Boss Girl. Nic Tatano
I'm Shawn Carlyle," he said.
Whoever said good things come in small packages must have been talking about this guy. Mid-twenties, perfectly proportioned, slim hips, broad shoulders accented by a tailored white French cuffed shirt. Turquoise eyes you could get lost in. Rugged square jaw, long dimples covered by a day's growth. And yes, a tight little spankable ass.
Yeah, I'm starting to see Neely's point.
Jillian was still too busy staring to answer, so I picked up the ball. "Hi Shawn. I'm Syd, and this is Rica, Neely and Jillian."
"So, girls night out?" he said.
"This is actually an extension of a business meeting that started this afternoon," I said.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," he said.
"No problem," Neely said. "We like to mix a little pleasure with business. We'd just wrapped up the business part anyway, so you can hopefully provide the pleasure."
"You guys all work together?" he asked.
"We run the news division for CBN," I said.
"That sounds like a neat job. I took a journalism course in college and it seemed like a lotta fun."
"So what do you do, Shawn?" asked Rica.
"I work on Wall Street," he said, eyes suddenly filling with a tinge of sadness. "I've been there three years since I got out of college and it feels like thirty."
Jillian still hadn't said a word, hadn't stopped staring, and her freckles were lit up like they were on fire. He glanced back in her direction and shot her a quick smile.
"Not happy with the career?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I just need to find something else to do. I'll be dead by forty if I keep this up. And honestly, my heart's not in it. Money's good, but I'm not happy. It may look exciting on TV, but the job just wrings you out."
"Well, you know," I said, "we're in the process of hiring a bunch of people for our new cable network. In fact, we start interviewing local candidates tomorrow."
"I read about that on Page Six. I already watch your local news. You guys do a good job."
"You like our news?" asked Rica, furrowing her brow.
"Yeah," he said. "You guys keep it simple. No agenda, no one trying to tell me how to think or how to vote. No one trying to shout someone else down during an interview. And the women on your station are credible, not a bunch of beauty queens. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're extremely attractive, but I get the feeling they actually know what they're talking about."
That click you just heard was Mister Edison turning on a thousand-watt light bulb over my head.
There's a young male audience for our product. Who knew?
The guy was not only extremely cute but smart. I wanted to know more. "Have you ever been in front of a camera?" I asked.
"No. Why?"
"Like I said, we're hiring a lot of people."
He smiled and looked down at the floor. "I'm sure I don't exactly fit the traditional anchorman profile."
"We're very untraditional, in case you hadn't noticed from watching our newscasts," said Rica.
"Well, yeah, I guess you are," he said.
"Speaking of untraditional, what made you walk over here?" Rica asked. "We're not exactly girls right out of college."
His hands went into his pockets as he slouched, and suddenly I saw a sheepish teenager about to ask a girl out. "Well, I knew it was a long shot, with me being… well… me. But I… how do I put this without offending you?" He pulled one hand from his pocket and placed it on top of Jillian's, patted it a few times, then stared directly at her. "The, uh, women my age aren't terribly… stimulating."
Jillian gulped. Her longing eyes faded deeper into a dream state, as her head tilted to one side. She still hadn't said a damn thing.
He pulled an envelope from his pocket and held it up in front of us. "Listen, I have an extra ticket to a new Broadway show this evening. It's a musical. My boss couldn't go and he just gave them to me. And…" he turned back to Jillian. "I just thought you looked like the kind of classy woman who might enjoy a night at the theater. No strings attached. I'll take you right home afterwards. But I insist on stopping for cheesecake after the play."
Cupid was still apparently holding down the mute button on Jillian, but a smile grew across her face. I was about to grab her head and move it up and down like a bobblehead doll when Neely saved the day.
"Jillian loves Broadway musicals," said Neely. "And we can vouch for her; she's very classy."
"Uh-huh," muttered Jillian, looking like a willing subject from a hypnotist's show.
The sphinx speaks!
"Tell you what, Shawn," I said. "We're pretty much finished up here with the business stuff so why don't you take Jillian to that play and on the way she can tell you about the opportunities at our network. Maybe you'd be interested."
He looked at Jillian. "That okay with you?" he asked.
The waitress was right. He was asking permission.
This stuff isn't in the tall girl playbook. How in the hell did I miss this?
"Yeah," she said, voice cracking.
He looked at his watch. "Okay then, we'll need to get going if we're gonna get a cab," he said, and extended a hand out to her. She took it, hopped off the bar stool and stood up next to him, towering over him in her four-inch heels. The top of his head reached her shoulder. He looked up at her like he'd just won the tall strawberry blonde lottery, then turned back to us. "It was nice meeting you all. Maybe I'll see you again."
"That would be nice. Good meeting you, Shawn," I said, as they turned and left.
"And you thought all our viewers were gonna be women," said Rica.
I watched them leave the bar, her arm around his shoulder, his arm around her waist.
More important, a whole bunch of guys in their twenties looked past the vapid, mini-skirted bimbos that filled the bar and stared at Shawn with envy.
So much for blowing off the male demographic.
* * *
The walk through the large reception area was like going through a buffet line of men. Models and actors filled every chair, while a few stood and lined the walls. I made my way to the meeting room just off the front door that we'd designated for interviews. A cloud of cologne filled my lungs. Our middle-aged, impeccably coiffed, blonde receptionist, the only woman in the room, was obviously enjoying the attention she was getting as two of the men leaned on her desk and were chatting her up.
Oh, this was going to be fun. A quick glance around the room told me there were plenty of possibles in this bunch.
I reached the door to the meeting room just as the receptionist buzzed me through, turned around and said, "Guys, we'll be starting shortly." They all straightened up as I headed through the door.
Inside, I found Rica and Neely already in place at the long maple table which dominated the room, enjoying coffee and donuts. The deep red walls were bare, faded squares showing the previous locations of prime-time posters that Amanda had thankfully ditched.
"Pretty nice-looking bunch out there," said Rica. "Not too shabby at all."
"I never knew New York had so many hot men," said Neely.
"Between Madison Avenue and Broadway, what did you expect?" I took a seat at the end of the table, next to a black metal cart on wheels that held a monitor, a DVD player and a VCR. "By the way, anybody seen Jillian?"
The door opened and she appeared on cue, newspaper