“…and frankly, Oliver, if you hadn’t come back today, I would have found someone else to do your job,” Magda snaps. “Do you even realize what anhonorit is to work for the Bellamy Grand?”
We’re having one of her walk-and-talks. When I first started here, I thought these moving meetings were awesome; I felt like I was starring in my own hotel-based version ofThe West Wing.
These days, I recognize them for what they are: a chance for Magda to bitch someone out without them interrupting, because they’re too puffed. I thoughtIwas a fast walker until I met Magda. The fact that she’s going forty miles an hour in heels only makes it more awe-inspiring—or it would, if she wasn’t ripping me a new asshole.
Still, I couldusea new asshole. I’m still aching from last night, my butt clenching again as I think about Elliot inside me, his hand wringing my orgasm out of me—
Magda takes the corner and I just about leave skid marks on the marble floor as I turn a second late, then come to a screeching halt so I don’t slam into her. We’ve reached her office door, and when she turns, she’s staring at me expectantly, waiting for a reply to something she’s said.
“Of course,” I say automatically. “No problem at all.”
She gives a huge sigh of relief. “Well, thank Godsomeonearound here is willing to work. You pull this off, Ollie, and I’ll write you up as managerial material.”
I brighten immediately. “Really?”
“As long asthere are no fuckups.”
Outwardly, I nod.Definitely no fucks up this ass for a while, is myveryinternal one-liner response. And then I feel awful, because it’s true. It’s going to take me a while to forget about Elliot, and screwing my way through LA wouldn’t help any. I’d just be comparing them to him…
I really wish, though, that I’d paid more attention to what it was I was supposed to do to earn the favor of the gods—or Magda, at least—but asking about it now wouldn’t be wise.
“Brandon, on the other hand,” Magda is saying as she unlocks her office, “is on his last warning. Another screw-up and he’s gone, Ollie. I mean it.”
I wish she didn’t always act like she hired him because ofme. I mean, yes, I was the one who recommended him. But Magda’s the hiring manager; she could have seen what he was like, surely? He’s my best friend and I’d die for him, but I don’t think I’d ever recommend him for a job again.
I’d write him areallystellar reference, though.
But as terrible as Brandon is at his job, at least he always knows all the gossip. So when Magda stalks off, I go straight to him to find out exactly why she’s freaking out so badly about the upcoming meeting.
“Omigod, didn’t youhear?” he says, as if I haven’t been off work for three days. He slumps and lolls dramatically over the reception desk, reaching for me, as though I have to save him from drowning in the tea he’s about to spill. “Donna got caught fucking one of the bellboys in the closet. Magda fired them on the spot, both of them.”
I stare at him for a moment while it computes, and a few key words from my breathless meeting with Magda drop into place.
Donna was overseeing the budget for the huge meeting coming up. Now it looks like…
I’moverseeing the budget for the huge meeting coming up.
I’ve never done budgets before. Not on this scale.
“Fuck my life,” I mutter at last. “That meeting has been nothing but ahugepain in my ass.”Almostas painful as—
“Yeah, enjoythatmess,” Brandon says. “Now, let me catch you up, girl;somuch mega-important shit has gone down while you’ve been away.”
The thing is, what Brandon considers mega-important shit is only stuff that affects him personally—like another reception worker swapping shifts at the last minute, so he got stuck working with someone he doesn’t like, or the fact that they’ve changed the coffee brand in the staff room and he hates it. I let his words pour over me while I come around to use his computer and check the current arrangements for the super-secret meeting.
No update on the names of any of the guests, except for one contact person with the studio who first approached us about the meeting, but at least the numbers have been finalized, and dietary requirements have come in. The caterers have been demanding that information, so I can give that to them today. And despite Donna’sissues, she was a meticulous record keeper, so if I can get my head around the budget, maybe it won’t be atotaldisaster…
While Brandon blabs and blabs, I think again about the weekend, about Zee and Nik’s household policy of no gossip. I’m starting to wish we had a similar policy here. I mean, we do, in the sense that we all have NDAs and discretion clauses in our employment contracts. But that doesn’t stop Brandon from nattering away in my ear, threading his thumb idly through his discreet, workplace-appropriate collar and playing with it while—
“I’m trying towork,” I snap at him, losing my temper. He has the nerve to look like I’ve just ripped out his fingernails. “Look, go doyourjob,” I mutter, nodding toward the guest who’s just walked up to the counter.
He stalks off, and so do I, to my office. I bring up the budget that Donna was working on, and I try to get my head around it.
I’ll have to make it up to Brandon later, but for now, I need to focus on work.
* * *
But by the time I catch Brandon later in the day in the staff room—he’s been smart enough to keep out of my eyesight for the rest of his shift—my anger has run its course. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I say, giving him a big hug from behind.
