Shane smiled. “Well, you could thank her. But my guess is that you’d have one pissed off journalist on your *****. And I personally don’t think that you want that. So you can thank me instead.” Shane leaned into kiss her again.

“Well, if you’re sure she’ll be that upset. I guess I’ll just have to go home with you.” Shane smiled and opened the car door so Carmen could climb in.

Bette pulled up to her house relieved to see that Liz and Tina were still not home. She had meant to come straight back to the house, but had stopped off on the way to pick up some food and had run into Leigh Ostin, who she was delighted to hear was no longer with Helena. They had ended up having a drink and finally sitting down to eat. Bette shook her head and rummaged in her purse to find her keys. Just as she was pulling them out of her purse and walking up the stairs to her house she almost jumped out of her skin as some one called her name. As soon as she had caught her breath Bette glanced to her right and saw that James had just gotten up off of her porch swing and was walking cautiously toward her. “I’m, I’m sorry. I d-didn’t meant to scare you.” James stammered in his usual way as he stepped toward Bette.

Bette smiled when she heard him apologize, a little bit surprised that she was so happy to see him. “I told you not to apologize so much James. What are you doing here?”

“Um, waiting for you.” He said. “I, uh,” James gestured back toward the swing where his briefcase still sat. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” He said nervously.

“Well, come on in.” She said as she walked toward the door to unlock it. James turned to collect his things and followed her inside. Even though he had worked for Bette for the last four years he had only ever been in her house one other time. Everything looked neat and elegant and he briefly wondered what Bette was going to do when the baby was big enough to walk and grab things.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Bette asked as she flipped on some lights and dropped her things on the table.

“Uh, no, thank you.” James set his stuff on the table and opened the case in front of him and started taking out folders and papers. Bette watched him curiously, and found him slightly amusing. He stacked the papers precisely into two piles on the table. Fussed with some other ones inside the briefcase, took what looked to be a calming breath and then faced Bette. “I have an idea.” He began