“Do you think he bought it?” Cory asked, rubbing his bald head.

“Of course Joe bought it,” Skyler said. If Cory was a bowling ball, Skyler was a Nerf mini-football, who believed the call center was a game of Survivor.

“I still don’t get it,” Cory admitted.

“If you got it, you would be me,” Skyler said. Cory braced himself for a maniacal laugh that never came. “Needless to say, I have Joe right where I want him.”

“Which is?”

“Right where he is.”

“Well, then,” Cory said. “I expect you’ll be paying?”

Skyler handed him two front-row seats to the Jonas Brothers. “Remember there’s more where this came from.”

“They’re for my kids.”

“Right.”

Skyler hadn’t always hated Joe; he only started hating him when he heard (misinformation) through the grapevine that Joe was his only rival for the promotion he desired. The first course of action was divide and conquer. If he could drive a wedge between Joe and Dawn, he could rule the henhouse. And he would rule the henhouse or he wasn’t Skyler Theodore Daniels.