Gina Coleman glared at the half-written article on her monitor. It was all to do with some boring decision by the government to introduce some new policy about having your dog on a leash. So, it didn't run off and maul some annoying child who was throwing stones at it and by all means deserved to have its limbs removed by some rabid Doberman.
          "Haven't you finished that article yet?" Danny Brannigan chided as he leaned against her desk. Danny was Gina's closest friend in the media circles. They shared contacts, desk space and even wrote each other's articles on occasions.
          "Oh and I suppose your synopsis on the economic downturn is on Max's desk in triplicate huh?"
          "I'm waiting to talk to the treasurer," Danny lied. "Anyway, cheer up I've brought you a present."
          "Please tell me it’s not another free ticket to the ballet," Gina mused.
          "Better," Danny grinned and slapped a post-it note in the centre of her monitor. Gina leaned forward to read the roughly scrawled, pen written note.

          Interview with Paul McDermott, Gloria Jeans, 2pm

          "This is a present why?" Gina asked, looking at Danny curiously as she tried to ignore the sudden wave of panic that had washed over her.
          "Oh come on, you're obsessed with the guy," Danny enthused.
          "I like Good News Week," Gina countered. "It doesn't mean I want to waste an afternoon on some boring entertainment article."
          "You stole several of his publicity shots from entertainment."
          "Amanda was going to throw them out."
          "Amanda got you the interview to shut you up."
          "Amanda isn't my friend anymore."
          "I thought you'd be pleased," Danny huffed, straightening himself up.
          "Well, I'm not, I'm busy with this article on…dog stuff," Gina babbled.
          "I'll finish your damn article," Danny scorned. "Besides, Amanda says you have to go."
          "Why? Why me?" Gina whined.
          "Because no one else is game and Amanda reckons you’re a big enough bitch to handle him," Danny smirked. Gina narrowed her eyes and picked up her stapler. "Hey, her words not mine."
          "I want it known I'm not happy about this," Gina scowled.
          "You're never happy," Danny teased and then ducked as a beanie giraffe narrowly missed his head.

          Gina arrived at Gloria Jeans five minutes early and scanned its patrons just in case he was there early, although she doubted he would be and she was right. She found a quiet booth and slid onto one of the padded chairs. Gina's stomach had been in knots since she'd read Paul's name on the post-it. There was a reason she only interviewed politicians: she hated them all and never had kinky dreams about them. Well, except for that strange one involving the education minister and a bottle of strawberry sauce. Unlike Paul who Gina took the time to drool over whenever she could, it was the only break she allowed herself, an hour and half a week to watch him. The café door opened and she looked up, her heart leaping when she realised it wasn't him.
          "God what am I doing here. I'm going to make a dick of myself, he'll hate me, I'll hate him and I'll never be able to stomach Good News Week again," she muttered.
          "Excuse me? Can I take your order?" asked a bubbly waitress.
          "Uh, sure just a tea thanks."
          "Milk and sugar?"
          "Yes, lots," Gina said weakly, the waitress looked at her amused and scuttled back behind the counter.

          It was half past two and Gina had downed three cups of tea before Paul sauntered through the café door. He was hungover and cranky and had vowed to make no attempt to hide his distaste for interviews. He scanned the café wondering which neurotic fucking freak was going to be asking him the most useless questions known to man. They were always the same, 'How long does GNW have to go? Will there be more singing? And will the Allstars ever reform?' His attention was drawn to a small blonde woman in a power suit who had moved from her booth and was walking toward him.
          "Hi, you must be the chick from the Herald," Paul announced with his best winning smile, he'd chosen to forget her name which wasn't the best thing since the closer she got the more he realised she was actually quite a piece.
          "You're late," Gina announced, crossing her arms.
          Paul's smile dropped, she was forward too. "Yeah, about that, I got caught up with some friends and…"
          "Oh please, I don't have time for your pissant excuses," Gina scorned and turned to head back to her seat. Great, she'd met him for half a second and already he shit her. Paul shook the stunned expression from his face and followed her to the booth; he slid into the seat opposite.
          "So, did something crawl up your arse and die or are you just naturally this unfriendly?" Paul asked, dropping his bag into the seat beside him.
          "Are you always so desperate to make such a fantastic impression on someone who could potentially end your career?" Gina countered, surprising herself.
          "Do you plan to interview me for your fucking paper or do you just want to piss me off?" Paul scowled.
          Gina flipped over her notepad and grabbed her dictaphone before pausing, "First of all I know you don't like talking about your private life, so I won't ask and secondly, I am so damn nervous that I don't think I can press the buttons on my dictaphone." She fiddled with the small recording device as if to make her point.
          "That's not necessarily a bad thing," Paul sighed. "Why do you guys use those things anyway?"
          "I use one because I'm shit at shorthand," Gina shrugged and looked blankly at her notepad.
          "I warn you now I'm in no mood to be interviewed," Paul declared as he attempted to hail a waitress.
          "No, that fact you're oozing seediness would suggest that," Gina mused.
          "I had an emotional evening."
          "Emotional after how many bottles of tequila?"
          Paul gave her a wry smile and she felt her cheeks redden. She tried to focus on her questions as Paul grabbed a menu and cursed herself. She was flirting with Paul McDermott. That wasn't a good thing was it?
          "So, are you going to ask me some scintillating questions or what?" Paul mused. "Are you really nervous?"
          Gina looked at her questions and then back at Paul who still gave the impression he didn't want to be there. "This might sound completely unorthodox and feel free to tell me to fuck off but, do you want to do something else?"
          "Something else like what?" Paul asked blankly.
          "I don't know," Gina shrugged. "There's been thousands of articles written about you, seriously man who cares? Everyone knows GNW will go commercial after this year, you'll never stop singing and DAAS will never reform so long as you live. If I ask you this bunch of sterile, regular questions all I'm going to get is pre-meditated answers you've given thousands of times before." She tore the page of questions from her notebook and scrunched them into a ball.
          "Why the fuck can't all journalist be like you?" Paul beamed.
          "I'm not all journalists," Gina said wryly.
          "So, what are we gonna do? I assume you'll have to have something to give to your editor?"
          Gina was about to agree but then remembered Amanda probably had an ulterior motive to setting up the interview and therefore an article wouldn't be necessary anyway so long as she gave her lots of juicy details. "What do you want to do?"
          "Go back to bed," Paul said with a raised eyebrow.
          "Well that's no fun," Gina declared. "I know, you're an artist, take me to a gallery."
          "What?"
          "You heard."
          "You seriously want to go to a gallery?"
          "It's that or 20 questions?"
          Paul nodded slowly, "All right darlin' you're on."
          "I just have to change first. Keep a spare set of clothes in my car," Gina announced.
          "Can I watch?" Paul grinned and then stopped. "Can't believe I just said that, sorry."
          Gina tried to hide a smile as she got to her feet, "Oh by the way. I'm not some chick ok. I'm Gina." She turned and headed for the door and Paul watched her leave.
          "Gina, nice, very nice…" He then frowned. "No Paul, you're not supposed to get involved with journalists, they're all scum, all of them. They fill their pissant publications with bullshit about you and make you sound like a freak, even the hot blondes."
          "Would you like to order sir?" asked the same perky waitress. Her appearance made Paul jump and clutch his heart.

          "I can't believe you just got changed in a café toilet," Paul remarked and Gina led him toward her car, a backpack containing her work clothes over one shoulder.
          "It's not the first time," Gina said bluntly.
          "Obviously," Paul agreed. "Still doesn't explain why you have a spare set of clothes, that's kinda freaky."
          "Are you that naïve? Sometimes you just don't make it home," Gina smiled coyly, unlocking her car and throwing her bag in the back.
          "On what occasions don't you make it…oh," Paul winced and kicked himself mentally for being an idiot.
          "Are you going to get in or just stand there looking perplexed for the rest of the afternoon?" Gina chided as she slid behind the wheel of the car. Paul gave her a goofy smile and flopped into the passenger seat.
          "You know where you're going?" he asked.
          "Not a clue," Gina laughed.
          "Well it would help if you started the car, just turn the key and make that engine purr."
          "Yes thankyou," Gina mused. "And it doesn't purr it kinda growls."
          "Is it a good growl?"
          "No, more like a dying animal growl."
          "Oh," Paul pouted. "It's not going to blow up and kill me is it?"
          "I don't think so, you might get burnt by the cigarette lighter though, it has a habit of popping out when I go over sixty."
          "Oh great, so first you drag me into a café at the crack of dawn…"
          "I don't call 2:30pm the crack of dawn and besides I didn't oraganise the interview."
          "And then you refuse to interview me and instead con me into sharing my greatest passion with you," Paul pouted into the mirror and then realised he wasn't sure what he was complaining about exactly. It's not everyday a beautiful, intelligent woman, especially a journalist, blows off their job to indulge you.
          "What are you whining about? It's not like I'm holding you against your will, you're free to leave whenever you want," Gina mused.
          Paul studied her for a moment and she looked at him curiously out of the corner of her eye. "You've gotta take the next right," he declared.

          "So what is it?" Gina asked, tilting her head to look at the painting on the wall.
          "It's called Three Bathers," Paul replied. "Or Drei Badende or Feldafing."
          "I know that, I can read the plaque too," Gina mused.
          "It's German expressionism, Kirchner is a very emotional painter."
          "Looks just like three naked chicks and a bird to me hon," Gina declared.
          "Would you rather he'd painted kittens or something?"
          "Anything would be better than three, ugly naked chicks."
          Paul turned to her annoyed, "You wanted to come here, don't whine at me if you happen to be stunted artistically."
          "Stunted artistically am I?" Gina countered.
          "Yeah," Paul grumbled without much conviction.
          "Fine, see that print over there," she declared and pointed to a print across the other side of the room. "It's called The Milky Way, it's by Salvador Dali. He did it in 1964," Gina said matter-of-factly before marching into the next part of the gallery. Paul waited a second before he sauntered across the room and read the plaque next to the print.
          "Shit," he cussed.
          "It's a very provocative piece," a voice scorned from behind him and he turned to see a man looking quite upset at his calling the artwork shit.
          "Huh? Oh, I didn't mean the print was shit…I meant…" Paul paused as the man continued to glare at him. "Doesn’t matter," he added and hurried to catch up to Gina who was studying another painting. "Was that a lucky guess?"
          "This is the part where you apologise for calling me artistically stunted," Gina said, forcing back a sly smile.
          "Fine, I'm sorry you're obviously a well rounded, artistically minded human being who just happens to come across as having something rather large up her arse that really needs to be removed to spare mankind from her chronically annoying behaviour."
          "And turning up late to spite me was mature on your behalf then?" Gina asked, raising an eyebrow.
          Paul pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes; "Well you didn't want to be there either."
          "Can you avoid a childish tantrum until after we've looked around the gallery like adults?" Gina announced as she moved on to the next painting.
          Paul clenched his fists and let out a huff. He was summing up everything about her mentally, she was intelligent, feisty and gorgeous. She was doing things to his nether regions that just shouldn't happen in an art gallery unless you were 14 and looking at the nudes. What really got Paul's goat was that this woman, this journalist who had just been thrust into his life an hour ago, already had him stoically determined that he must have her. He'd never been talked to or toyed with like that by a woman and if he was honest with himself, he was damn well enjoying it.
          "Are you coming or what?" Gina asked, reappearing in front of him.
          "What right here?" he replied coyly.
          "Oh please," Gina said allowing herself to smile as they headed over to the far wall.
          "So why were you nervous earlier?" Paul piped up, deciding he too could play games.
          "I'm always nervous before interviews," Gina shrugged.
          "You're not nervous now?"
          "Yes, well I've met you now and discovered you're an arse."
          Paul chuckled, "Well I think you're a bitch, so we're even."
          "Right, you want to brawl or something or can we continue to look at the pretty pictures?"
          "It’s art woman, not pretty pictures!"
          "Go on, call me artistically stunted again so I can rip your testicles off and put them in a display case."
          Paul paused a moment an clicked his tongue, "So what's your article going to be about?"
          "What article?" Gina said blankly.
          "The one about me."
          "There's not going to be an article."
          "So, why was I dragged from my bed to meet you?"
          "I have a friend with a sadistic streak."
          Paul nodded, "You fancy me then?"
          "Oh please, I am not that desperate," Gina gasped and took a seat on a padded bench.
          "Well," Paul mused, taking a seat on the padded bench beside Gina. "Why else am I here? If you're not writing an article huh?"
          "I told you my friend has a sadistic streak," Gina countered.
          "Funny," Paul smiled. "Amanda said the same about you."