The next morning Shelly was in her office. Her phone rang.
"Shelly Taylor." She said.
"Nicole Christiansen's boss?" A man's voice asked.
"Yes." "What is this regarding?"
"This is Max Friedman." "I wanted to talk to you about Nicole."
"Alright."
At around noon that day Nicole was talking to Wendy who was on her lunch break.
"Yeah, I don't get it." "Yesterday Shelly tells me I have a week to turn in a progress report or I'm fired." "Then today she tells me she's giving me an additional week to turn in the progress report."
"Yeah that's very weird."
"I might as well start looking for another job either why."
"Why?"
"You know as well as I do, Max won't cooperate with me."
"Are you working with him later today?"
"I'm taking a break from him today." "I can't deal with him." "That man is so infuriating."
"At least with him you don't worry about breaking the cardinal reporter rule."
"Nope." "I've never broken the, you don't fuck your sources rule." "I'm not about to start with him."
Max and Austin were driving back from an autograph signing. Austin was driving noticed Max would check his phone every few minutes. Max still felt bad about last night. He started to send a text to Nicole.
Are you ok? He typed out but deleted.
"Excepting to hear from someone?" Austin asked.
"I'm just surprised Christiansen hasn't bugged me all day."
"Miss her or something?"
"No." "I kind of stepped out of line last night." "I made her cry."
"Dude."
"I hate the bitch but I didn't mean to make her cry." Max told him what happened.
"Max." He said disapprovingly.
"I know."
"You can't let her get fired."
"I took care of it."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
"Just tell her you like her."
"I don't."
Later that night Max got on the hotel elevator. Austin was on the elevator.
"Hey man." Max said. "Where are you going?"
"Britt's room."
"You'll have more fun then me." "I'm going to Christiansen's room."
"Voluntarily?"
"The sooner we finish, the sooner she'll be out of my hair."
"Please, you don't want her gone." "I think you want her in bed."
"I'm not that hard up."
"So you don't like her huh?"
"Not at all." The elevator dinged for Britt's floor.
"Then why are you wearing cologne?" He smirked and got off the elevator.
Nicole was surprised to hear a knock at her door. She was even more surprised when she saw Max standing there. He went inside.
"Ok Christiansen, turn on the fucking recorder." He said annoyed.
They'd been working for two and a half hours.
"Can we be done for now?" He asked.
"Yeah, I have enough to start." She turned off the recorder. He got up to leave. "Thank you Max."
"Yeah, whatever." He left. She took out her laptop and got to work.