, isn’t that Chris?”
    I jerked my head in the direction Katya pointed. A group of people, including Chris and his business partner, Chip Xavier, surrounded a couple of hot-shot skateboarders doing their stuff. Probably testing out a new board for X-Treem Sports, the sporting goods store that Chris and Chip owned. They catered to the young and daring—or immature and stupid, in some cases—and frequently bought new, state-of-the-art equipment they’d tested for manufacturers before the rest of the country.
    “Oh yummy. Let’s stop and say hi.” Adair dropped back a few paces to head in that direction.
    “Keep running,” I snapped.
    He huffed out a breath and sped up again.
    “You don’t want to stop?” Katya asked, feigning innocence. At the same time, she moved around me to run beside Adair. She grabbed the fan out of his hand and began attempting to dry the sweat stains from her own T-shirt in case I changed my mind and agreed to circle back to say hello to Chris.
    “No, I don’t want to see him yet. He doesn’t need to worry about my job.” How different that conversation with Chris would be compared to yesterday’s. “Besides, I’ve told you…you didn’t pass the stupid Kiss Test, so there’s no chance for you.”
    “I was nervous!” Katya protested. “All I need is one more chance.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “The rule is ‘one kiss, one chance.’ It’s a dumb game anyway.” Chris was my best friend, and I’d defend him over just about anything except The Kiss Test. He’d developed it in high school—maybe even earlier. Chris claimed he could tell instantly if he was meant to be with a girl by kissing her. He administered the Kiss Test with the seriousness of a physician removing an appendix. If she passed, she was guaranteed at least one supposedly unforgettable night with “Extreme Treem.” And if, according to Chris,