Stay Tuned

Chapter 25

The next morning, I found Sunshine the weather cat on my desk. She was sleeping, paws stretched across my keyboard, notebooks, and Sharpies. When I set down my bag, she opened one eye lazily.

We stared at each other.

Her tail, flicking back and forth, brushed across three DVDs. They were rubber-banded together and topped with a Post-it from Drew. “No!” was scrawled across the yellow square.
    
Clearly, he didn’t like the anchor demos I’d chosen. I could get to the next stack of DVDs, if Sunshine would move away from my inbox.
    
“Nice kitty,” I cooed. “Can you go find Stanley? I’ll give you extra tuna…”
    
Sunshine refused to budge. I glanced around for our weatherman, the only person in the building the cat actually liked.
    
When I reached for the drawer, with the object of getting a spare can of Albacore, her claws shot out and missed my finger my a millimeter.
    
“Wow, now that was uncalled for,” I scolded her.
    
In response, Sunshine rolled off, started licking her fur, began purring, and ignored me.
    
“Stan-ley McManaman!” I bellowed. “Can you please help me? Sunshine’s on my desk. She won’t move. And that means I can’t work. Which means Drew won’t be happy—”
    
“Melissa,” Stanley hurried from around the corner with one finger held to his lips. “Don’t raise your voice around Sunshine. It scares her.”
    
“Sorry,” I waved my arms around and clenched my teeth into a smile. “I just…”
    
Stanley gathered Sunshine in his arms and rubbed her head. “Poor kitty. Did Melissa frighten you, my little sweetie?” He stalked away, murmuring into the cat’s fur.
    
I sank into my chair in relief. Just in time to see our sports anchor, Judd, take a swig from a two-liter bottle and then hide it behind his desk.
    
“Um, how’s sports shaping up for the six?” I called over.
    
Judd swallowed, a telltale fizz of Coke left on his lips. “Great. Good.” He belched.
    
“That’s not Coke, is it?”
    
Judd shrank down in his seat.
    
“Come on, buddy. You know what Drew said,” I pleaded. A few of the reporters looked over, worried.
    
Red-faced, he plopped the half-empty bottle on his desk. “Fine.”
    
I walked over, plucked it out of his reach, and poured it down the sink in the break room. The brown liquid chugged and splattered on the edge of my sleeve.

“Ugh,” I said, making a face.

Thankfully, Judd left to cover a baseball game and Sunshine was keeping her distance. Maybe I could get some work done.
    
Except my computer screen decided to freeze when I sat down to actually work. “Sugar!” I muttered.
    
As I rebooted, I propped an elbow on my desk and scribbled out a few news promos until the pen ran out of ink. “Great, just great,” I exclaimed. Taking aim at the trashcan across the room, I lobbed the now good-for-nothing Paper Mate into the air.

There, I felt better. Until Rick Roberts stepped out of nowhere. Right into the path of the flying pen.
     
Plunk!
    
The pen hit the wall three inches from Rick’s jaw and clattered to the floor several feet away from the trashcan.

He jumped and whirled around. I shrieked.
 
“Oh!” I clapped both hands over my mouth.

“That was close,” he remarked, glancing from me to the pen. “Were you targeting me or the wall?”

“The trash can, actually,” I admitted sheepishly. “Bad aim. I didn’t mean to almost hit you.”

With a quick motion and a sharp grin, Rick swept the pen from the floor and tossed it into the metal container. “There. Now it won’t hurt anyone.” He walked over to a desk near mine and sat on the edge.
    
How long had he been standing around the corner? All of a sudden, my mind went blank. The way he locked his eyes on mine…well, let’s just say, for a moment I couldn’t string a sentence together.
    
My computer bleeped at me. I broke his gaze and turned to bring up tonight’s six o’clock rundown. Rick didn’t move. He was still staring at me. I felt my neck and face get hot.