His One Request

Chapter 18 - Bootstrapping

One of the nice things about being busy is it makes you focus on what's important to you and how you use your time. -- Lorne Michaels

Chapter 18 - Bootstrapping

Rachel pats my back and wishes me luck, "Remember, dinner is at 7:00. Magnolia's. I'm paying." She's feisty. How I never picked up on that before, I don't know -- yes I do. I was busy rejecting everyone that wasn't Chandler. Because from the moment I decided to take a chance on my best friend, she's the only woman I think about.

"I remember. See you then."

I stop at Tonya's desk and wait for her to finish on the phone, probably with the law firm from the sound of it. She jots down a few things and hangs up the call and reminds me that I'm meeting with Reuben Messer tomorrow at 9:00, and she hands me the address. "I'll also texted it to you to forward to your GPS if you need."

"Thanks." I look back toward my office and say, "Can you establish a place for Rachel McHutchins in the vacant office down from me? She'll be here for the next few weeks, and she's going to need a place to work. Can you make sure she has everything she'll need?"

"Yes, sir," Tonya answers but doesn't pry into why Rachel's sudden appearance in my department. With the pitying look she surmises that this request came further up the food chain.

Deana stops me, handing me her tablet opened to my recent email. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, send it to Mr. Cahill. You may need to rewrite it some, I was in hurry." I hand her tablet back to her.

"You're really agreeing to this?" I only nod, referring to my grandfather's insistence of Rachel's invaluable service on saving an asset of our merger with Mid-South. He has hired her as press liaison dealing with all aspects of the merger, along with another division that I oversee. This is nothing more than him meddling with my personal life again, but this time I have an advocate on my side.

Regan is at her desk; wrist deep in expenditure reports and looks relieved when she catches sight of me. "How did it go?" she asks, referring to my negotiations with Roger Payne.

"I have a signed contract. He's with us for the next three years."

"That's great. Any other changes?"

"No, pretty much the same contract just under new management. The three years was what was left of his old contract. He wanted one. We pushed for five."

"That's good. And on the other matter?"

Taking out three files, I lay them on her desk. "I drew these up this afternoon." For the entire flight I took pen to paper and hashed out the most viable options Regan had given me. "I'm meeting with RAM tomorrow."

"How is the snot nosed brat?" She laughs as she refers to my college roommate that bonded with her during the home soccer games she was able to make.

"I'll tell him you still call him that," I tell her.

"He knows. I'm sure he still refers to me affectionately as 'Super Bitch'."

"Probably," I chuckle, thinking about how uptight Regan acts, she played with my roommate as if they were brother and sister...just not the nice kind. "I haven't seen him. I had Deana make the appointment."

She shuffles the papers in the first file, and I give her a moment to look over the notes and the outline I made to help me organize the action. I watch as she reads through, makes some notes, and discards it for another file. After she reads through all three, making notes on each, she looks up at me.

"Which one are you going for?" I can't answer, because I'm still deciding.

"Which one will you support?"