“Thank you for coming with me Shane. I really do appreciate it.”

Shane just laughed at this spontaneous display of emotion on Alice‘s behalf and hugged her back.

———————————————————————

“Dana Fairbanks you were brilliant!” Trisha called as the tennis player walked into the locker room, a huge smile plastered across her face from her recent victory. “The other girl didn’t stand a chance.”

“Nah Trish it was a close game,” Dana said modestly. She knew that she had absolutely kicked ***** out there on the court, but she wasn’t at all ready to gloat about it.

“Yeah whatever,” Trisha replied in a somewhat amused fashion. “Just hurry up and shower. There are drinks at the hotel in an hour. Big celebration for you.”

———————————————————————

“C’mon Shane!” Alice yelled quietly to her friend who was lagging behind her.

“Al you aren’t going to get in there. You’re a reporter, not a VIP.”

Alice ignored Shane’s words as she walked up to the man at the hotel reception desk.

“Good afternoon. My name is Alice Pieszecki; I’m with the LA Times and was wondering if you could tell me where to go for Ms Dana Fairbanks’ celebratory drinks?” Alice enquired in her flirtiest voice, finishing with a ***** smile. It didn’t however have the desired effect on the man, who simply mumbled the conference room that Alice needed and returned to his work.

“Jesus what a party pooper,” Alice commented sourly as she walked back over to Shane who had situated herself at the hotel doors. “Restore your faith in me once more McCutcheon. I have the room we need to go too. Now let’s get drunk on free alcohol.”

“You didn’t,” Shane stated in a dead-pan fashion, to which Alice simply nodded her head. “You did? How did you manage that?”

“I used my good looks to comfy up to the reception guy.” Yet another dead-pan look from Shane. “Yeah Ok, I told them I was from the LA Times. Let’s go.” Alice admitted as she grabbed Shane and started walking through the hotel.

———————————————————————

Dana had had too much to drink. Since she had walked through the doors of the conference room to a huge applause not an hour beforehand, the brunette had been handed drink after drink from people she didn’t even know. Now, as her head started spinning and her words started to slur, Dana regretted not just drinking water.