First days always sucked. I was never a fan of them, but I knew there wasn't much I could do about this one. While it had been my dream to work at a radio station, I never thought I would work at one on this scale. There were people bustling around constantly. It was always busy and I had no idea how this many people went in to creating a station. Then again, I figured there were multiple types of people who had to go into this as well. There needed to be producers, and DJs, personalities, and more. I was just thankful that I had managed to get a position here since I was studying journalism. It made me look better at my school, and to be apart of a station that had a tremendous audience was something that I was certain my professors would be excited to hear about next semester.

"Good morning, Miss Holmes," a woman greeted me as I walked in. "Are you excited for today?"

"I'm a little nervous," I explained. "This station is so big compared to other ones."

"Oh, I know!" she laughed. "It's funny that you say that. The uppers have been in talks about creating a bigger building due to the high success rate our somewhat little station has gotten. I pin it on the general public being so interested in our radio personalities, one in particular might I add."

There were a couple of popular hosts. For example, there was Dylan Beck who hosted a show around ten, which was in an hour from now. There was Michael Button who spoke in the afternoons and did celebrity segments. Jack Huntington had the evening show, and finally, there was the most popular host that they played clips of his segments throughout the day—Harry Styles. He was young. Younger than the average host working here. I was pretty certain all the other men were in about their early to late forties, but Harry had turned twenty-five within the past couple of months last time I checked.

"So, we actually just have you getting to know a couple people here today. I know this is a summer job for you, well with you being in college and all, but if things go well I am certain we can make this more permanent."

Nodding, the woman pointed me in the direction of Mr. Watson's office. He was the one who had interviewed me and I figured I would have to speak to him about what I was doing for the day. Making my way down the hall, I paused when I noticed the On Air sign was lit up. It was clear the show was live right now, my eyes focusing on the person on the other side of the glass. He had dark, curly hair, the man talking into the microphone as he held a piece of paper in his hands. He was speaking in such an animated way, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Yet, I found myself being unable to look away. Or so I thought until he quickly looked up, his eyes locking with mine. I became nervous then, the deep green color both incredibly beautiful and incredibly intimidating all at once. Raising my eyebrows slightly, I quickly turned away, fully making my way down the hall and to Mr. Watson's office.

"Good morning, Miss Holmes!" he greeted loudly, pointing at the seat in front of his desk for me as I shut the door behind me. "How are you? Are you excited to be part of Dawn FM?"

"You're the second person to ask me that," I laughed. "I am a little nervous, if I'm being honest."

"Nothing to be nervous about. You will be a great fit, darling. Now, I know that we have you for the summer, but my goal is to keep you here long term since I know that you will be graduating with a degree in Journalism next spring. That could really put you well above others, and, not to mention, you are already working at one of the most listened to stations across the country."

It was true.  The fact that this small little town had a huge radio station was something that was still crazy.  I was almost positive the population of Winter Haven was only about twenty thousand.  It was a decent amount, but in comparison to places like Orlando that had over half a million, it was nothing. 

"Can I ask how many listeners you get daily?"

"Of course!" he excitedly continued. "We get about a million listeners daily, here at Dawn, I would say. That's a lot because the average for most radio shows of our size is only about ten thousand."

"Oh wow."

"Oh wow, indeed!" he nodded. "I thank my rising star Mr. Styles for that though! He gets at least ninety percent of the traffic to the station."

"Is that so? He's the one live right now, yes?" I asked.

"Absolutely. We are having the highest traffic of listeners right now, but America is crazy. They live for serial killers. And wouldn't you know, there have been a couple murders around here."

There had been? I had just moved back for the summer, and I had heard no such thing. The woman I was leasing from didn't even mention it to me, and I would have thought that would have been something important to say. Especially if she knew I was a single woman living all on my own. Of course, I should have known better, though. After all, I had experienced something terrifying before, but I hadn't been worried because I knew they had caught the man that committed the attempt. It was something I disliked thinking about, but with a possible serial killer on the lose, I was bound to have unwanted memories resurface.

"I knew he talked about true crime, but I didn't know it was about murders in this area."

"Oh, it isn't normally," Mr. Watson assured. "I know Mr. Styles said that if he didn't get the chance to talk about any type of cases on air he would have probably been a detective. He does a good job at trying to break these cases wide open and I think that is why so many people love his segment. They're in love with the idea of being involved in something that could be so big and help the families of the deceased get some type of closure. He even asks the families of the deceased for permission before he talks about them On Air."

The idea made sense. After all, we had one of the most-notorious serial killers sitting behind bars only two hours away from here. Ted Bundy had made the news time and time again back when I was growing up. Everyone cheered when he was apprehended, and I knew that since that had been such a publicized case, it wasn't unheard of for people to be interested in these types of things now. There was the Night Stalker going around in California, and I knew that Harry had almost certainly spoken about him on the air. Any type of big crime story, he was on the case, so to speak. But the possibility of there being a serial killer in Winter Haven was something that made me quite nervous.

"Anyway, enough of that. I was wondering if you'd be able to help with something new to the station?"

"Absolutely," I nodded. "Whatever you need."

"Perfect. So basically, I want to start a newsletter that is sent out to our fans weekly. I figure you could write it and keep people up to date and then our top one hundred listeners or something can get a signed copy from the four personalities we have here."

It was a big ask on my first day. I had assumed I was going to be doing tasks like running to get coffee or filing papers away, and yet here was Mr. Watson asking if I was okay with writing a weekly newsletter for fans. I was genuinely shocked, but pleasantly surprised as well. After all, this would be a great résumé builder. Plus, it showed that he looked at me as a true potential full hire instead of a simple summer gig.

"That would be something I'd love to do. I just would need a little more information about what you want in the newsletters."

"Absolutely," he agreed. "I wouldn't make you try to do something like that without any sort of idea what to do. How about you head on down to the green room and listen to the rest of Harry's broadcast so I can try and piece together my thoughts and we will touch base in about forty minutes when Mr. Beck goes on? Deal?"

"Deal. I just need to know where the green room is."

"I'm so silly," he chuckled, standing up as I did the same. "Let me show you."

He held the door open for me, Mr. Watson allowing me to exit his office before he started to lead the way down the hall. It was clear we were going to have to walk past Mr. Harry Styles once again. I was a little nervous, to say the least now, recalling how I hadn't even spoken to the man and he had been intimidating. His eyes had been anyway. There had been something about them that was truly enchanting and yet terrorizing all the same. I pinned it on the fact he was one of the first people I had ever seen with green eyes. I mean, I wasn't really sure what else it could be.

Though, before we could get very far past where Mr. Styles was working, Mr. Watson paused in front of the glass, knocking. The curly-haired host glanced over almost immediately, his eyes narrowing for a brief moment before he sent a wave and a smile our way. He was speaking, and while I couldn't hear a word he was saying, I knew for certain that he probably sounded smooth and rich. It was the way he had sounded in any of the broadcasts I heard before here, so this certainly would have been no surprise.

"How long has he worked here again?" I asked.

"Oh, right. He's worked here since he was fresh out of college, so about three years now."

"And when did the popularity start?"

"Full of questions, I love it," Mr. Watson stated. "Most people are too scared to ask me questions on their first day so it doesn't work out. I can tell that you're going to be a great fit. But, Mr. Styles had the 10 a.m. segment his first year here, and he slowly started gaining traction. Once he had reached more listeners than our previous 7 a.m. host, we bumped him up to that segment. He reached about five-hundred thousand listeners by the end of last year, and only halfway into this year we are getting nearly a million listeners with him alone."

The words were surprising to hear. It was obvious that Harry's popularity had been a slow burn of sorts and I was always interested as to how someone could shoot to stardom so quickly. Of course, people didn't know what he looked like, but they knew his voice. He was popular, to say the least. However, he could walk around on the street and no one would know who he was. It was striking—astounding in a way that I wanted to ask many questions about. Though, I stopped myself. I knew that with time I would learn all the answers I needed to know. It was only my first day, there would be many more to come.

"Anyway, onto the green room," Mr. Watson stated.

I followed him away from the station room, Mr. Watson and I heading down a different hallway. There was another On Air sign lit up when we were down this way, but I realized it was because the door to the room was on this side. Soon enough, we were walking past it, Mr. Watson opening a different door to a room that was, in fact, green. However, I had expected it to be a bright green and instead it was a darker forest green. Though, I was quickly distracted when I heard Mr. Styles speaking, my eyes narrowing briefly until I found the speakers his voice was coming from.

"Do you want me to take notes or anything while I'm in here?" I asked.

"No, Miss Holmes, don't worry about that. Relax, have an easy first day. I will send someone to show you around once Mr. Styles' show is finished."

"Lovely, thank you so much."

"Absolutely. Now, enjoy listening to Dawn FM!"

He left me alone in the room. I got comfortable on the sofa, deciding that I would take notes of the segment anyway. Harry was discussing a killing that had taken place about twenty minutes away, the words a little off putting, but I also knew it wasn't such a surprise due to Mr. Watson warning me earlier.  Of course, I was somewhat scared to think that something so vile had happened so close to me.  Then again, I hadn't been hearing much about anyone getting murdered so I wondered if it was simply a fluke.  Deciding that I didn't want to dwell on it too much, I continued to listen to the segment, writing down ideas for my newsletter.