Eagerness made Bowie bounce on his seat, and the shimmer in his eyes no longer came from tears. “Oh, that was fast. I thought they weren’t going to be ready until the end of the week?”
He passed them over to Bowie, who placed down the ever-present iPad onto Kari’s desk to take what he offered. Excitedly, he flicked open the file holding the images, and a grimace replaced his smile.
He glanced at Kari with concern, brow wrinkling.
“Yes, exactly.” Kari answered the unspoken look of worry. “They are awful. A four-year-old with crayons could have done better with the design concepts.” That was putting it mildly.
Kari had taken Bowie’s recommendation when he’d shown him several different advertisement campaigns by Eliott’s that they had done for other fashion businesses. What was in those glossy shots was nothing like what Kari had expected.
The ads didn’t even have their new designer shoes in any prominent position to showcase them, for one thing. In fact, Kariwasn’t sure how the brief they’d given them resulted in this fuck up.
Bowie bit his lower lip, dipping his eyelashes to shield his expression, revealing he’d picked up Kari’s slow burning anger he’d worked to keep under wraps from the overly sensitive omega.
“It’s not your fault, Bowie,” he pointed out fast. Bowie took a lot to heart, Kari had learned, unless he said differently. “You presented me with their work, you did not know they’d produce this garbage.” He cast a disparaging look at the file in Bowie’s hands, running fingers through his hair in frustration at having to find an additional ad agency when they were already behind schedule for this project.
“I recommended them,” he muttered in a whisper.
Kari pinned him with a look that said they weren’t playing the blame game. He wouldn’t tolerate it. “And it was me who went with them, not you. So, if the blame lies anywhere, it’s with me. I’ve emailed legal to ask where we stand with the contract we have with them. I don’t have time to waste energy on this right now. We need to find another agency to do the ad copy that can give us something to launch the new brand in three weeks.” Difficult, but not impossible.
He opened the lower desk drawer and pulled out the fat file of other companies Bowie had found for Kari.
“Maybe we could go more local?” he suggested, his mind running over possibilities. “It would make sense.”
The companies Kari did business with were working overtime with Jupiter and fashion designers in the buildup to Milan Fashion Week. It was the biggest fashion show on the calendar, so Jupiter took all the priority ad spots they had at this time of year. He did not want to wrangle with Jupiter after witnessing what his brother was having to contend with after he’d run through the very long list required for organising an eventsuch as fashion week. There would also be the bitching, which would no doubt spread into the group chat. He didn’t need an additional headache. How Dad had done all the wrangling—alone—in the past made him a damn saint in Kari’s eyes.
“There’s ad agencies based in Hazardville.”
File open in his hands, reading the list of companies pinned to the front, Kari asked distractedly, “Is there?”
“Yes, Lacy & Co. They have a place down on Smith Street. I could ask Rex—Mr. Lacy, if they could work within our deadline?”
Kari’s head shot up at the odd quality of Bowie’s voice. Nerves, the kind that could be associated with all kinds of reasons, had Kari working to keep his expression bland.
“You know Mr. Lacy personally?” It was not really a question Bowie had to answer, not when the heightened flush to Bowie’s cheeks answered for him.
“He’s… a friend.”
Kari suspected he was way more than that and chose not to question Bowie more. It was none of his business.Absolutely none.“Is the information in the file?” Kari glanced down, continuing to read through the list.
“On the second page, under local businesses,” Bowie nervously supplied.
Not on the first page… why was that?
“Let’s call him and invite him in today,” suggested Kari, not sure why. A face-to-face meeting would be more prohibitive when a phone call would save time.
“Er… o-okay,” Bowie stammered looking flustered. He rose, placed the file of images down and reached for his iPad.
Kari’s eyes narrowed marginally. “Where are you going?”
“To make the call?” Bowie questioned, his brows disappearing under his bangs.
Kari pointed to the phone on his desk, smiling. “It works.”
Bowie’s eyes widened, reaching for the phone with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. Kari could only surmise why, so he chose not to, pretending interest in the list of agencies as he listened to Bowie talk.
“Hello, this is Bowie Outlander… yes… I’m calling to see if I can speak with Mr. Lacy, if possible.”
A long pause followed, and Kari glanced up from under his eyelashes to watch Bowie twiddle with a lock of hair at the side of his ear. He was looking at the desk, the heightened color in his cheeks having disappeared, leaving him pale.
