Page 7 of Stuck with My Grumpy Boss

Unfortunately, James took that moment to give me all of his attention. He lowered his sunglasses and winked at me. I wanted to hightail it out of there immediately, so I went to go help Mark pack up. But James put his hand on my arm.

“No problem,baby girl.” Barf, again. His hand felt slimy. I squirmed under his gaze. I really, really didn’t want his attention. “Come back any time.” He winked again, and I did my best to fight the full body shudder as I just nodded dumbly.

“Well, this superstar’s gotta bounce. Smell ya later, losers!” God, this man was like a parody of a Y2K heartthrob. Even though he wasdecadestoo old for that kind of title.

I practically sprinted to Mark when James left.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I whispered, as I grabbed the few things I had brought. Mark gave me a thumbs up and he zipped up his bag.

“Let’s go hide in the van and then I’ll send the footage to HQ.”

“You can do that from here?” I asked, hiking my very sensible tote bag on my shoulder. I wanted to get out of here. My skin was feeling tight and itchy. I knew I would never be coming here again.

Mark flattened me with a look like he was seriously concerned about my well-being. Which was fair. I knew my question was stupid. I was just flustered from this whole experience. We turned to walk out the door toward the truck.

“This isn’t the stone age, Olivia,” he said flatly.

“Of course. The internet, cloud, etcetera, etcetera,” I said, waving my hand around like that added anything to the conversation.

Mark laughed and opened the van door. I climbed inside and sat on my hands to keep from anxiously picking at my nails while I waited for Mark to finish sending what we’d just recorded.

I blew out a heavy breath and tried to remind myself what I was even doing here in the first place.

Ben

Campaign season was always the most important time for any news outlet. There were a lot of people out there who relied on us to give them the lowdown on the candidates and their platforms. At least that's what I would say people cared about. But truthfully, people only cared about and worse, remembered, the scandals. For the most part, they knew who they supported, and they only cared about the bad press on the other side. They wanted to rub salt into the wound.

It was a season of tarnished reputations, but I always tried to keep OVT away from all that mess. Admittedly, that seemed an impossible goal at times. Sometimes, people really were just messy and it was still our duty to report that information.

“We got another invitation to a photo op with our favorite congressional candidate at the community center across town,” Eric said, barging into my office. “I’m sure that'll make everyone forget all about that, ahem, footage with his mistress.”

I rolled my eyes as Eric passed me his tablet.

“It certainly does smell like desperation,” I said as I glanced through the press release. “Is someone going?”

“Of course,” he said, shrugging. “We can’t be the only ones not there. It’ll be quick. Probably just a voice over, maybe with a sound clip if he says anything useful.”

I nodded and handed back the tablet to Eric. Among many other things, he was my news director. I trusted him to keep me filled in with what was getting coverage. We had a standing meeting each morning after stories were assigned and he’d give me a high-level run down. I never wanted to be caught by surprise about what was happening on my own network.

He walked me through the stories on deck for the day and sent me the schedule.

“Do you want to head down for the newsroom leadership meeting?” Eric asked, checking the time on his phone. “We have about fifteen minutes.”

A non-committal hum slipped from my throat as I scanned the schedule. One story in particular caught my attention: Olivia’s first feature story about Blaze Bar?

“I see the new girl has her first story.” I hadn’t even meant to say it out loud. I’d probably already given her a little too much attention.

“Olivia?” Eric looked up from his phone. “Yeah, James Jensen’s PR folks were really adamant about getting a story on his new bar or whatever. It seemed like a good way to get her feet wet with OVT.”

I shot him a questioning look. At the same time, I wondered why this was all bothering me so much.

“You really thought she was ready?”

Eric shrugged. “She's not brand new, Ben. She has six years of experience before joining us. Granted, she was doing press releases and we haven't really tested her in front of the camera, but there really wasn’t anyone else to send. Everyone with any experience was already off knocking out the heavier political stuff.”

“Well, I can’t wait to watch it and pass along some notes.”

“Uh-huh,” Eric said, leveling me with a look. “I know that look, Benjamin. How much shit is Olivia in now?”

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