He heard the second girl say, “He doesn’t have any plants.”  And Trish snarl, “Oh, the son of a bitch will pull some out of his ass if he has to.”

She was right.  While he wasn’t determined to make her life hell, he was determined to keep making it more and more difficult on her to “not quit”.   

When he entered the main office, everyone was present and accounted for and seemed fairly normal.  He was surprised.  He strode in his office and picked up the neat stack of messages and memos, leafed through them quickly, making note of a few.  He stuck his head out of his door and said, “Ready in five?”  To the audible agreement of the group.   

He turned to Blake.  “Could you call and order lunch for the guards please?”

“Sure.  I’ll call the commissary.”

“God no, it’s a thank you, not a threat.”

Blake laughed, “Pizza or burgers?”  As he picked up a handy dandy notebook that seemed to have the contact numbers for every person in the universe.

“No, make it special, I’ll leave it to you.  I want them to have a nice lunch, something catered, but not overwhelming.”

“Got it,” he said looked through his book and started dialing.   

“Everybody ready?”

The team started to gather, and Wella strutted up and offered Ian his choice from an already opened box of fresh donuts.  He made a selection and took a bite.  “Everybody have a good weekend?”

Daryn stifled a giggle and Warren, one of the guys who had been in daytime kicked her ankle.   

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?”  And everybody started talking at once.  Just as earlier, it all came so fast and furious he couldn’t understand a word.  He finally just let them wear themselves out.  When the din became a silence, he held up his hands, “Okay, we’ll do it this way…” he picked another powdered donut out of the box. “When you have the donut take a bite and then give me one sentence and pass the donut then repeat.”

“I don’t eat refined sugar…” Ella whined.

“Then you don’t get to speak…ever…again…copeash?”

Everyone nodded their head.  He took a bite.  “I get to work this morning and am met at the front gate by a pack of rabid reporters who seem to be under the impression that as a publicity stunt I am taking over the network and opening up for Brittany Spears.”  He passed the donut to Wella.

“Jack Tolan announced this morning he is retiring shortly after May sweeps.”  She smiled, more at the fact that she kept it short and precise, than started off with the juicy piece of information.  She passed the donut to Daryn.

“You’re a star on You Tube.  Already one of the top ten downloads in less than 48 hours!”  She giggled and passed the donut on.

“Shall I call Brittany and tell her you don’t work with has been hootchie mamas?”

Ella giggled half her donut from her mouth.  “Mine’s show and tell.”  She picked up a handful of papers all folded to the right spot and dropped them one by one in Ian’s lap.  The bold captions read things like “NEW EXEC SHAKES IT UP AT HTR”, “NEW HUNKA HUNKA HTR” and “JUSTYN TIME TO SAVE A NETWORK”.  Each boldly emblazoned with a large