Thank you all for your patience. Fav, follow and review. Tell me what you think and please keep the comments coming they ground me and remind me to write lol! A quick Christina centered chapter. All fluff trying to get the cobwebs off the keyboards.

Christina

"You are the worse assistant I have ever seen" I hear yelled across the office. I tense thinking it is being directed at me, but fortunately, or unfortunately for Connor, it isn't. "I could get on my knees and pray to God up above for a worse assistant and He would send me a second version of you, do you know why Connor?"

"No, Ma'am" he says in his Texan twang that I know Brenda.

"Because only the redundancy of two you would be worse than you" Brenda says tossing a pile of papers at Connor. Not in his direction or on his desk, but at his face. He isn't even her assistant... I am. Connor is twenty-five years old and here because of his mother's relationship to our CEO which means less than nothing to my boss, Brenda Miller.

"CHRISTINA" she yells, beckoning me to that side of the room. I take a deep breath before moving towards them with an impassive expression. I learned not to smile, frown or show any true emotion or she will jump on it like a vulture who found multi-day old flesh. "Christina, did you get the same email as Connor?"

"Yes, ma'am" I say not making direct eye contact. If you stare at the center of someone's forehead it looks close enough to eye contact to still be respectful. Brenda, like a wild animal, takes direct eye contact as a threat.

"Did your email say to make copies of all the not yet purchased instrumental and email them out to our artist?" she asks condescendingly.

"No, ma'am" I say honestly.

"What did the email say?"

"Depending on the way a person may interpret..."

"How would an intelligent person with half a brain have interpreted it?" she asks cutting her eyes at me. "Better yet what did you actually do?"

"Umm… I secured ownership of the instrumentals and set up secure listening platforms for our top artists' management firms to have access to them."

"What in the email made you think to do that?" she asks glaring at Connor now.

"The email could have been taken…"

"Christina!" she snaps.

"The part that said make samples of our new instrumentals available to the artist" I answer.

"What could have happened if you had not received ownership of the instrumentals prior to Connor sending them out?" she asks taking a step towards Connor.

"The management company could have contacted the sound engineers themselves and bought them without us" I say softly.

"If they don't need us why would they pay us?" Barbra asks. I assume this is a rhetorical question, but Connor answers her. Oh god why.

"They wouldn't?" He asks.

"No Connor they wouldn't" she says with malice.

"Connor, come with me and I can introduce you to the girl in IT who sets up the interface" I suggest trying to save us he both.

"Thank you" Connor says once we hit the elevator.

"We assistants have to stick together" I justify.

"I don't know how you lasted so long" he says loosening his collar and falling against the wall.

"She is a brilliant producer with some of the best sound engineers on the east coast working with her" I explain. "Anything is worth the opportunity."

"Not anything" he says looking at me seriously.

"I know how difficult she can be" I say softly.

"Difficult?" he hisses. "That woman is a monster. She must boil kittens and kick puppies in her spare time. His Texas drawl comes out in full force "I have seen more compassion from Cruella Deville and her last name literally had the name devil in it."

"Connor stop" I say using my hair to block my face. She knows everything if she found out I laughed at such an insulting statement, accurate, but insulting.

"You are too nice" he says as we hit the basement. "Everyone says it upstairs. You are the longest assistant she has ever had because no one has ever been able to suffer through."

"She is the best at what she does" I say honestly. "She has discovered and promoted some of the top artist of the past two decades."

"IT is this way" he says turning right

"Yes, but Ant's office is this way" I say leading him left down the hall.

"Why is he separated from everyone?" he asks as we start down the dark hallway.

"She received too many complaints about her loud music and occasional outbursts" as if on cue a stream of loud thuds comes from her closed office. I slowly open the door to reveal blaring rock music and Ant banging a whiffle ball bat against the sparring Bob punching bag I got her last Christmas.

Her burgundy hair falls out of her high ponytail and her tuxedo onesie completes the image of my best in and out of work friend, Antonia. She has been reprimanded on multiple occasions for her attire, hair, music, and on occasions her attitude, but she has also saved the company from the most cyber-attacks and is an integral part of the software development team so after years of managers trying to change her the finally just shipped her to the other side of the basement and "requested" she used a side entrance.

"I did not get you that thing for you to take a bat to it" I say turning off her music.

"I didn't want to mess up my nails" she justifies flashing her new manicure. "Who is this?"

"This is Connor" I say sitting down across from her desk. Connor stands behind me, staying close to the door. "He had a Brenda interaction."

"First one?" upon Connors nod she gets up and hands him the bat. "Imagine it's her face that always helps me."

"You cannot say things like that" I say taking the bat from him and sitting it out of Ants reach. I sit back in the chair and spend the next two hours sitting awkwardly as Ant and Connor flirt shamelessly with each other. Not a bad morning if you ask me.